Free Republic

The invaluable Mike Rowe pointed me to this article yesterday. Well, not me, exactly. Mike doesn't know me from Adam, but he shared it online with 7 million other people, and I count myself among them. It's a piece in The New York Times--for him, it was the international version with a different headline--that argues that several decisions by various international courts amount to outlawing the extraction and use of fossil fuels. It's hard to argue with their conclusion because I am not an international lawyer, but let's assume that the claim is true, as it appears to be on...

MIAMI (AP) — Trawling near Antarctica for krill — a crustacean central to the diet of whales and a critical buffer to global warming — has surged to a record and is fast approaching a never before reached seasonal catch limit that would trigger the unprecedented early closure of the remote fishery, The Associated Press has learned.The fishing boom follows the failure last year of the U.S., Russia, China and two dozen other governments to approve a new management plan that would have mandated spreading out the area in which krill can be caught and creating a California-sized reserve along...

EPA employees staged a political stunt, tried to take it back when it bombed, and revealed just how deeply entitlement and arrogance run through the federal workforce. The Information Age brought rapid technological progress and unprecedented access to knowledge. But one rule still holds true: Once it’s on the internet, it’s there forever. Some EPA employees are now learning that the hard way. The signatories of the now-infamous “Stand Up for Science” declaration — an act of open defiance against the Trump administration — are scrambling to erase their names after their stunt blew up in their faces. The petition,...

New York will soon require most new buildings to be fully electric, following a vote by the state Building Code Council, according to the Times Union. Beginning January 2026, gas and oil systems will be banned in newly constructed homes and low-rise buildings, with broader mandates kicking in by 2029. Supporters say the move helps cut emissions and long-term costs, but critics argue it burdens residents and stresses an already strained power grid. The law includes exceptions for buildings with permits filed before year’s end and does not apply to renovations. New York’s building sector is the state’s largest emissions...

A flurry of mainstream media reports, from Bloomberg, The Guardian, Financial Times, and CNN, among other outlets, claim that climate change is causing rising food prices “worldwide,” based on a single new study. This is false. Bad weather has always impacted crop production, and there is no actual evidence that extreme weather is increasing. Globalization of media coverage is simply making it easier to hear about bad weather elsewhere in the world, meanwhile crop production and yields globally continue to set records – a fact the same media outlets largely ignore. Focusing on the coverage by Bloomberg, in an article...

Every time you ask ChatGPT a question, to generate an image or let artificial intelligence summarize your email, something big is happening behind the scenes. Not on your device, but in sprawling data centers filled with servers, GPUs and cooling systems that require massive amounts of electricity. The modern AI boom is pushing our power grid to its limits. ChatGPT alone processes roughly 1 billion queries per day, each requiring data center resources far beyond what’s on your device. In fact, the energy needed to support artificial intelligence, cloud computing and even crypto mining is rising so quickly that it...

Residents of Tuvalu, one of the world’s lowest-lying island nations, are preparing for a historic migration as the impacts of climate change push the country closer to becoming uninhabitable. Thousands of Tuvaluans have applied for a new visa program that allows them to relocate to Australia in response to rising sea levels threatening their homeland. The Pacific Engagement Visa, part of a treaty between Australia and Tuvalu, is the world’s first climate migration agreement. It offers Tuvaluan citizens the opportunity to permanently move to Australia to escape the imminent threat of flooding back home. Only 280 people will be accepted...

Toby Atwood was a member of the Thiel College women's tennis team.. Toby Atwood, a rising senior at Thiel College and a member of the women’s tennis team, suddenly died over the weekend after collapsing during a half-marathon in Pennsylvania, school officials confirmed. The 21-year-old Pennsylvania native was participating in the Presque Isle Half Marathon in Erie on Sunday when she collapsed and died. Atwood’s cause of death was not immediately known. "Toby was entering her senior year at Thiel College and was an accomplished student, athlete, and leader throughout her time at the College. Her presence touched the lives...

... Extreme summer heat during baseball season is not only making games uncomfortably hot and sweaty for fans in the stands — it’s also posing a danger to the health of players and changing the physics of the sport. Since 1970, human-made climate change has driven up average summer temperatures in Chicago by 2 degrees, according to the climate science nonprofit Climate Central. That lines up with an average increase of 2.8 degrees across 26 Major League Baseball home cities in the United States — except Los Angeles. The home of the Angels and Dodgers has had no measurable change...

During the first half of 2025, a new record was set for the number of deaths caused by climate and weather disasters. Can you guess what that record was? If you read left-wing media sources, and believe anything they say, you might think that the recent record has something to do with a large and growing number of deaths. Recent articles in sources like CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, and CBS News all explicitly claim that climate change is making weather events “deadlier,” or leading to increasing numbers of deaths, or some variation of that same message. I’m sure...

