Free Republic

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s stunning primary victory over powerful U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley in the working-class New York district stretching from the Bronx to Queens is likely to propel her avowedly left-wing platform into the Democratic mainstream as the 2018 midterm elections heat up. But her detailed proposals to deal with climate change could prove among the most influential at a time when the Democrats have failed to rally around any policy that could feasibly reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically enough to make a difference. Ocasio-Cortez outlined plans to transition the United States to a 100 percent renewable energy system by 2035....

Lancaster County’s dairy farmers could be facing devastating drops in corn yields by 2050 because of global warming, according to a new research study. “If climate projections hold, it will threaten the dairy industry in Lancaster County,” said Heather Karsten, an associate professor of crop production ecology at Penn State. That’s because extremely high summer temperatures in Lancaster County could mute key reproduction phases in corn plant growth, decreasing yields for a winter feed that is a linchpin in affordable dairy farming. The extreme temperatures - which are projected to be higher in Lancaster County than anywhere else in the...

A new study has revealed sensitive regions of the world are still at risk from the dangerous and potentially irreversible effects of climate change; even if we meet the target of not increasing global temperature above 1.5°C over the next 100 years. The international team of researchers developed a three-dimensional climate-carbon cycle model, and simulated the different climate futures. Dr. Philip Holden, Lecturer in Earth Systems Science at The Open University and lead researcher of the study, said: "The regional uncertainties associated with the Paris Climate Agreement have not been explored before. This is because, until now, researchers have used...

An entirely new species of ape has been discovered buried in an ancient tomb in central China. The remains of the now-extinct gibbon, which researchers have named Junzi imperialis, were found in a burial chamber in Shaanxi Province that dates back around 2,300 years. Researchers believe it may be the first ape species to have perished as a direct result of human activities such as hunting. “All of the world’s apes - chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and gibbons - are threatened with extinction today due to human activities, but no ape species were thought to have become extinct as a result...

VINALHAVEN, Me. - At 3:30 in the morning on a Friday in late May, the lobstermen ate breakfast. Outside, their boats bobbed in the labradorite water, lit only by the dull yellow of streetlamps across the bay. It was windy, too windy for fishing, but one by one the island’s fishermen showed up at the Surfside cafe anyway. Over pancakes and eggs, they grumbled about the season’s catch to date. Some of the lobstermen said it was just too early in the season. Others feared that it was a sign of things to come. Since the early 1980s, climate change...

Rising temperatures from climate change are driving animals northward into new environments, raising concerns that pathogens hitching a ride may bring new diseases -- especially to southern U.S. states, including Louisiana. The world's warmest and wettest climates are home to some of its most worrying diseases like dengue, yellow fever and malaria. Louisiana and other Gulf Coast states could become a portal through which new diseases enter the United States, carried in the bloodstream of northward-bound species, scientists say. The warning comes as an Associated Press analysis this week of temperature data shows widespread and faster warming over the past...

One factor causing migrants to risk everything - even potentially losing their children - to travel through the heat of summer in the dangerous desert and towards the barbed wire fences and tent cities springing up just south of the United States border: climate change. Many of the migrants being detained here now hail from what's referred variously as the Dry Corridor or the Northern Triangle, which consists of the three countries immediately south of Mexico: Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The United Nations published a report in June 2016 that described the depth of the food insecurity crisis in...

The friendly neighborhood meteorologist — found in a 2010 poll to be more skeptical than the general public about global warming — has rapidly evolved to not only accept climate change but to share the news with audiences in hundreds of U.S. television markets.

UNITED NATIONS - Climate change and conflict are forcing growing numbers of people to go hungry, flee their homes and lose critical access to water, the United Nations said on Wednesday in a look at progress in its global development goals. The number of hungry people has risen for the first time in a decade, and violence and conflict are causing food problems in 18 nations, the U.N. said in its assessment. Member nations of the U.N. adopted 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015 in a concerted effort to conquer poverty, inequality and other international woes by a 2030...

As former leaders of our parties in the United States Senate, we know what it takes to achieve a bipartisan breakthrough in Congress. For all the talk of discord in Washington, we see the possibility of finding common ground on a divisive issue. As surprising as it may sound, climate change offers an opportunity for both parties to come together and deliver a victory - and cash dividends - to the American people. Congress should approve legislation to place a meaningful fee on carbon-dioxide emissions that ripples through all sectors of our economy, and return the revenues it generates to...

