Free Republic

The state Department of Ecology in 1996 officially declared Burnt Bridge Creek to be severely polluted with fecal coliform. The environmental regulators, it turns out, had unwittingly contributed to the problem. This week, Vancouver city workers made a startling discovery near the regional office shared by Ecology and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at 2108 Grand Blvd. At some point in the building's history, a sewer pipe that was supposed to be connected to the city's sanitary sewer main had been incorrectly connected to a stormwater line instead. "The only thing that's supposed to be in the stormwater...

Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told' The uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story, writes Christopher Booker. If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.

There are two major initiatives currently being persued by the crop of liberals in power. One is the ongoing set of bailouts of various groups of voters, and financial institutions, being advocated by those officially in power in DC, and the other, the "green movement" being pushed by powerful special interests, with backing from DC (and the UN, and Brussels, and...). While I applaud their good intentions, and their skill in paving, I'm not particularly impressed with the destination. Let's take a brief look at each of these trends, and see if we can't come up with a counterproposal. First,...

Bat study raises doubts over our understanding of Earth's ecosystems. One of the most common techniques for diagnosing the ecological health of a region may be painting an inaccurate picture of biodiversity, a study of the bats on the tiny volcanic island of Montserrat suggests.To understand an area's ecology, researchers are often asked by funding agencies to conduct a short survey, known as a rapid biodiversity assessment.Such surveys are convenient: they fit easily into the typical 3-5-year timescale of a PhD, match the length of time within which grant-giving agencies expect to see results, and are relatively quick to write...

Scientists discussed the merits and demerits of pumping sulfur into the Earth’s atmosphere as a temporary “fix” to global warming at a forum hosted in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 21 by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The idea is to artificially re-create the effects of volcanic eruptions to temporarily cool the planet. In 2006, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and National Center for Atmospheric Research Senior Scientist Tom Wigley suggested that “geo-engineering” might be used as a quick, but temporary, remedy for global warming. This idea was one of the issues discussed at the AMS forum. “In particular, Crutzen and...

Kingstown, a group of kids insisted I see their “fairy-house village.” Together we trooped across the grassy field that doubles as the school’s auditorium and gym, to the edge of the woods. There, a darling neighborhood of small, fragile structures, made entirely of stems, bark and dried flowers, housed fairies. While one fairy nut chatted about the inhabitants, the other kids talked — over each other, of course — about the importance of using natural materials. They love making art out in the woods. “It’s the best art,” squealed one girl. All the kids I met that day are excited...

A type of chimpanzee known to use sex for greetings, reconciliations, and favors may not be all about peace, love, and understanding after all. A new study reveals that some bonobos—one of humankind's closest genetic relatives—hunt and eat other primates. Groups of the endangered chimpanzee subspecies were observed stalking, chasing, and killing monkeys they later consumed. /* snip */ "The second I read this, I thought: Oh good, finally!" said primatologist Elizabeth Lonsdorf of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. "Bonobos being so peaceful never sat well with me," said Lonsdorf, who was not involved with the study. "We see...

New Zealand is home to 2,065 native plants found nowhere else on Earth. They range from magnificent towering kauri trees to tiny flowers that form tightly packed mounds called vegetable sheep. When Europeans began arriving in New Zealand, they brought with them alien plants — crops, garden plants and stowaway weeds. Today, 22,000 non-native plants grow in New Zealand. Most of them can survive only with the loving care of gardeners and farmers. But 2,069 have become naturalized: they have spread out across the islands on their own. There are more naturalized invasive plant species in New Zealand than native...

The Chicago Tribune posted a story in the July 30 edition that highlights the often absurd hyperbole all too common in the language of environmentalists and eco-watchers. The story detailed the findings of scientists studying Lake Michigan and the ecology of the Great Lakes, one of them saying it is in "catastrophic" shape. Native fish and vegetation are being crowded out by new species and the "Great Lakes are at a tipping point" the Trib warns. It's all presented as some major disaster that should alarm us all, as if Mother Nature is being ruined, presumably by man. But a...

One of the favorite targets of conservative pundits (and rightly so) is the liberal tendency to extremes. Oftentimes, a liberal will see a societal problem, and pronounce :”This needs government!” Quite often the liberal will see a real problem, too, but will either end up creating a massive, wasteful bureaucracy (say, Medicare or Social Security), or else use the problem as a excuse for a vastly disproportionate growth in governmental power (say, the IRS). As H. L. Mencken once wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”...

