Free Republic

A popular international relations professor at the University of Copenhagen says that unless the world takes more unified action to fight climate change, we may need an armed intervention. Yes, Ole Wæver is suggesting that if we don’t get in line with the climate change hysteria the media is pushing, armed invasions may be the only solution. “At some point this whole climate debate is going to tip over,” he tells RN’s Late Night Live. “The current way we talk about climate is one side and the other side. One side is those who want to do something, and the...

MADRID - Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore urged governments negotiating at U.N. talks in Madrid this week to ramp up their efforts to tackle climate change, saying humanity's future was at stake. "It is criminally negligent for the generation of leaders in power today to stick their heads in the sand and ignore what the scientists are telling us in ever more dire terms," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "We have to stop using the sky as an open sewer for heat-trapping pollution. It threatens the future of human civilisation," said Gore, who won a Nobel Peace Prize...

A New York state judge on Tuesday exonerated oil giant ExxonMobil from charges of fraud. New York Attorney General Letitia James accused the company of using two different accounting methods when making projections about business costs in countries that were implementing policies to fight climate change, The Wall Street Journal reports, which, the attorney general asserted, cost shareholders up to $1.6 billion. However, New York State Supreme Court Justice Barry Ostrager said that James's office failed to prove that ExxonMobil violated antifraud laws such as the Martin Act. “The Office of the Attorney General failed to prove, by a preponderance...

She's a keen environmentalist on a mission to halt and save the planet. And Brazilian supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio used her December cover story for to spread her message. The 38-year-old traveled to Arabia, which she called one of her favorite places, for the photoshoot in the warm waters around Abu Dhabi’s Zaya Nurai Island. Growing up in Brazil, Alessandro stated, 'I always cared about the ocean. When I was growing up, I wanted to be a marine biologist. I always spent quality time with my family and all my vacations by the beach. 'And of course, I always pretended to...

With dozens of cameras pointing at her across a room full of reporters, celebrity teen environmentalist Greta Thunberg had an unexpected message: Look the other way. “Our stories have been told over and over again,” the 16-year-old Swede said, explaining why she and prominent German activist Luisa Neubauer would be handing over the stage at the U.N. climate meeting in Madrid to other young activists. “It’s really about them,” Thunberg added of the young activists from developing countries already facing the effects of climate change, including violent storms, droughts and rising sea levels. “We talk about our future, they talk...

MADRID (Reuters) - The world's richest nations are failing to "behave like adults" and act firmly enough to meet global warming targets set in the Paris climate accord, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday. Kerry, who served as the top U.S. diplomat under President Barack Obama and was a leading player in brokering the Paris Agreement in 2015, said the G20 nations are lagging behind on emission reduction plans and financial pledges to poor countries instead of setting a high bar for global climate action. "The burden falls largely on the G20 to behave like adults,...

As the planet continues to warm, researchers are increasingly pointing out the ways in which global warming will affect our health and that of the species around us. For example, some species of fungi that are resistant to existing treatments may be on the rise as a result of global warming, one study showed. Also, several species of fish may become more toxic as a result of warming waters, and malaria may spread to an unprecedented extent. Now, new research appearing in the journal Ecology Letters explores the ways in which birds may have been affected by rising global temperatures....

Global warming may be making women give birth earlier and endangering newborn babies, according to research. Scientists studying births and weather in the US found on days when temperatures were higher than 90°F (32°C), birth rates rose by five per cent. Many children were born days before their due dates but some were delivered two weeks earlier than expected. Researchers believe heat can cause hormonal changes in pregnant women, which then bring on labour sooner. The problem is likely to become worse as climate change means heatwaves become more common over the coming decades, the researchers said. Heatwaves are expected...

Early climate models get a bad wrap for being imprecise, but new research suggests they were surprisingly accurate. Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NASA reviewed 17 climate models described in scientific papers over the last several decades. The earliest were developed in the 1970s, while the most recent were created in late 2000s. Of the 17 models, analysis showed 14 were very accurate in predicting the average global temperature in the years following their publication. "The real message is that the warming we have experienced is pretty much exactly what climate models predicted...

Americans remain shaky on the details of climate science even as they have grown increasingly concerned about human activity warming the Earth, according to a national poll by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) that probed the public’s understanding of climate change. The rising alarm is one of the poll’s most dramatic findings. In just five years, the percentage of people calling climate change a “crisis” has jumped from 23 percent to 38 percent. More than 3 in 4 U.S. adults and teenagers alike agree that humans are influencing the climate. The overwhelming majority of them said...

