Free Republic

Two European Union member countries held elections this past weekend and the results are just beginning to come into focus. From my cynical viewpoint, they look pretty darn good. First up were regional elections in Germany. I’ve tried to keep you all up on the general deep sense of dissatisfaction with the way Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Green coalition has been forcing German citizens and their economy into NetZero naught land. These regional contests in two of the bigger, wealthier states in the country – Bavaria and Hesse – were going to be a prime test for how the wind might...

Why is it that greens want everyone to drive electric cars but don’t want people to have electricity? Or, it seems, the cars ... Fossil and nuclear plants are being taken offline (bye, Indian Point!) while their replacement with “renewables” like wind and solar lags and often fails to produce power when it’s most needed. Nothing has improved on that front. But the thing about electric cars is that they don’t just need electricity, they also need batteries to store it in. And electric motors. That’s awkward because those cars and batteries require lots of copper and other metals, plus...

Joana Partyk declined to give full access to her electronic devices after they were seized by police in a raid in FebruaryAn artist who defaced one of Australia’s most famous paintings during a gas company protest will fight a counter-terrorism charge over access to her electronic devices, labelling it “state-sanctioned overreach”. Joana Veronika Partyka, 37, pleaded not guilty on Monday in the Perth magistrates court to one count of failing to obey a data access order after she declined to cooperate with authorities. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Her...

The green energy group behind a study cited in Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.'s call to ban gas stoves has partnered with the Chinese government to implement an "economy-wide transformation" away from oil and gas. Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, which published the December study that attributes 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, is hardly staffed by an objective group of scientists. The organization is demanding "systemic change and economy-wide transformation" to address a climate crisis it says we must go to great lengths to avoid. In 2013, for example, the Rocky Mountain Institute...

'European democracy is under attack': Roberta Metsola addresses EU Parliament corruption scandal By Euronews • Updated: 13/12/2022 - 11:31 Roberta Metsola address the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg, France. Roberta Metsola address the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg, France. - Copyright Philippe BUISSIN/ European Union 2022 - Source : EP Roberta Metsola, the President of the European Parliament, warned on Monday that there would be "no impunity" for those found guilty of corruption as she addressed what is perhaps the gravest graft scandal to hit the hemicycle in recent years. "Make no mistake, the European Parliament, dear colleague, is under...

Despite months of enormous and widespread protests from Dutch farmers, the Dutch government will be confiscating 3,000 farms and closing them down in the interests of complying with EU environmental rules to decrease nitrogen emissions by 50% by 2030.Of course, this means 3,000 farms' worth of food production will be eliminated. The Netherlands is the world's second-largest exporter of agricultural products and provides vegetables for much of Western Europe. Over half of Dutch land is used for agriculture, and that doesn't count 24,000 acres' worth of crops growing in greenhouses. What does the Dutch government think will happen to the...

Doesn’t this headline say it all about whose priorities are what?Energy crisis sparks air pollution fearsIn the environmentally conscious, Green-centric world where the Brussels commissioners live, their focus is on the air you breathe, not the mean temperature as you take that breath. Granted, it might be partially their fault – okay, mostly their fault – that the ambient air inside your humble cottage is a…tad cooler than it was last winter for the now 6, 8, or even 10 times as many Euros to make it so……As the Continent scrambles to avert a full-scale energy crisis, efforts to stay...

The “Kill Keystone XL” crowd isn’t little David up against a Big Oil Goliath. As usual, conventional wisdom isn’t wisdom when the mainstream media ask all the wrong questions with commensurate answers. Behemoth Big Green outstrips Big Oil in expendable revenue by orders of magnitude — if you know how to follow the money. The mainstream media don’t know how. Like most liberals, their staffs are afflicted with what 20th century futurist Herman Kahn called “Educated Incapacity” — the learned inability to understand or even perceive a problem, much less a solution. They’ve been taught to be blind, unable to...

Former Secretary of State James Baker on Tuesday paid tribute to former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who died at 91 earlier in the day, calling the former world leader a “giant who steered his great nation toward democracy.” In a statement published through his eponymous Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, Baker applauded Gorbachev’s role in ending the 40-year Cold War between Russia and the U.S., referring to him as an “honest broker” who stood by his word despite experiencing pressure from Moscow. Baker served as the secretary of State in the George H.W. Bush administration from 1989...

Germany's Catholic environmental Bishop, Rolf Lohmann takes a sceptical view of the debate on extending the operating lives of German nuclear power plants. In perspective, he said, it is ethically imperative to "phase out sooner rather than later, as nuclear energy remains a risky technology." Lohmann praised climate strike actions. Germany's Catholic environmental Bishop Rolf Lohmann takes a sceptical view of the debate on extending the operating life of German nuclear power plants. It is true that "it would be wrong to categorically rule out this measure in an emergency", the auxiliary bishop from Xanten told the weekly newspapers "Neue...

