Free Republic

The constitutional challenge to the law’s requirement for people to buy health insurance — specifically, the argument that the mandate exceeds Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause — is rhetorically powerful but analytically so weak that it dissolves on close inspection. There’s just no there there.

Do the hot coals left over from a wood stove put in a metal bucket and left in my greenhouse give off CO2 or Carbon Monoxide or both? I do this to keep the temp above freezing - the greenhouse is not completely air-tight - due to my inept construction it cannot be :) - so there is some fresh air getting in. Will doing this kill my plants? I have done research but still am unclear.

It may not rank as the most compelling reason to curb greenhouse gases, but reducing our emissions might just save humanity from a pre-emptive alien attack, scientists claim. Watching from afar, extraterrestrial beings might view changes in Earth's atmosphere as symptomatic of a civilisation growing out of control – and take drastic action to keep us from becoming a more serious threat, the researchers explain. This highly speculative scenario is one of several described by a Nasa-affiliated scientist and colleagues at Pennsylvania State University that, while considered unlikely, they say could play out were humans and alien life to make...

WASHINGTON—Ushering in the largest decrease in auto fuel consumption since the 1970s, President Barack Obama and automobile manufacturers Friday announced a deal that will save drivers money at the pump and dramatically cut heat-trapping gases coming from tailpipes. The agreement pledges to double overall fuel economy to 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, bringing major under-the-hood changes for the nation's automobiles starting in model year 2017. Cars and trucks on the road today average 27 miles per gallon. "This agreement on fuel standards represents the single most important step we have taken as a nation to reduce our dependence on...

Chris Christie says global warming is real. It’s just the very man-made government programs to correct its effects that are bloated and flawed. The Republican New Jersey governor launched into an explanation Thursday for why he’s bowing out of a landmark regional cap-and-trade program for power plants, according to Politico, but he first strapped on his layman scientist’s cap to give a brief overview of what’s widely considered accepted climate science. His decision to leave the program, known as the RGGI, drew quick praise from conservative groups, including the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, that have long lobbied him to...

The Supreme Court signaled Tuesday that it would throw out a global warming lawsuit brought by California and five other states that seek limits on carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants in the South and Midwest. Encouraged by the solicitor general, the justices said regulating greenhouse gases should be left to the Environmental Protection Agency. The issue debated before the high court Tuesday was not whether greenhouse gases are causing global climate change, but who should regulate them. The decision involves politics, economics and science, the lawyers said. "It's a question of tradeoffs," said Peter Keisler, representing the power producers....

This Wednesday, the Senate is likely to vote on a measure from Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to stop the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases as pollutants. The vote will be among the most consequential of this decade...

Even while gas prices continue to go up and recent turmoil in Libya and the Middle East further threaten America's energy independence, the Obama Administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) keeps pursuing a policy agenda that will only make matters worse. Specifically, the EPA is trying to use the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases and essentially enact a backdoor cap and trade scheme. Congress never intended the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gases and doing so threatens to trigger new energy taxes, greatly slow America's still-recovering economy, and send more jobs overseas to China, India, and other countries....

House GOP Readies Ban on EPA Greenhouse Gas RegulationsPublished February 02, 2011 Associated Press WASHINGTON – In a sharp challenge to the Obama administration, House Republicans intend to unveil legislation Wednesday to ban the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and expect to advance the bill quickly, officials disclosed Tuesday night. The officials said the bill would nullify all of the steps the EPA has taken to date on the issue, including a threshold finding that greenhouse gases constitute a danger to the public health and welfare. In addition, it seeks to strip the...

One of the reasons I constantly ask those who believe in AGW what the “perfect temperature” for the world is and how we can achieve it is I understand that the only constant in the earth’s climate is change. The world’s climate has always been changing in various cycles since its formation. History shows us that we’ve had periods of more CO2 than now, warmer periods than now and neither of the events can be explained away by blaming man. How we got into this scared mode of screaming about gloom and doom if we don’t do something is both...

