Free Republic

Leftists love to throw around the word “fascist,” although half the time they don’t appear to even know what it means. Usually, it’s just a way of insulting someone unenlightened enough to disagree with them. At best, they’re calling the person a big meanie, an authoritarian. But that’s not exactly (or at least not entirely) what a “fascist” is. Perhaps, for our leftist friends, a brief primer is in order. Fascism is a political and economic system that arose in Europe following World War I. It has three primary characteristics: extreme nationalism, authoritarianism, and a state-run economy. Indeed, in terms...

The election of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and their ultra-progressive cabinet will hasten the death of the internal combustion engine in the United States, despite the nearly even party split in the House and Senate. They will just take their narrow victory as a license to implement all manner of decisions in the name of saving the planet. Or so we’re told. And maybe they’re right. President-elect Biden has promised his $2-trillion “climate change” plan will include “rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring that 100% of new sales for light- and medium-duty vehicles will be zero emission vehicles...

With the green new deal and God only knows what else the dems will do, I can't imagine how EVERY petroleum product wont get hammered with big taxes. They could very likely hit all fracking companies, heck the whole industry, with some kind of environmental tax. I see income tax both state and federal getting hit hard too. A Covid fund tax?

The greenies have a new battle in the "war on climate change." They want to rid the world of sea walls. Sea walls are barriers that property owners put on the waterside of the beach to protect their property from encroaching waves. According to the environmentalists, though, sea walls exacerbate the way anthropogenic climate change and the resulting rise of the sea destroy beachfront property. I'm sure this a fine theory, except for the part about anthropogenic climate change causing the sea to rise.In fact, as this article from Watts Up With That explains with tremendous clarity, any sea level...

In light of the strong probability that a Biden administration will soon take office in the White House, Americans must prepare for the cold reality that one of Joe Biden’s foremost objectives will be to fulfill his party’s pledge to “decarbonize the power sector” by implementing “all zero-carbon technologies.” Toward that end, the Democrats will seek to enact a “Green New Deal,” the highly prized centerpiece of their environmental agenda. What, exactly, will that mean for the everyday lives of Americans. The origins of the term “Green New Deal” — an idea founded on the premise that the greenhouse...

The sun has begun a new 11-year cycle, and scientists have very different ideas on just how much energy will be available to fuel its eruptions. The consensus view of an international panel of 12 scientists calls for the new cycle, Solar Cycle 25, to be small to average, much like its predecessor, Solar Cycle 24. Scott McIntosh, foresees the sun going gangbusters. The cycle is already off to a fast start, coinciding with the recent publication of McIntosh's paper in Solar Physics. The study, with contributions from several of his colleagues, forecasts the nascent sunspot cycle to become one...

Pugmarks of a Royal Bengal Tiger have been found in the snow at an altitude of 10,000 feet in the Himalayas near Jelepla in eastern Sikkim after a gap of nearly 18 years, officials said. Officials called it a rare discovery, since tigers are usually found in the plains and almost never above 6,000 feet. The latest pugmarks were photographed March 27 in the Ganek-Lungto area in eastern Sikkim, Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife) Karma Legshey said. Tiger pugmarks were last officially recorded at this altitude in Sikkim some 18 years ago, by then divisional forest officer Tshesum Lachungpa. Legshey said...

WASHINGTON — The architects of a newly unveiled 10-year, $600 billion climate plan to revitalize Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley region are moving forward with a difficult task of building political willpower in Washington while gaining the trust of rural communities tied to the coal and natural gas industries, Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto told a group of sustainable development advocates Tuesday. That coalition-building — a communications strategy to be forged over the next six weeks among academic institutions in Pittsburgh and seven other cities — is a critical step toward executing the plan Mr. Peduto described as both idealistic...

No matter what former Vice President Joe “I am the Democratic Party” Biden says, the Green New Deal (“TGND”) is fully incorporated into the Democrats’ platform. As the disgustingly fraudulent and evil 2020 election process has shown, when a frontal assault won’t do the trick, the Democrats will break their mission into a thousand pieces and attack from every angle. Conservatives in Congress must be prepared for this and stop Democrats from implementing TGND everywhere it shows up (most recently in racial reparations legislation).When The Honorable Alexandria O’Sock Puppet Cortez (D – Economics, Boston University, Cum Laude, AYKM?) put forth...

Much to the chagrin of radical environmentalists and legacy media, President Donald Trump’s Department of Interior (DOI) largely succeeded in promoting true conservation policies. Since 2017, the department gave sportsmen and women— the largest drivers of conservation funding— a bigger seat at the table, bolstered relations with landowners out West and strengthened the multiple-use, sustained yield philosophy guiding public lands management. Post-Trump, DOI could morph into a preservationist, climate-focused agency largely mirroring the House Natural Resources Committee under Chairman Raul Grijalva (D-AZ). This should concern the millions of true conservationists across America. Who will succeed Secretary David Bernhardt come January,...

