Free Republic

PARIS - Vincent Picard describes himself as a “militant ecologist.” But when protesters took to the streets to express their rage over a planned increase in France’s fuel tax, Mr. Picard joined their ranks. He acknowledges that the tax might encourage the conservation considered critical for a healthy planet. But with the nearest train station 35 minutes away, he has to drive to work every day. “I am conscious that we have reached the end of fossil fuels and that we have to modify our habits,” said Mr. Picard, a 32-year-old pastry maker from northern France. But, he added, “You...

Revolution: A French newspaper is reporting that the so-called “yellow jacket” demonstrators who have staged violent protests in Paris and around the country in opposition to the government’s imposition of massive fuel taxes related to climate accords could be preparing for a coup attempt on Saturday. As such, French authorities plan to deploy 8,000 police in Paris alone with another 80,000-plus riot police and gendarmes around the country, various reports have said. French intelligence services have reported to the Elysee Palace, the official residence of President Emannuel Macron, following “calls to kill” and “carry arms to attack” government officials, parliamentarians...

The French police forces including the special CRS riot police will be as fully mobilized as possible in Paris and other locations tomorrow as the "yellow vests" protests move into their next phase of mobilization swelled by new supporters. 125-thousand plus were estimated to have protested last Saturday and its quite possible that the protests may be even larger tomorrow. The Prime Minister of France's increasingly unpopular President Emmanuel Macron, Edouard Philippe, appeared on the evening television news Thursday to say 89-thousand police are mobilized for tomorrow's protests....

The Environmental Protection Agency acted again Thursday to ease rules on the sagging U.S. coal industry, this time scaling back what would have been a tough control on climate-changing emissions from any new coal plants. The latest Trump administration targeting of legacy Obama administration efforts to slow climate change comes in the wake of multiplying warnings from the agency’s scientists and others about the accelerating pace of global warming. In a ceremony Thursday at the agency, acting EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler signed a proposal to dismantle a 2015 rule that any new coal power plants include cutting-edge techniques to capture...

PARIS - French authorities will close dozens of museums, tourism sites and shops on Saturday, including the Eiffel Tower and Louvre, fearing a recurrence of last week’s violence in Paris, officials said on Thursday. “We cannot take the risk when we know the threat,” Culture Minister Franck Riester told RTL radio, adding that far-right and far-left agitators were planning to hijack rallies by “yellow vest” protesters in Paris. He said the Louvre museum, Orsay museum, the two operas, and the Grand Palais were among the sites that would be closed a week after rioters looted and defaced the Arc de...

PARIS -- The "yellow vests" in France are worrying greens around the world. The worst riots in Paris in decades were sparked by higher fuel taxes, and French President Emmanuel Macron responded by scrapping them Wednesday. But taxes on fossil fuels are just what international climate negotiators, meeting in Poland this week, say are desperately needed to help wean the world off of fossil fuels and slow climate change. Macron said the higher tax was his way of trying to prevent the end of the world. But the yellow vest protesters turned that around with the slogan: "it's hard to...

Human-induced climate change has made the United Kingdom's record-breaking 2018 summer heatwave around 30 times more likely than under normal conditions, the country's meteorological body has said. The UK as a whole endured its joint hottest summer on record in 2018, and the hottest ever for England. "Our provisional study compared computer models based on today's climate with those of the natural climate we would have had without human-induced emissions," said Professor Peter Snott from the Met Office and Exeter University. Snott noted that the "rapidly increasing changes" stem from an increase in the concentrations of carbon dioxide and other...

The government in France put out the word Wednesday night that the fuel tax would be suspended not just for six months, but for all of next year (2019). The leader of the opposition National Rally (former National Front) Marine Le Pen tweeted late Wednesday night that President Emmanuel Macron should pledge on his honor not to reintroduce the tax wit the amended budget in the spring. Whether this apparent concession will help stamp out protests is uncertain. Four have died and hundreds have been injured in the weeks of protests by the "yellow vests" but now high school and...

The Bernie Sanders campaign spent a whopping $297,685.50 on private plane travel in just nine days, reports The Washington Free Beacon. This is not the first time the 148-year-old Democrat Socialist has shown an affinity for what is still considered one of the great luxuries for America’s super wealthy. After losing the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination to Hillary Clinton, it was reported that Bernie would not support Hillary in the general election unless he received a “plane and staff for a series of fall rallies in battleground states … plane would be paid for by the DNC.”

Democratic Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said the “Green New Deal” plan she supports would be used to achieve liberal “economic, social and racial justice” goals along with fighting global warming. “[W]e can use the transition to 100 percent energy as the vehicle to truly deliver and establish economic, social and racial justice in the United States of America,” Ocasio-Cortez said at a Tuesday panel discussion alongside Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and environmental activist Bill McKibben. The soon-to-be New York representative has spent her time in Washington, D.C. promoting a “Green New Deal” to transition the U.S. to 100...

