Free Republic

This is predictable---one day after telling reporters that he shot and killed a coyote while jogging, Governor Perry has reaped the ire of animal rights groups, 1200 WOAI news reports. "We just thought that he overreacted," said Wendy Ring of the animal rights group "Wild Earth Guardians. "He could of just said 'boo' and the coyote would have ran away." Perry said he used a LASER-sighted .380 Ruger pistol to take down a coyote that was menacing his daughter's dog during an early morning jog near his rented home in west Austin. Perry says the pistol is loaded with hollow...

Mankind has really been put in its place over the past 500 years. Why only the other day, back in 1400, the sun orbited the earth; man was God's consummate work of art; humans were masters of themselves and the domain God provided for them. Our secular fall from grace began with Copernicus, who dislodged the world from its celestial catbird seat. Later, Darwin established that man, far from being the animal kingdom's pièce de résistance, was a bit like a baboon in... --snip-- One activist author posits that the planet can support only one billion people -- a number...

Growing up as a teenager in the 1950s, I could not wait to get my license to drive and I liked the sporty look of the British MG. These days I drive a Volkswagen. In that short tale can be found the seeds of the end of the American auto industry. Here’s some history. In 1952, the merger of several British auto companies resulted in the British Motor Corporation. It was the largest of its day with 39% of British output. Despite established dealerships for the various models, a series of poor management decisions resulted in the loss of market...

POKANE, Wash. – The quest for squeaky-clean dishes has turned some law-abiding people in Spokane into dishwater-detergent smugglers. They are bringing Cascade or Electrasol in from out of state because the eco-friendly varieties required under Washington state law don't work as well. Spokane County became the launch pad last July for the nation's strictest ban on dishwasher detergent made with phosphates, a measure aimed at reducing water pollution. The ban will be expanded statewide in July 2010, the same time similar laws take effect in several other states.YahooNews

Many of the solar parks that stretch across vast tracts of the Spanish countryside are guilty of fraud, Spain's National Energy Commission (CNE) has found. In the past two years, Spain's solar industry has grown by a spectacular 900%. The country now has the third largest solar capacity in the world, behind the United States and Germany. But an ongoing investigation by Spanish authorities has so far unearthed nearly 4,200 photovoltaic installations that were falsely registered as being online by a 30 September deadline in order to receive higher levels of subsidy from power companies. According to the CNE report,...

An unexpected drop in U.S. electricity consumption has utility companies worried that the trend isn't a byproduct of the economic downturn, and could reflect a permanent shift in consumption that will require sweeping change in their industry. Numbers are trickling in from several large utilities that show shrinking power use by households and businesses in pockets across the country. Utilities have long counted on sales growth of 1% to 2% annually in the U.S., and they created complex operating and expansion plans to meet the needs of a growing population. "We're in a period where growth is going to be...

TOKYO - Toyota is building a $192 million plant in Japan to produce batteries for gas-electric hybrid vehicles, as it seeks to keep its lead in an intensifying race for green cars among the world's automakers. Toyota's joint venture with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, is building the plant in Shizuoka prefecture, in central Japan, Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco said Friday. He declined to give more details. The plant will produce nickel-metal hydride batteries, now in the company's hit Prius hybrid. The Nikkei, Japan's top business daily, reported Friday that Toyota was building another plant in...

Psychology: The alarms that environmental extremists have sounded have given rise to a market for therapists who treat eco-anxiety. What a concept! Scare the wits out of people, then make money off their fear.It's possible that none of the 100 or so "eco-therapists" practicing in the U.S. have been part of the environmentalist shock campaign. Or it could be that, at more than $100 an hour, these practitioners are simply taking advantage of others' weaknesses. But given that the treatments they're prescribing — taking shorter showers, turning off lights, making do with less — are scrawled on the stone tablet...

Wherever possible, Tina Casale switches to compact fluorescent light bulbs; she also recycles daily, rides in carpools or walks when she can, and, as a third-grade teacher, has made it a priority to ensure that global warming is a frequent topic in her science discussions. But in the eyes of some activists, Casale could be doing more to save the environment: Namely, tossing out her birth control pills. Birth control pills, like batteries and baby bottles, have become the latest item in American homes to become a focus of environmental and health concerns. As scientists debate the effects of synthetic...

Hundreds of people posed naked on Switzerland's shrinking Aletsch glacier on Saturday for U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick as part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.