A remarkable image taken by an astronaut aboard the International Space Station (ISS) offers a breathtaking view of three glaciers merging into one massive ice mass in the Karakoram mountain range. These glaciers, located in one of Earth’s most remote and contested regions, are gaining ice volume despite the warming temperatures that are threatening glaciers worldwide. A Rare Glacial Phenomenon The image showcases the merging of the Lolofond glacier, the Teram Shehr glacier, and the Siachen glacier. Situated in the Karakoram mountains, which straddle the borders of India, Pakistan, China, and Afghanistan, these glaciers are part of the Karakoram anomaly....

What if Human Civilisation rose before, in Ancient pre-history? Is it possible? The evidence would suggest yes...The previous interglacial warming period, known as the 'Eemian' period, was 130 to 115,000 years ago. This period was longer than the current warm period, known as the Holocene, has been so far. Considering modern humans had already been around for at least 175,000 years by the start of the 'Eemian', why couldn't civilisation have flourished then as it has now? The conditions were optimal, it lasted more than enough time, we'd been around for 100s of 1000s of years already and according to...

A groundbreaking new analysis has emerged, challenging the mainstream narrative on “global warming” and throwing a wrench in the radical climate agenda.According to researchers from the University of Exeter, the biggest factor driving global warming since 2001 isn’t the rise in carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, but rather a reduction in sulfur dioxide (SO2) pollution.The revelation has major implications for the “global warming” debate and for the “environmental” policies that push for costly regulations and collectivist government control.The researchers found that the decline in SO2 emissions, which have been linked to industrial and maritime pollution, has resulted in darker clouds, causing...

"This boondoggle, led by the incompetent Governor of California, Gavin Newscum, has cost Taxpayers Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we have received NOTHING in return except Cost Overruns."

Democrat California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed the “one big, beautiful bill” will spike electricity costs on Sunday, seemingly ignoring the fact that ratepayers in state are drowning under some of the most exorbitant utility bills in the U.S. Newsom took to X and listed several grievances he has with the GOP reconciliation bill, including concerns that its passage would lead to rising electricity costs because it would limit subsidies for green energy. California has some of the highest energy prices in the U.S., and they are projected to keep climbing, according to multiple reports and energy sector experts. “Electricity costs...

California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom’s presidential aspirations are Washington’s worst-kept secret. More than three years before the next election, he’s on the campaign trail in South Carolina, protesting immigration raids on cannabis farms and even politicizing the Second Family’s visit to Disneyland. Before Newsom gets anywhere near Washington, he must "confront his California problem," as even Politico observed. Blessed with incredible natural resources, the Golden State has the highest living costs in the nation. Nowhere is this trend more evident than in energy, where there is a direct correlation between Newsom’s wrong-headed policies and overall unaffordability. Here are three examples....

California’s high-speed rail had a $9.95 billion bond measure back in 2008 that was supposed to link up LA, San Francisco and the Central Coast by 2020. It’s 2025 and the budget has shot up to $128 billion. Sorry, let me correct that, it has shot up to $135 billion. By the time you read this, it’ll probably be up another few billion. The Trump administration is pulling funding from the ‘train to nowhere’ because well, just look at the Gov. Newsom press release. “The Authority has met every obligation, as confirmed by repeated federal reviews, as recently as February...

I last wrote about California’s high-speed rail to nowhere in Democrat’s dying and dead mass people movers in June: Approved by California voters in 2008, it was supposed to have run from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2030 at a cost of a mere $33 billion. Eventually, it was downscaled to a very short route in the Central Valley, and the costs are over $100 billion and still rising [it’s now around $130 billion]. All that and not a single foot of rail—for a railroad!—has been laid. A variety of bridges and other concrete and steel monoliths have been...

Two women have been arrested after climate protesters spray-painted over the grave of Charles Darwin inside Westminster Abbey. Climate protest group Just Stop Oil (JSO) said two activists used chalk paint on the grave of the famous naturalist, who is best known for his theories on evolution. The Met Police was called after the incident on Monday at 09:30 GMT and said two women were arrested on suspicion of causing criminal damage and remained in police custody. Westminster Abbey said it was taking "immediate action" to clean the memorial. Alyson Lee, 66, a retired teaching assistant from Derby, and...

A new study published in the journal Science suggests that humans might have played a significant part in the sudden deforestation of rainforests from Central Africa. This work contradicts the prevailing view that the expansion of farming practices was the root cause as well as the increased incidence of long, severe dry spells.Germain Bayon, a geochemist at the French Research Institute for Exploration of the Sea in Plouzané, and his colleagues examined the weathering of sediment samples that were drawn from the mouth of the Congo River. Deforestation intensifies weathering; therefore the clay samples would provide a continuous record of...