Free Republic

Actor and superyacht enthusiast Leonardo DiCaprio told Deadline planet Earth has “literally” nine years left on its “ticking clock,” and that “we should not have any elected leaders, on a state level, on a city level, or a national level that don’t listen to science.” In the Titanic star’s latest Netflix film Don’t Look Up, two astronomers (played by DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) go on a media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy Earth. But instead of taking the astronomers seriously, the comet becomes politicized. The film goes on to make several thinly veiled references...

Over the past three years, dozens of cities across the country have banned natural gas hookups in newly constructed buildings as part of a growing campaign to reduce carbon emissions from homes. The movement scored a major victory last month, when New York City’s outgoing Mayor Bill de Blasio signed into law a ban on gas hookups in new buildings. Though new laws apply to the entire home, the policy debate often focuses on one room in particular: the kitchen. Gas stoves account for a relatively small share of the emissions released by a typical household, but they’ve become a...

[1:36 video clip] "How many of the biggest media lies from 2021 can you remember? Here’s my rapid fire version of the 2021 media lies. Share it to remind people just how much disinformation gets distributed by official media sources in a given year."

Jon Reeves first realized that treating climate anxiety would become a regular part of his job in 2016. He was then working in Massachusetts as a student counselor at Boston College, and the country was about to elect noted climate-change denier Donald Trump to the highest office in the land. “I definitely noticed that students were bringing climate change up as part of their overall concerns,” Reeves, a psychologist, told Yahoo News. “I think there was some stress that came along with the presidential election and concerns that the U.S. government wouldn’t do as much to mitigate climate change with...

In order to power all of these EVs, we will need batteries — lots of them. This vital mineral in rechargeable batteries has earned the name “white gold” and the rush is on. But until the 1990s, the U.S. was the leader in lithium production. But there is only one operating lithium mine in the U.S., Albemarle’s Silver Peak in Nevada.

FRANCE is reportedly facing blackouts as 10 of its nuclear reactors have shut down, spelling chaos for President Emmanuel Macron.The latest nuclear shutdown in France was announced by state energy giant EDF today. They said cracks were found near welds on a safety cooling system for two reactors at the Civaux plant in central France during routine safety checks. And EDF decided to shut down another two reactors at its Chooz plant in the eastern Ardennes region as a precaution because they are built to the same design. Karine Herviou, deputy chief executive of the French nuclear safety regulator IRSN,...

On episode XXIV of "In the Know," (January 7, 2022) ARK CEO/CIO, Cathie Wood, weighs in on the tech sell off, innovation stocks, autos, China, the tech & telecom bubble, and more. As always, she also discusses fiscal policy, monetary policy, the economy, market signals, economic indicators, and innovation. We hope you find this monthly series useful, especially during periods of heightened volatility. Stay Healthy. Stay Innovative.Tech Sell Off, Bubble Comparisons, China | ITK with Cathie Wood | January 7, 2022 | ARK Invest

The United States staggered through a steady onslaught of deadly billion-dollar weather and climate disasters in an extra hot 2021, while the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions last year jumped 6% because of surges in coal and long-haul trucking, putting America further behind its 2030 climate change cutting goal. Three different reports released Monday, though not directly connected, paint a picture of a U.S. in 2021 struggling with global warming and its efforts to curb it. Scientists have long said human-caused climate change makes extreme weather nastier and more frequent, documenting numerous links to wild and deadly weather events. They say...

Skyrocketing gas prices are sparking major concerns in the UK, with households bracing for higher bills and food prices. The energy crisis has already hit millions of Brits, but is set to hit more still. The UK is highly dependent on consumer spending to generate output, indicating the economy could still be in the mire heading into the spring. A wave of concern over the swelling cost of living is sweeping across Britain. While households are bracing for higher tax bills and are already being stung by food prices leaping, it is swelling energy costs that will hit hardest in...

President Biden said Friday massive wildfires like the one that swept across parts of Colorado last week are being fueled by global warming. "Because a combination of extreme drought – the driest period from June to December ever recorded – unusually high winds, no snow on the ground to start, created a tinderbox, a literal tinderbox," Biden said in Louisville, Colorado, after touring damage left behind from the fire with local and state officials and first lady Jill.

