Free Republic

The quintessential ice cream flavour is under threat, and many other dessert staples along with it, according to climate change researchers at the University of Costa Rica and Belgium's KU Leuven university. Increasing climate extremes are changing the habitats of wild vanilla species — primarily found in the tropical regions of Central America — and their mainly animal pollinators, the researchers say. This, in turn, is putting global production of vanilla at risk. In some regions, the plants may find more favourable conditions, but the insects that pollinate them may no longer find suitable habitats, according to the study published...

The Founding Fathers who gathered in Philadelphia to adopt the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776 picked a nice day to do their work. It was a Thursday, and the temperature at 6:00 a.m. was 68°F, going up to a warmish but still pleasant 76°F at 1:00 p.m., according to daily records kept by Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson. The planetary metabolism at the time was set more for such balmy days than it was for the increasingly suffocating summers we experience in the 21st century. It was in 1867 that scientists would first define the epoch that includes the late...

A new rite published by the Vatican on Thursday will allow priests to celebrate a Mass to exhort Catholics to exercise care for the Earth, in the latest push by the 1.4-billion-member global Church to address global climate change. For centuries, Catholic priests have been able to celebrate special Masses to pray for their country, give thanks after a harvest or ask God to end a natural disaster. The new "Mass for the care of creation," prepared by two Vatican offices, allows priests to pray that Catholics will "lovingly care" for creation and "learn to live in harmony with all...

A group of Environmental Protection Agency employees on Monday published a declaration of dissent from the agency’s policies under the Trump administration, saying they “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.” More than 170 EPA employees put their names to the document, with about 100 more signing anonymously out of fear of retaliation, according to Jeremy Berg, a former editor-in-chief of Science magazine who was among non-EPA scientists or academics to also sign. The latter figure includes 20 Nobel laureates. The letter represents rare public criticism from agency employees who could face blowback for speaking out...

Southern Europeans braced Saturday for the first heatwave of the northern hemisphere summer, as climate change pushes thermometers on the world's fastest-warming continent increasingly into the red. Temperatures are set to rise to 37 degrees Celsius (99 Fahrenheit) in Rome, driving the Eternal City's many tourists and Catholic pilgrims to the Vatican alike towards the Italian capital's 2,500 public fountains for refreshment. Scientists have long warned that humanity's burning of fossil fuels is heating up the world with disastrous consequences for the environment, with Europe's ever-hotter and increasingly common blistering summer heatwaves a direct result of that warming.

Joe Rogan had a big chat with Senator Bernie Sanders about climate change, and it got pretty spicy! Bernie told Joe that climate change is real and switching to things like wind and solar power could make lots of jobs. But Joe wasn’t having it. He pointed out that the Earth’s temperature has always gone up and down. There have been ice ages and hot times before.Joe even mentioned an article from The Washington Post saying that we might be in a cooling period now, contradicting Bernie’s idea that the last ten years were the hottest ever.Joe backed it up...

The education news outlet Chalkbeat recently highlighted a Denver, Colo. elementary school that’s teaching students as young as age 3 about environmental damage. Mental-health professionals praise their efforts, saying the lessons can help prevent “eco-anxiety,” a “chronic fear of environmental doom.” The mental-health industry’s logic is self-serving: Introduce kids to the idea of Earth’s demise, then step in to manage their worry. Climate catastrophism has come to the classroom — and, as one educator put it, it’s “scaring the kids to death.” Human beings aren’t born aware of our supposed environmental crisis. The fear of climate change — and therapists’...

Issues & Insights "Carbon dioxide, we’ve been told over and again, is the enemy that must be subdued if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming. It is, however, a faulty premise. Physics, not politics, tells us that man’s CO2 emissions will not cause catastrophic climate change nor an increase in extreme weather. “The common belief that CO2 is the main driver of climate change and the EPA Endangerment Finding assertion that ‘elevated concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may reasonably be anticipated’ to endanger the public health and welfare are scientifically false,” conclude the authors of a new...

.. Meanwhile, recent reports describe the discovery of four mysterious black sarcophagi beneath Antarctica’s. These artifacts, unearthed by an international team of scientists from the United States, Russia, China, and India, have sparked widespread intrigue and speculation due to their unknown origins and design. According to Baku.ws, the discovery of the black sarcophagi is unlike any other found in Antarctica. These objects were not just typical archaeological artifacts; they appeared to have an advanced design, one that did not fit with any known human history. Upon opening one of the sarcophagi, the scientists encountered an even more puzzling find. Inside...

TEHRAN, Jun. 13 (MNA) – Iran has reportedly taken captive a female Israeli fighter jet pilot. Iranian air defenses have shot down two Israeli fighter jets. The female pilot of one of the jets has been taken captive, according to the reports released by Tasnim.