There’s a ‘type’ when it comes to climate change denial it turns out – and it’s a pretty simple one: old, white and racist. Researchers found that American voters with the highest levels of racial resentment were far more likely to dispute the idea of man-made climate change. Researcher Salil Benegal at DePauw University analysed data from American National Election Studies – and found that Republicans with high racial resentment scores were 84% likely to disagree with man-made climate change. Previous Pew research has shown that climate change deniers tend to be old and white. The scores were measured on...

Germany is set to miss its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions target by 8 percent, according to German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. The German government set itself the goal of reducing national greenhouse gas emissions until 2020 by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels, but a draft government report estimates that the country will only be able to reduce emissions by 32 percent. Officials had previously estimated a shortfall of 5 percent to 8 percent. The document blames “unexpected economic developments and unexpected population growth” for the failure to meet the target. Increased economic activity and strong population growth generally cause...

Berkeley Declares A ‘Climate Emergency,’ Calls For Population Control 2:51 PM 06/13/2018 Michael Bastasch | Contributor The California city that was home to 1960s radicals and known for excessively liberal politics declared a “climate emergency” on Tuesday evening, backing policies to “humanely stabilize” the human population. The Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to mobilize other California governments “to initiate a just local, state, national, and global climate emergency mobilization to restore a safe climate.” The council’s resolution, introduced by Council Member Cheryl Davila, warned that man-made global warming was “driving a global fresh water scarcity crisis and the sixth mass...

LONDON - Keeping healthy could become more costly as climate change and water scarcity cause a huge drop in the global production of vegetables and legumes, scientists said on Monday. The amount of vegetables produced could fall by more than a third, especially in hot regions like southern Europe and swathes of Africa and South Asia, said researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. By analyzing studies across 40 countries, with some dating as far back as 1975, they found that hikes in greenhouses gases, water scarcity and global temperatures lowered the amount of vegetables and legumes...

Some of the oldest and biggest baobab trees in Africa have died recently, becoming the latest possible victims of climate change, according to a study published in the journal Nature Plants on Monday. The trees -- located in Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Botswana and Zambia -- have died completely, or partly, according to the study. Some of them dated back to the times of the ancient Greeks. It's still unclear what is driving the baobab deaths. The authors believe that climate change is the culprit. "We suspect that the demise of monumental baobabs may be associated at least in part...

Even if global warming is curbed and the increase in global temperature is limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius, scientists warn rising CO2 concentrations could still trigger a dangerous increase in extreme weather. Broadly speaking, more CO2 translates to higher temperatures, but the relationship between atmosphere and climate is complex, and scientists say there are scenarios in which warming could be limited to 1.5 degrees, despite a sizable increase in atmospheric CO2. New climate models developed by researchers at the University of Bristol and the University of Oxford suggest CO2 levels, not global temperatures, are a better predictor of the most...

We live in times where moral ambiguity can have devastating and even deadly consequences. When it comes to the reality of climate change, there is no ambiguity of the disastrous impact of human degradation of the planet. Just in the past two weeks, a Harvard University study estimates that over 4,500 lives were lost as a consequence of Hurricane Maria. Well over a decade following Hurricane Katrina, white New Orleans has recovered; black New Orleans has not. See a pattern here? The devastating effects of climate change are undeniable, as is this disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable communities throughout...

Canada’s climate is getting hotter and wetter and it may have an impact on your mental health. That’s what experts are warning as Canada’s climate continues to shift dramatically, causing severe flooding in many parts of the country, and even droughts and fires in parts of the Prairies and the West Coast. It’s extreme weather events like those experienced in the 2016 wildfires in Fort McMurray and the 2013 floods in Toronto that can trigger mental-health disorders such as anxiety and depression, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). And while some may believe these events are few and far...

A team of scientists at Harvard University and a company called Carbon Engineering announced this week that they’ve figured out a low-cost, industrial-scale method of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Needless to say, it sounds like an exciting technology, which would, as The Atlantic’s Robinson Meyer notes, “transform how humanity thinks about the problem of climate change.”To be fair, though, plenty of humans have argued that innovation, rather than widespread state-compelled behavior modification or top-down economic regimes like the ones the Left has proposed over the years, would eventually deal with climate change. This conviction was based...

After an opening day dominated by trade talk, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will shift the G7 conversation to other pressing global issues on Saturday — climate change and empowering women — but at least one leader has opted to skip part of the day's meetings. U.S. President Donald Trump will leave La Malbaie, Que., early Saturday before G7 leaders are scheduled to have a working session on protecting the world's oceans and redoubling efforts to stave off catastrophic climate change. He will, however, take part in the gender-focused breakfast session billed by Canadian officials as a chance for leaders to...