When baseball's All-Stars gather for tonight's midsummer classic in Yankee Stadium, they'll participate in what organizers are billing as the “greenest” event in Major League Baseball history. All-Star Game planners are trying to reduce the event's ecological damage and encourage fans to lead eco-friendly lives. Coordinators are doing things such as ordering a giant red carpet made of recycled fibers, handing out reuseable tote bags and sponsoring a playground made largely from recycled materials. Such efforts are all the rage across the sports world. The Olympic planning committee in Vancouver, British Columbia, recently announced that the 2010 Winter Olympics will...

Bugs. They want us to eat bugs. I speak of a recent article in Time that explains why eating bugs is good for the environment. As it goes, bugs require "little room and few resources to grow." Bugs are cold-blooded invertebrates, you see. They are efficient. Much more of the grub they eat is converted into edible bug body parts than is the case with our friends the cows. Cows are warm-blooded vertebrates. They need to consume lots more food just to keep their body temperature steady. Their food is grown on farms. Fossil fuels must be burned to harvest,...

.....As senator, and then vice president, Gore used his power to channel money toward those who “played ball” and away from those who doubted GW. The latter found that grant money dried up, promotions were denied, and even jobs were terminated. Gore’s colleague, Colorado Senator Timothy Wirth, became Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in charge of promoting GW theory and international agreements to address the alleged problem. Wirth was quoted as bragging that he could change a lot of minds with a billion dollars per year of State Department money. Indeed, recent estimates are that $50 billion has been...

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Fashion designers are giving new life to worthless candy wrappers, newspapers and plastic bags; turning trash into trendy tote bags, purses and jewelry. From "post-consumer and industrial waste" comes durable, funky accessories reportedly worn by celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz and Petra Nemcova. One self-described eco-fashion label, Ecoist, has partnered with Coca-Cola, Luna Bar, and Aveda to create handbags made from misprinted and discontinued packaging. "We tap into that source of waste because it is reliable and unfortunately it's abundant," said Ecoist co-founder Jonathan Marcoschamer. "We believe that for the next few years there's...

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Fashion designers are giving new life to worthless candy wrappers, newspapers and plastic bags; turning trash into trendy tote bags, purses and jewelry. From "post-consumer and industrial waste" comes durable, funky accessories reportedly worn by celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz and Petra Nemcova. One self-described eco-fashion label, Ecoist, has partnered with Coca-Cola, Luna Bar, and Aveda to create handbags made from misprinted and discontinued packaging. "We tap into that source of waste because it is reliable and unfortunately it's abundant," said Ecoist co-founder Jonathan Marcoschamer. "We believe that for the next few years there's...

That this is the age of gullibility is proved by the fact that three of the most absurd frauds in history have become totally accepted and unquestioned in our age. The results of this universal credulity is a social disaster, the affects of which are apparent in every aspect of our culture. If you think something is terribly wrong with the society you live in, but have not been able to identify exactly what it is, this may help you. The Appeal of Science No rational individual either doubts or questions the power of science to discover the truth. Much...

In my column last Friday – headlined “Bioperversity” – I suggested that a new book, “Sustaining Life,” from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which claimed that species loss was threatening medicinal discoveries and thus human health, was a typical alarmist crock. It was intended primarily as propaganda to whip up eco-hysteria ahead of next month’s huge United Nations conflab in Bonn to discuss the floundering Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). As if to prove my point, the IUCN the very next day issued a release about the so called “COP9,” that is, the ninth “Conference of the...

Last week, Time magazine featured on its cover the iconic photograph of the U.S. Marine Corps raising the flag on Iwo Jima. But with one difference: The flag has been replaced by a tree. The managing editor of Time, Rick Stengel, was very pleased with the lads in graphics for cooking up this cute image and was all over the TV sofas talking up this ingenious visual shorthand for what he regards as the greatest challenge facing mankind: “How To Win The War On Global Warming.” Where to begin? For the last ten years, we have, in fact, been not...

A sinister government agency called Wrap (We Rape and Pillage) has spent vast lumps of our money to determine that, in Britain alone, we throw away 5.1m potatoes every day. Apparently this is so morally reprehensible that we should all commit suicide. Hmm. So we have one part of the government telling us that if we continue to eat too much we will become fat and everyone will explode. And now we have another part telling us that we have to finish everything on our plates because it’s wrong to throw food away. Is it though? Of course, eco-mentalists argue...

You can't make this stuff up folks- The latest victim of the supposed 'man-caused global warming' nut-o-rama are our psychological minds. That's right, it seems that some feller named Glenn Albrecht believes that we're all going to suffer from Psychoterratic illness. What is Psychoterratic illness you wonder? Why it's a malady whereby the mind goes psychotic when the terra firma is violated by we evil human beings. But wait- there's more. It seems that we're all about to suffer yet another crippling malady- Solastalgia. Again you ask, what ever can Solastalgia be? I'm surprised at you all. Shame on you!...