Many consumers are committed to organic products for reasons that are more emotional than logical. They frequently define their purchasing choices in terms of what they consider to be “wholesome and natural,” which often translates to the absence of “synthetic” inputs such as fertilizer and pesticides. For some, the prohibition on “genetically modified” crops (however they might be defined) is another consideration. Sometimes, they assume that in some vague way, organic agricultural practices are better for the planet. In short, on their dinner table they want something like the farm of the idealized “Old McDonald” children’s tune that many of...

Electrifying most energy demand in order to replace fossil fuels with carbon-free sources of power like wind and solar is widely seen as necessary to prevent catastrophic climate change, but it comes with a significant side effect: using much more land to produce electricity. A team of researchers hailing from the University of Michigan, UC-Santa Barbara, UC-Berkeley, and the Breakthough Institute reported the finding last week in the journal PLoS ONE.... "Renewable energy sources like ground-mounted photovoltaics, concentrated solar power, and wind feature prominently in many decarbonization scenarios, but since they can have higher land use intensity than fossil fuels,...

Australia survived booms and busts, two World Wars, and the Great Depression only to run aground on pure ridiculousness. There is an ominous buzz in the new Australian Parliament — Albo and the Greens are planning to pass 40 new bills, quick smart. Each bill will probably need 100 new regulations and 200 new inspectors, auditors, and enforcers plus many new taxes and fees. They will not deliver "Net Zero" — they are "Net Negative." They will divert labor and capital from productive activities to bureaucracies and green energy speculators. Where are the 40 old bills that Green-Albo will repeal...

The climate advocates who cheered President Joe Biden’s arrival at the White House last year are preparing to give up on Washington. Instead, environmentalists and many of their Democratic allies are starting to shift their focus to state capitals as the places to press for action on climate change - going back to a strategy that they employed with some success during the Trump era. The flight from D.C. is in large part a response to 18 months of frustration with major setbacks to Biden’s climate agenda, capped by Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling that hobbled the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority...

The data shows that there were 4,082,478,000 barrels of crude oil produced in 2021, an amount that is greater than any time in American history, except 2020 and the peak in 2019. 2017: 3,415,257,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2018: 3,993,288,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2019: 4,485,635,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2020: 4,129,563,000 Barrels of Crude Oil2021: 4,082,478,000 Barrels of Crude Oil (https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/united-states-produces-more-oil-than-any-other-country-fact-check-russia-impact-on-gas-prices/65-7814c6e2-5437-4201-b021-face477e5462) Despite this drop from 2019's peak, the levels of production in 2021 were unmatched globally. "The United States is the number one oil producer in the world," Weiner said. "We produce more oil and gas than any other country in the...

On Saturday afternoon, 18-year old Payton Gendron allegedly shot several people, killing 10 at a Tops Friendly Market located in a predominantly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. He has been arrested and arraigned on 10 first-degree murder charges. Trends over Twitter to do with Gendron's motives included "Great Replacement" and "Tucker Carlson," as some took to blaming the Fox News host for the shooting. It's worth emphasizing, though, that the suspect's own manifesto not only included no mentions of Carlson, but attacked 21st Century Fox for hiring Jewish people. The suspect expressed many anti-Semitic views, from what screenshots and...

Anti-nuke, anti-war, pro-planet: These are tough days for Germany's Greens, who have long stood for disarmament and renewable energy. Now governing in a crisis, they find themselves needing to go the opposite way. It's not easy being Green. No one feels that these days quite like Robert Habeck, the environmentalist party's former co-chief. Now, as Germany's economic affairs and climate action minister, he oversees weapons exports and works to secure energy supply for the country. That was before inflation and energy prices, both already reaching all-time highs, bounced even higher as a result of the war and the West's dramatic...

Germany’s addiction to Russian gas has come to backfire on the European state, with one minister saying that the country is now suffering ‘in the most brutal way’ thanks to the policymaking of previous administrations. Annalena Baerbock, a senior member of Germany’s Green party who is now serving as the country’s Federal Foreign Minister, has said that her nation is now suffering “in the most brutal way” as a result of its addiction to Russian gas. Baerbock’s comments come as German authorities prepare for Russia to cease its supply of gas to the country, after the G7 nation outright refused...

As an American 501(c)(3) foundation, Sea Change must disclose what funds it received from the Bahamas, but a Bahamian company or trust is not required to disclose the source of its funds. The Banks and Johnson letter states that: “According to Sea Change’s tax filings, in 2010 the group received $23 million, half of its annual contributions, from a Bahamian shell corporation linked to the Russian government. Sea Change then passed that money on to groups like the Sierra Club and the Center for American Progress that lobbied politically against fracking (…) In 2020, the Center for American Progress donated...

"Investigative journalists doing their jobs should dig deep, into Pelosi's role in the controversial, $280-million, federal-funded Hunters Point Shipyard affair - in relation to her alleged role as an investor in a real estate investment called PRESIDIO PARTNERS. Look past the fact that the 936-acre site, of which about 443 acres are not polluted - Hunter Point is the largest tract of undeveloped land in San Francisco. Roll Call stated that in early 2004, Murtha “reportedly leaned on U.S. Navy officials to sign a contract to transfer the Hunters Point Shipyard to the City of San Francisco” and that “Laurence...