Geneva (AFP) - Climate change has become the biggest threat to UN-listed natural world heritage sites like glaciers and wetlands, and has pushed Australia's Great Barrier Reef into "critical" condition, conservationists said Wednesday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) revealed in a new report that shifts due to the changing climate now imperil a full third of the 252 UNESCO-listed natural sites around the globe. Overall, 94 of the sites are facing significant or critical risk from a wide range of factors -- including tourism, hunting, fire and water pollution -- marking an increase from the 62 listed...

We have all heard on the media and on TV that solar and wind electrical energy is getting cheaper, and often much cheaper than that generated by coal, gas, oil, or nuclear. Here are some recent article titles: "Solar and wind costs continue to fall as power becomes cleaner," Forbes, April 30, 2020 "Solar power will cost less than coal, Bloomberg Green, June 2, 2020; Solar and wind power will cost less than coal by 2030 according to one analyst's math," Barrons, Energy Features, Nov 25, 2019 However, there are enormous scientific, technical, and economic barriers that these "new" energy...

EU member states Hungary and Poland have followed through on their threat to block the continental power bloc’s seven-year budget, after Brussels attempted to push it through with conditions the populist nations said were akin to “political enslavement”. European Union rules mean that many significant decisions — including whether to approve the bloc’s seven-yearly funding programs — must be taken unanimously, with any single member state able to veto decisions. This safeguard was triggered on Monday by conservative-led Hungary and Poland, who blocked the progress of the €1.8 trillion (£1.6 trillion, $2.1 trillion) ‘Multi annual Financial Framework’ (MFF) as an...

ohn Pavlovitz, who pastors North Raleigh Community Church in North Carolina, writes a heartfelt letter to white evangelicals: Dear White Evangelicals, I need to tell you something: People have had it with you. They’re done. They want nothing to do with you any longer, and here’s why: They see your hypocrisy, your inconsistency, your incredibly selective mercy, and your thinly veiled supremacy. For eight years they watched you relentlessly demonize a black President; a man faithfully married for 26 years; a doting father and husband without a hint of moral scandal or the slightest whiff of infidelity. They watched you...

NASA, ESA, J. Hester, A. Loll (ASU) ===================================================================== Supernovas may have affected the Earth’s climate in the last 40,000 years. Tree-ring data suggests supernovas caused spikes in radiocarbon. Could the next nearby supernova cause a collapse of civilization? ====================================================================== Dendrochronology is a fancy word for tree-ring dating, where the age of a tree can be determined by the number of growth rings across its trunk. But there’s a lot more to learn from looking at a tree’s rings than simply its age. Like fingerprints, tree rings give scientists clues to what the world was like when a tree was alive....

On Thursday, a new study came out warning that even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide, the world has reached the “point of no return” for climate change. The paper claims that’s because Arctic permafrost—carbon-rich, permanently frozen earth made of rocks, water, and dead wildlife—is melting irreversibly, and it could continue to heat the planet for centuries by releasing carbon dioxide. Terrifying, right? The only solution, the authors indicate, is to suck carbon out of the air with carbon capture, which is yet unproven to work at scale, or to employ even more dangerous geoengineering technologies. The study’s results and...

Joe Biden will offer his post-pandemic economic plan on Monday as the stock market rose with the news of another potential COVID vaccine and President Donald Trump continues to insist he won the election. Biden and running mate Kamala Harris will speak on their plan to revive the pandemic-battered U.S. economy as stocked soared after drugmaker Moderna said its COVID-19 vaccine is 94.5 percent effective based on preliminary data. His remarks come as talks are stalled between the Trump White House and Democrats on Capitol Hill about another COVID relief package and several states have started to institute new restrictions...

The remains of a giant, ancient lake have been discovered under Greenland, buried deep below the ice sheet in the northwest of the country and estimated to be hundreds of thousands of years old, if not millions, scientists say. The huge 'fossil lake bed' is a phenomenon the likes of which scientists haven't seen before in this part of the world... Last year, scientists reported the discovery of over 50 subglacial lakes beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet: bodies of thawed liquid water trapped between bedrock and the ice sheet overhead. The new find is of a different nature: an ancient...

For a party that believes they got a House majority and a president elected, the Democrats are in total disarray. They were expected to do better. They thought they’d do better. The media was telling them they’d do better. Pollsters were telling them they’d do better. The voters said otherwise. Instead of walking away with the presidency, the Senate, and an increase in their majority in the House, Democrats came up short. Republicans have won at least five additional seats in the House and are leading in three others that Democratic incumbents are trying to defend. Republicans were projected to...

First Energy, one of the region’s most prominent energy suppliers, today announced a pledge to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. The company also set an interim goal of 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gases within the company’s direct operational control by 2030, based on 2019 levels. First Energy is a major source for power customers in West Virginia through Monongahela Power Company, commonly called Mon Power, and Potomac Edison Company. There are 986,800 people in First Energy’s service territory in West Virginia. Electric power is provided to FirstEnergy’s West Virginia service area by: Potomac Edison Company Monongahela Power Company (Mon...