The mood of the crowd jammed into the meeting room was angry. Many had lost their homes to the forest fire that swept through the Sierra Nevada just south of Lake Tahoe. They said they were angry at bureaucrats and environmentalists who made cutting of trees and clearing of land difficult. There was always too much red tape, they said, and now it was too late. In all, a crowd of nearly 2,000 people descended on the South Tahoe Middle School auditorium Monday night, wanting to be heard in the face of their losses. And if there was an...

A controversial new public relations campaign by animal-rights group PETA proclaims Jesus Christ to have been a vegetarian, and portrays the Last Supper ? complete with 12 "disciples" including Beatle Paul McCartney and lesbian country-music singer k.d. lang ? as a spectacle meant to inspire mankind to forsake eating meat. The outreach has been built into a 28-foot 1955 Silver Streak Airstream trailer wherein the "Last Supper" is re-created, surrounding Jesus with famous vegetarians, officials of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals told WND. Dallas artist Greg Metz's work first was displayed in his hometown, then in Columbia, S.C.,...

East Bay environmentalists reproached home builder Albert Seeno on Monday after learning that he has sued Pittsburg over its traffic impact fees. Seeno, owner of West Coast Builders and Seecon, has gone to Contra Costa Superior Court to challenge a 60 percent to 78 percent increase in Pittsburg's local traffic impact fee.Environmentalists, who have had a long and rocky relationship with Seeno, say the lawsuit undercuts key road improvements at the same time that he is unfairly labeling their groups as obstructionists.Billboards on Seeno land in eastern Contra Costa County call members of Save Mount Diablo, the Greenbelt Alliance and...

Purchasing carbon offsets brokered by AlGore reminds me of the sales gimmickry surrounding the “Naming Stars” routine; except with star naming, everyone understands from the onset, it’s a novelty item.

If you're looking for a Kleenex on the Rice University campus in the near future, you'll be out of luck. Students at the highly rated university in Houston have convinced campus officials to quit buying Kleenex products in favor of products that include recycled material and exclude material from trees cut from North America's largest ancient forest — the Boreal forest that stretches from Alaska through Canada. "It was an initiative that students involved in various environmental groups started," Kyle Saari, a sophomore earth science major at Rice, said today. "We simply showed our purchasing (department) that there are cheaper...

This book comes out later this month, but it looks great: "An outrageous, alarming look at how the environmental movement, with its radical, short-sighted eco-activists, has actually helped amplify the dangers of natural disasters..." - American Compass The author debunks myths and libels about: global warming and climate change, the dangers of pesticides like DDT, trees and pollution, fuel economy and the auto industry, the threat posed by asbestos, the lifesaving role of dams and levees and plans to "rewild" America. If you want to know the difference between radical enviros and rational enviros, this looks like the book to...

Research challenges the myth among anglers that fish can't feel pain from barbed hooks. EVERY YEAR, sportsmen around the world drag millions of fish to shore on barbed hooks. It's something people have always done, and with little enough conscience. Fish are … well, fish. They're not dogs, who yelp when you accidentally step on their feet. Fish don't cry out or look sad or respond in a particularly recognizable way. So we feel free to treat them in a way that we would not treat mammals or even birds. But is there really any biological justification for exempting fish...

A plan in the early 1970s to create a massive artificial reef off Fort Lauderdale has turned into an environmental mess with the U.S. Navy, Broward County and others trying to figure out how to remove about two million tires covering 36 acres of ocean floor. What was intended to lure game fish now is damaging sensitive coral reefs and littering Broward's tourist-populated shoreline. ''They thought it would be a good fish habitat. It turned out to be a bad idea,'' said William Nuckols, project coordinator and military liaison for Coastal America, a federal group involved in the cleanup. ``It's...

The Sunday Times July 23, 2006 It's a sin to fly, says church THE Bishop of London has declared it sinful for people to contribute to climate change by flying on holiday, driving a “gas-guzzling” car or failing to use energy-saving measures in the home, writes Jonathan Leake. Richard Chartres will encourage vicars to preach more green sermons and warn congregations that it is now a moral obligation for Christians to lead eco-friendly lifestyles. Chartres, who chairs the bishops’ panel on the environment, said: “There is now an overriding imperative to walk more lightly upon the earth and we need...

MELLEN - "There are too many people in the world. It's not sustainable." That is what the chairman of the Backwoods Anti-Social Social Club said. We were sitting in a little bar working on hamburgers thick enough to make the cholesterol count jump just by looking at them. The chairman was saying something he wished he had said at a recent conference on sustainability, but he's not the type to stand up in front of a crowd. He likes to work the edges and lead from behind, so to speak. Not being the religious sort, he has never been admonished...