New Jersey is getting hammered with 12 inches of snow with 200 schools shut down. Upstate New York expects to be hit with 2 feet of snow. Most of Michigan may soon be snowed under. North Carolina has winter storm warnings in effect. As does Arizona. In Southern California, Disneyland had to close early to beat a winter storm, and even a fire in Santa Barbara was doused with Thanksgiving snow. But California’s favorite daughter, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, jetted off to Spain to fight global warming. It was easier for her delegation, which included Democrats from New Jersey, Rhode Island,...

The "immense" rise in sales of high-emission sports utility vehicles means they now outsell electric cars in the UK by 37 to one, research has found. As a result, overall exhaust emissions from new cars have been increasing, not declining, for the past three years, says the UK Energy Research Centre. SUV sales are jeopardising the UK transport sector's ability to meet EU emissions targets, it said. Prof Jillian Anable of the UKERC said this made "a mockery" of UK policy. "Effectively, we have been sleepwalking into the issue," she said. "The decarbonisation of the passenger car market can no...

The European Union’s anti-trust authority approved €3.2 billion ($3.5 billion) in subsidies aimed at helping Europe boost its lagging competitiveness in the electric battery sector. The subsidy from seven members states — Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Belgium, Sweden and Finland — will go to 17 different companies, a statement from the European Commission said. The investment injection will help generate an extra €5 billion in private investment, it added. Electric battery production is an important industry sector for the Europe, and the push for subsidies is part of a broader push led by France and Germany to make sure Europe...

The 2019 Miss Universe competition has completed, and one aspect of the show that caught the attention of many was the reaction of host Steve Harvey after reading a question for a contestant about climate change. Somebody get that video to Al Gore ASAP! SNIP

For years, Kim Cobb was the Indiana Jones of climate science. The Georgia Tech professor flew to the caves of Borneo to study ancient and current climate conditions. She jetted to a remote South Pacific island to see the effects of warming on coral. […] Now she is about to ground herself, and she is not alone. Some climate scientists and activists are limiting their flying, their consumption of meat and their overall carbon footprints to avoid adding to the global warming they study. Cobb will fly just once next year, to attend a massive international science meeting in Chile....

A majority of Germans say they would consider scaling down their Christmas lights to protect the climate, a survey released on Sunday said. A total of 57% of those surveyed said they would reduce Christmas lighting or even do without it in the future, according to the survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of the German news agency DPA. Of the respondents, 11% said they would make do without any lights this year due to climate concerns, while 10% said they would do so in the future. But 35% said turning off the lights was not an option for them....

The oceans are losing oxygen due to climate change, with dire consequences for marine life and vulnerable communities and fisheries, a nature conservation report revealed Saturday. This is the “ultimate wake-up call” for humanity on ever increasing carbon emissions, according to the report, published at the UN Climate Change conference in Madrid. The authors say the report, “Ocean deoxygenation: Everyone’s problem,” is the largest ever peer-reviewed study into the causes, impacts and possible solutions to the ocean’s oxygen loss. […] According to the report, areas of water with low oxygen concentrations are expanding, with roughly 700 ocean areas across the...

Fido and Sylvester could be in big trouble, according to Emma Thompson. The actress issued a strong warning on Thursday of an impending "climate crisis" so dire that people will have no choice but to eat their own pets. The actress, 60, attended an Extinction Rebellion protest outside of the BBC Broadcasting House in London on Thursday, where she claimed there is "extreme weather" ahead. **SNIP** "Better wrap up warm, stockpile food and remember there is a surprising amount of protein in the average household pet."

We’ve reached a barking point in American history. (Yeah, I’m sorry for that one.) A few years ago, for the first time ever, the number of dogs in this country surpassed the number of children under eighteen. According to Statista, there are 90 million dogs in America today, up from just 68 million in 2000. And a higher percentage of American households own dogs than ever before. By contrast, there are just over 73 million children. That still sounds like a lot, but as a percentage of the population, children have never been rarer. In 1960, for instance, over one-in-three...

MADRID (AP) — The European Union said Wednesday that it will likely miss its target for reducing greenhouse gases by 2030, dealing a blow to the bloc’s efforts to be a leader in the fight against climate change. **SNIP** The report was released as officials from almost 200 countries meet in Madrid for U.N. climate talks. The EU’s new executive Commission is expected to present its long-term plan for tackling global warming - dubbed the European Green Deal - next week. **SNIP** “Current EU leaders are the last generation that can prevent the climate breakdown,” said Wendel Trio, director of...