Free Republic

I was disappointed upon seeing a Global Warming “science” pitch recently published in Politico. Cold shoulder for climate change was written by sports writer turned outdoors, travel and entertainment reporter turned environmental journalist Darren Samuelsohn. I won't pick apart details of the entire article. It's based on the old propaganda template: warmers are scientists, skeptics are right-wing ideologues. No mention of the much larger number of professional scientists and engineers who have gone from skeptical to calling the whole thing a fraud. In Samuelsohn's world, warmers and their climate theories have been “exonerated” and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on...

President Obama called out Capitol Hill’s “climate change deniers” Wednesday night at a Democratic fundraiser in California. Obama, speaking at a San Francisco event for donors, called rising gasoline prices an economic drain on drivers and said curbing oil reliance is a “national security imperative.” “And then there’s the environmental aspect of it. There are climate change deniers in Congress and when the economy gets tough, sometimes environmental issues drop from people’s radar screens,” Obama continued, speaking at the home of Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. “But I don’t think there’s any doubt that unless we are able to move forward...

Urgent efforts to avert a government shutdown at midnight faltered yesterday over Republican initiatives to freeze climate rules, a challenge to the president's environmental priorities at the outset of his re-election bid. [Snip] ...Although Democrats highlight just two Republican obstacles to an agreement -- riders on EPA and abortion -- those challenges can include multiple provisions. Republicans say that all 68 amendments attached to their budget-cutting bill, H.R. 1, passed in February are in play during the deadline negotiations. The riders scissor funding from an array of programs, but the emphasis is on EPA regulations and environmental policies. [Snip] Nineteen...

The Senate rejected a GOP-backed amendment Wednesday that would have permanently blocked the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. The amendment did not reach the 60 votes necessary for passage. The final vote count was 50-50. Notably, the amendment did not receive enough votes for Republicans to be able to say that the majority of the Senate wants to block EPA climate rules, as they had hoped. But Republicans quickly noted that a majority of senators, 64 in total, voted for one of four amendments to block or limit EPA climate regulations. The amendment won the support of...

In case there was any doubt, the White House on Tuesday issued a formal statement opposing a bill now before the House that would bar the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases for the purpose of combating climate change. The bill, known as the Energy Tax Prevention Act of 2011, could come up for a vote as early as Wednesday and is almost certain to pass when it does. It has virtually unanimous support among the Republican majority and will probably draw votes from a few Democrats from coal and oil producing states. The measure, sponsored by Representatives Fred...

Professor Bob Carter writes:A rather remarkable thing happened in Australia last week, which was the leaking of an internal government document issued to all Labor MPs (probably from the PM Gillard’s office) with 16 pages of suggestions as to how members of the government might best sell the idea of a carbon dioxide tax to the public. Many of the sound-bites and slogans suggested in the paper have already been in common currency for many months.I attach a copy of the strategy paper, and also of a critique that I have made of it with Alan Moran and David Evans....

This is not a parody. Treehugger, oft-quoted by lefty journalists, really believes that today’s earthquake in Japan was caused by global warming. From Treehugger: I know headlines like that might just make most folks roll their eyes at this point — I mean, what doesn’t climate change cause these days, am I right? And I realize that people are skeptical of news-cycle tie-ins, like this very story appears to be. But just because it’s sort of depressing to keep tabs on all of the myriad impacts of ol’ climate change occurring the world over, doesn’t mean we should be glossing...

(CNSNews.com) – At a time when congressional Republicans are looking for ways to reduce U.S. funding to the United Nations, the Obama administration has formalized its membership in a new international body – and American taxpayers will provide more than one-fifth of its budget. The administration on Friday deposited its instrument of acceptance to join the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), State Department spokesman Philip Crowley announced. After joining in June 2009, the U.S. now becomes the 63rd fully ratified member of IRENA, a European-inspired initiative set up in 2009 to promote renewable forms of energy such as wind and solar...

SEC Charges Seven in Global Warming Pump-and-Dump Scheme FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2011-46 Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 2011 — The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a group of seven individuals who perpetrated a fraudulent pump-and-dump scheme in the stock of a sham company that purported to provide products and services to fight global warming. Additional Materials * Litigation Release No. 21862 * SEC Complaint The SEC alleges that the group included stock promoters, traders, and a lawyer who wrote a fraudulent opinion letter. The scheme resulted in more than $7 million in illicit profits from sales of stock in CO2...

A government spending bill authored by House Republicans that would block funding for the Environmental Protection Agency's pending climate rules is "irresponsible and reckless," a "preliminary analysis" of the legislation being circulated by the administration says. "The impacts of some language would be far wider than they intend," the analysis, obtained by The Hill from a source in the administration, says. The analysis represents an initial effort by the administration to push back against the legislation, which would cut spending by $100 billion when compared to President Obama's 2011 budget request. The bill would also cut the EPA's budget by...