While EU member states provide financial support to poor households affected by rising energy bills, the European Commission is focusing on long term solutions like energy efficiency and renewables, which have the potential to “eradicate energy poverty” once and for all, an EU official dealing with the issue has said. Energy poverty is “a pre-existing problem” to the current energy price hike, which is linked to the inability of people to pay their fossil fuel bills, said Adela Tesarova, an official at the Commission’s energy department. “We want to avoid that decarbonisation makes this problem worse,” she told a EURACTIV...

Protesters with a group called "Occupy Biden" have spent the past week in President Biden's Delaware neighborhood calling on him to declare a "national climate emergency." According to a description for the protest, which took place near President Biden's residence in Delaware, the group said that "nonviolent action" is needed in order to push President Biden towards making changes to his climate policy. On Saturday, the final day of the group's protest, individuals protested on a road near the president's house while members of the Secret Service were nearby monitoring the group.

Germany on Friday shut down half of the six nuclear plants it still has in operation, a year before the country draws the final curtain on its decades-long use of atomic power. The decision to phase out nuclear power and shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy was first taken by the center-left government of Gerhard Schroeder in 2002. His successor, Angela Merkel, reversed her decision to extend the lifetime of Germany’s nuclear plants in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster in Japan and set 2022 as the final deadline for shutting them down. The three reactors now being...

Ever-growing environmental threats are pushing many animals and plants to the brink of extinction — the scale of which hasn’t been seen since dinosaurs died out, the German branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Wednesday. The stark warnings came as WWF Germany released its “Winners and Losers of 2021,” an annual list of animals whose existence is now acutely under threat — as well as conservation victories. There are currently 142,500 animal and plant species on the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) — 40,000 of which are “threatened with extinction.” It...

According to a recent report published by Green Car Congress, New York City is accelerating its already aggressive efforts to electrify its entire fleet of public vehicles. Not only will the city invest some $420 million in electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, and other alternative fuels, but it will also work to move to a fully electric fleet by 2035. The report notes that NYC had already set an earlier goal to go all-electric by 2040. That said, the new $420 million investment will be in addition to the previous $75 million in related investments the city just announced back in...

The eco-extremists at the liberal Guardian should realize by now that the internet is forever. The outlet freaked out over 17 years ago about a frosty future thanks to a ridiculously inaccurate Pentagon prediction. The Guardian published a report in 2004 sounding the alarm bells over a “secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs” and obtained by sister newspaper The Observer. Here was the harrowing message, according to The Guardian: “[M]ajor European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020.”

A bizarre new video of the globalist World Economic Forum is ordering citizens of western countries to cease washing their clothes in order to fight climate change, following the WEF’s commands that the populace of developed nations eat bugs and renounce all possessions in order to lower carbon emissions. The strange missive appeared on the WEF’s Twitter feed on Sunday morning. The World Economic Forum, chaired by infamous “Great Reset” architect Klaus Schwab, routinely insists that decreasing the quality of life of average citizens is the way forward to deter climate change and supposed catastrophe. Twitter users chimed in to...

The European Union’s executive Commission is considering whether to include nuclear and natural gas in its “sustainable finance taxonomy”, a rulebook that will restrict which activities can be labelled as climate-friendly investments. “We are going to have most likely a discussion tomorrow in college, which then will lead… to approval next year,” EU environment commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius told a news conference on Monday, referring to the Commission’s weekly “college” meeting.

The New York City Council voted earlier this week to ban new buildings from using natural gas, as the country experiences a notable spike in energy prices. The law will create the new restrictions that go into effect in 2023 and will primarily force newly constructed buildings to use electricity instead of gas. Americans are currently facing a nationwide rise in the cost of energy. Two months ago, the Biden administration's Energy Department said it expects heating costs to increase by as much as 54% over the the winter months. Despite rising costs, the new law is expected to raise...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a major step to fight climate change, the Biden administration is raising vehicle mileage standards to significantly reduce emissions of planet-warming greenhouse gases, reversing a Trump-era rollback that loosened fuel efficiency standards. A final rule issued Monday would raise mileage standards starting in the 2023 model year, reaching a projected industry-wide target of 40 miles per gallon by 2026. The new standard is 25% higher than a rule finalized by the Trump administration last year and 5% higher than a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency in August. “We are setting robust and rigorous standards that...