Big business is bracing for a series of Environmental Protection Agency regulations set to begin in January. The problem is, it doesn't really know what those regulations are going to be. Neither does the EPA, which has essentially punted that responsibility down to the states. Starting Jan. 2, owners of factories, utilities and the like must meet higher standards when they apply for EPA emissions permits. In green jargon, they will have to install the "best available control technology" to limit greenhouse gases before they can operate. Tough And Vague But the EPA has no standard for determining what is...

Bono in Tokyo in 2008: My prayer is that we become better in looking after our planet.And the Keen for Green group applauds: If your (sic) looking for an environmental role model, Irish rockstar, Bono (born Paul David Hewson, May 10, 1960), of the band U2 is a good place to start. Bono ... participated in a tree planting ceremony in Tokyo Bay, Japan, in 2008, where efforts are being taken to turn a landfill into an 88 hectare forest. Bono has also been active in the Greenpeace community since 1993 when his entire band participated in a protest against...

Climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr has noted that land surface temperature records (which comprise the vast majority of temperature records prior to the satellite era (1979-)) are unreliable due to land use changes and urban heat island effects, and that we should therefore look to ocean heat content changes as the most reliable metric for assessing global heating and cooling. The oceans cover 71% of the global surface area and hold at least 1000 times more heat than the atmosphere. Many have claimed that the 'missing heat' from 'anthropogenic global warming' has gone into the oceans, even though the heat...

While Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid desperately seeks a way to force a cap-and-trade energy bill through the Senate, folks in 10 northeastern states are getting a bitter taste of what such a program really means. In the case of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) that includes New Jersey New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware and Maryland, greed and secrecy appear to be the most dominant considerations. RGGI describes itself on its web site as “the first mandatory, market-based effort in the United States to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Ten Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states...

Eighteen months ago, Barack Obama took office pledging to deal with a “planet in peril.” His party held big majorities in Congress, and the House answered by passing a tough cap-and-trade bill. A massive climate conference in Copenhagen, with Obama at the center of the action, focused the world on the need to address global warming. Then came the nation’s worst-ever environmental disaster, an oil spill in the Gulf that put momentum behind environmentalists and scarred the image of big, polluting industries.

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India. About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana. On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping...

SÃO PAULO – In a heroic case of finding a silver lining in the bleakest of all situations, the European Union climate commissioner has concluded that the global economic crisis and recession actually provided a lucky break for everyone. Commissioner Connie Hedegaard says that the slowdown in economic activity will make it easier for the EU to achieve its 2020 goal of ensuring that greenhouse-gas emissions are 20% below their 1990 level. In fact, Hedegaard believes that cutting emissions has become so easy that European leaders should be more ambitious and unilaterally aim for a 30% reduction below the 1990...

The first trials of controversial sunshielding technology are being planned after the United Nations failed to secure agreement on cutting greenhouse gases. Bill Gates, the Microsoft billionaire, is funding research into machines to suck up ten tonnes of seawater every second and spray it upwards. This would seed vast banks of white clouds to reflect the Sun’s rays away from Earth.The British and American scientists involved do not intend to wait for international rules on technology that deliberately alters the climate. They believe that the weak outcome of December’s climate summit in Copenhagen means that emissions will continue to rise...

Rep. Tom McMillin, has introduced a resolution that would withdraw Michigan from the Midwestern Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord. Similar resolutions will be introduced by legislators in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Gov. Jennifer Granholm joined the governors of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, and Iowa and Kansas in signing the accord, which calls for a 20 percent reduction of CO2 emissions below 2005 levels by 2020 and would require extensive economic pain with little to no environmental gain. Significant CO2 emission reductions will lead to higher energy costs for both consumers and Michigan businesses, resulting in a loss of more jobs (particularly acute...

California voters will likely be asked in the November general election if the state's greenhouse gas law should be put on hold for rosier economic times.