They call themselves the "Gilets Jaunes," or yellow vests, in French. They're mostly young, male and extremely angry, and they've been marching in the streets and rioting in Paris and elsewhere, protesting yet another bunch of taxes on gasoline in the government's never-ending battle against global warming. Who says no one cares about climate change? If you think of the French as people who will suffer any indignity in the name of more government, think again. Many young French, watching their standards of living decline under a socialist president's high taxes, are fed up. This latest round of taxes on...

A so-called "Trump effect" is damaging global progress on climate change by harming international diplomacy, according to a report published Monday. The report from the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA) considered the impact President Donald Trump was having on the objectives of the Paris Agreement. Drafted in 2015, the agreement set out targets for international economies to work towards in order to reduce carbon emissions. Joseph Curtin, senior fellow at the IIEA and the author of the report, said the Trump administration's policies were stalling progress towards those targets. "The 'Trump effect' has created a powerful countervailing force...

Andrew Wheeler, the former coal lobbyist who is now acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was a "driving force" behind the agenda of Sen. James Inhofe, who called climate change a "hoax," according to people familiar with Wheeler's work for the senator. President Donald Trump has said he intends to nominate Wheeler as the head of the EPA, and in the past five months as acting administrator, Wheeler has moved aggressively to roll back key environmental regulations, prompting critics and environmentalists to say he is fast confirming their worst fears for the agency's future. Wheeler moved to the EPA'S...

Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez emphasized need to ‘transform our energy system’ but did not discuss how to pursue it. A star-studded progressive town hall on climate change drew thousands of viewers online and hundreds in person - but offered little insight into how the US left might overcome Republican opposition and lay the groundwork to limit rising temperatures. The Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a potential 2020 presidential candidate, and Democratic socialist congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who campaigned on a “Green New Deal”, elicited cheers with promises of an economic boom from massive investment in renewable power. “What we are trying...

France’s violent Yellow Vest protests are now about many domestic concerns, but it’s no accident that the trigger was a fuel-tax hike. Nothing reveals the disconnect between ordinary voters and an aloof political class more than carbon taxation. The fault line runs between anti-carbon policies and economic growth, and France is a test for the political future of emissions restrictions. France already is a relatively low-carbon economy, with per-capita emissions half Germany’s as of 2014. French governments have nonetheless pursued an “ecological transition” to further squeeze carbon emissions from every corner of the French economy. The results are visible in...

France suspends controversial fuel tax after weeks of unrest By James McAuley December 4 at 6:40 AM PARIS — French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe announced Tuesday that the French government would temporarily suspend the controversial carbon tax plan that triggered weeks of often violent protests around the country. To help curb climate change, the government had proposed a slew of new carbon taxes that were slated to take effect in January 2019 and were designed to wean consumers off diesel and other polluting fuels and to favor electric cars. But the price hikes those taxes represented triggered a wave of...

One of France’s most revered monuments, the Arc de Triomphe, was stormed and vandalised on Saturday during the 'Yellow Vest' demonstrations, in one of the worst instances of unrest Paris has seen since the protests and riots of 1968. The interior of the Arc de Triomphe, the 19th-century arch that towers over the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the western end of Champs Elysées, was ransacked. The statue of the Marianne, the symbol of the French republic, in display at the entrance of the Arc de Triomphe museum was smashed. A video shared on Facebook shows most of the...

Peter Wehner made Mark Levin the target of his work at Commentary lately, as an extension of his zeal to cast G. W. Bush as more of a conservative than Reagan was, and  label numerous prominent conservatives as “purists” in desperate need of moderating their tone. Levin, rejecting the notion of being lectured to by a Bush grandee responded, correcting Wehner and calling attention to his aptitude for cherry-picking facts so that he can knock down prominent conservatives, and conservative causes.Peter Wehner arrived in Washington D.C. in 1983, and never left.  He was hired by Bill Bennett as a speechwriter...

Be strong Paris, Michelle Obama has cancelled her visit to the city of light. Former first lady Michelle Obama announced Sunday she would skip two upcoming European stops on her book tour to attend the funeral service for former President George H.W. Bush. It’s a pity she won’t be there to experience first hand the the rioting taking place in Paris against the policies of Emmanuel Macron, aka “the French Obama.” I feel confident the people of Paris will forgive her for taking a pass. Now if she were cancelling her appearances back home, where her groupies are strong, that...

Eskom’s warning that the country was threatened by months of rotating blackouts became a reality in less than 24 hours. The state-owned company, which produces most of South Africa’s power, said on Wednesday that controlled blackouts could return and last throughout the year. Even more concerning is that the company expects energy availability of the system will keep declining into early next year and probably only recover to current levels in six months. By Thursday, Eskom announced it was cutting 1GW from the grid. It doubled that amount on Friday in an outage that’s scheduled to last 13 hours. For...