Republican Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming introduced legislation Monday afternoon that would prohibit federal agencies from regulating greenhouse gases without a direct mandate from Congress. The Defending America’s Affordable Energy and Jobs Act seeks to stop bureaucracies from unilaterally passing economically unsound regulations for the sole purpose of addressing climate change. It has seven co-sponsors, including Republican Sens. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, James Inhofe of Oklahoma and John Thune of South Dakota. “It’s time for the administration to face the facts: Americans rejected cap and trade because they know it means higher energy prices and lost jobs,” said Barrasso in...

Based on the most current data it appears that 2010 is going to show the largest drop in global sea level ever recorded in the modern era. Since many followers of global warming believe that the rate of sea level rise is increasing, a significant drop in the global sea level highlights serious flaws in the IPCC projections. The oceans are truly the best indicator of climate. The oceans drive the world’s weather patterns. A drop in the ocean levels in a year that is being cited as proof that the global warming has arrived shows that there is still...

Today, Virginia taxpayers, a state lawmaker and a public interest law firm are asking the University of Virginia to produce important "global warming" records under that state's Freedom of Information Act. These are records the school no longer denies possessing but nonetheless refuses to release, even to Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. They address one of the most high-profile claims used to advance massive economic-intervention policies in the name of "global warming." In response to a previous FOIA request, U.Va. denied these records existed. However, during Cuccinelli's pre-investigation under the Virginia Fraud Against Taxpayers Act ("FATA"), a 2007 law passed unanimously...

During a congressional hearing in March 2009, manmade global warming skeptic Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.) referred to God's promise in the the book of Genesis to never again flood the entire Earth as one reason why he is dismissive of global warming alarmists. "The earth will end only when God declares its time to be over. Man will not destroy this earth. This earth will not be destroyed by a flood," Shimkus insisted, after quoting from Genesis 8:22. Ever since then, the media have gone back from time to time to scoff at Shimkus's statement, citing his religious beliefs as...

Immediately after chances for carbon cap-and-tax legislation were swept away by a Nov. 2 Republican House cleaning, the Obama administration proceeded with its Plan B. At a time when Congress was recessed for the Thanksgiving holiday and the president was ceremoniously pardoning two white turkeys, the Environmental Protection Agency served up American industries a fowl of far darker feathering--a gobbler of regulatory control. That turkey, called the "PSD and Title V Permitting Guidance for Greenhouse Gasses," came stuffed with constitutionally dubious prerogatives that extend the EPA's influence over a vast swathe of industrial sectors. The 100-page proposal was issued for...

By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of ClimateWire NEW YORK -- New York state is beginning to take the threat of sea level rise attributed to climate change seriously as a new government prepares to settle in next year. Starting Monday, state officials in Albany will gather with members of the public to discuss a recently released 93-page report that recommends major changes to development planning and conservation along coastlines from the tip of Long Island all way up the Hudson River Valley. Any reforms to come from the process, starting next week, would affect about 62 percent of New York state's population,...

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie says he's skeptical that humans are responsible for global warming. [Snip] Asked by a man attending the event whether he thought mankind was responsible for global warming, Christie says he's seen evidence on both sides of the argument but thinks it hasn't been proven one way or another.

Harold Lewis, an Emeritus Professor of Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara, has resigned from the American Physical Society as a result of the “global warming scam” which he says is the “greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud” he has seen in his time as a physicist. Lewis wrote within his letter of resignation: How different it is now. The giants no longer walk the earth, and the money flood has become the raison d’être of much physics research, the vital sustenance of much more, and it provides the support for untold numbers of professional jobs. For reasons...

Discovery of a series of embarrassing errors in its work. A review of the practices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been conducted in response to intense criticism of the body, whose reports are used by governments to inform policy decisions on global warming. Conducted by a committee of representatives from the world's leading scientific bodies, the analysis is expected to recommend a number of changes to the way the IPCC compiles and checks its extensive 1,000 page reports. The committee, which is made up of scientific organisations that form the InterAcademy Council, is also expected to...

From the Jet Propulsion Lab: NASA/NOAA Study Finds El Niños are Growing Stronger Deviations from normal sea surface temperatures (left) and sea surface heights (right) at the peak of the 2009-2010 central Pacific El Niño, as measured by NOAA polar orbiting satellites and NASA's Jason-1 spacecraft, respectively. The warmest temperatures and highest sea levels were located in the central equatorial Pacific. Image credit: NASA/JPL-NOAA - Click for a larger image A relatively new type of El Niño, which has its warmest waters in the central-equatorial Pacific Ocean, rather than in the eastern-equatorial Pacific, is becoming more common and progressively stronger,...