Scientists have announced a new discovery of an underground city beneath the Egyptian pyramids. The announcement comes just months after the first reports of an underground city beneath Khafre’s pyramid, reports Metro. The latest finds, said to be located beneath the Pyramid of Menkaure, suggest the existence of a large underground complex that may connect all three pyramids at Giza. A team of researchers led by Italian scientist Filippo Biondi previously announced the discovery of columnar structures beneath the Pyramid of Khafre. According to Biondi, tomographic scans now reveal a similar structure beneath the Pyramid of Menkaure. Researchers suggest that...

At the moment, as a particularly depressing and financially insolvent “Pride Month” continues to trudge along, there is no greater illustration of this phenomenon than the so-called LGBT movement. These activists understand that they’ve been discredited. All of their narratives about alleged hate crimes — from Matthew Shepard onward — have collapsed under the slightest scrutiny. All of their claims about not having “equal rights” and “just wanting to live their own lives without bothering anyone” have fallen apart as well. That’s why “Pride Month” is dying. And in response, rather than engage in any introspection, LGBT activists have predictably...

WASHINGTON (AP) — With predictions for a busy hurricane season beginning Sunday, experts in storms and disasters are worried about something potentially as chaotic as the swirling winds: Massive cuts to the federal system that forecasts, tracks and responds to hurricanes. Experts are alarmed over the large-scale staff reductions, travel and training restrictions and grant cut-offs since President Donald Trump took office at both the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which prepares for and responds to hurricanes, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which tracks and forecasts them. “My nightmare is a major catastrophic storm hitting an area that is...

New Delhi (AFP) – The airline industry's flagship goal of decarbonising by 2050 is now "in peril" due to climate-sceptic policies, including those of US President Donald Trump, the leading airline association IATA warned on Sunday. The emergence of leaders favouring fossil fuels and recent regulatory rollbacks are "obviously a setback... it does imperil success on the 2050 horizon", Marie Owens Thomsen, the International Air Transport Association's senior vice president for sustainability, told reporters. "But I don't think it's going to halt or reverse progress. I think it will just slow progress," she said at the IATA annual industry conference...

A black radio host convicted of staging burning cross to help sway the election testifies that mayor was in on it. A black media personality was convicted last week of faking a hate crime against Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade to gin up votes for him, with the ringleader Derrick Bernard testifying that Mobolade was in on the hoax, and the FBI testifying that the mayor misled agents about his contact with Bernard. Mobolade, who is Nigerian, won the election as a left-leaning independent in the traditional Republican stronghold in 2023 after the n-word was scrawled on one of his...

A Colorado couple who burned a cross in front of a black mayoral candidate’s campaign sign to generate voter sympathy was convicted Friday of conveying false information about a threat. Prosecutors argued that although Ashley Blackcloud, who is indigenous and Black, and Derrick Bernard, who is Black, orchestrated and broadcast the hoax to aid the candidate, their actions still amounted to a criminal threat. The cross burning happened in 2023 during the run-up to the mayoral election in Colorado Springs, the state’s second-largest city. Images and video of the episode were emailed to local news outlets to boost the campaign...

The United Nations warned Wednesday there is a 70 percent chance that average warming from 2025 to 2029 will exceed the 1.5 degrees Celsius international benchmark. The planet is therefore expected to remain at historic levels of warming after the two hottest years ever recorded in 2023 and 2024, according to an annual climate report published by the World Meteorological Organization, the UN's weather and climate agency. "We have just experienced the 10 warmest years on record," said the WMO's deputy secretary-general Ko Barrett. "Unfortunately, this WMO report provides no sign of respite over the coming years, and this means...

The man accused of staging a hate crime to garner support for Yemi Mobolade during his 2023 mayoral campaign shared shocking testimony during a federal trial on Thursday, claiming Mobolade not only knew of the plan but that a state representative was also in on it. Derrick Bernard and his partner Ashley Blackcloud have been on trial this week at the federal courthouse in downtown Denver. They are accused of burning a wooden cross in front of a Yemi Mobolade campaign sign, defaced with the N-word slur, in order to gain sympathy for the man trying to become the first-elected...

If it seems like allergy season is getting worse and longer every year, you aren't mistaken. Eighty-one million Americans suffer from allergies, and 87% of people living in cities say the allergy season is getting longer. "As climate change progresses — the temperature keep increasing and the CO2 in the air — the prediction is, allergy season will keep getting worse”, said Mary Margaret Johnson, principal research scientist at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. For those who have allergies, Johnson recommends wearing a mask outdoors to reduce the amount of pollen that you take into your body...

BURLINGTON, Vt. - Vermont’s consumers are not buying electric vehicles as fast as the state’s rules require, according to data collected by the Vermont Vehicle Distributors Association. “We’re between a rock and a hard place, quite frankly,” says Vermont Vehicle and Automotive Distributors Association representative, Matt Cota To meet goals in Vermont’s Global Warming Solutions Act, the Agency of Natural Resources set standards for the number of electric vehicles that should be on the road by 2035. “We’re showing exponential growth, but we’re not showing the type of growth as required by law. The law requires 35%, we’re only at...