Free Republic

How much of the past year was about the actual coronavirus rather than a political weapon to damage President Trump and remove him from office? The answer is obvious. How much of the past year was about the actual coronavirus rather than a political weapon to damage President Trump and remove him from office? The answer is obvious. We have had viral pandemics before, including a seasonal influenza, without mask mandates, social distancing, business closures, travel restrictions, and hysterical media coverage. Much of the hair-on-fire reporting is over cases and deaths. As I have previously written, a positive test is...

Paris (AFP) - A Paris court will begin hearing a complaint brought by NGOs backed by two million citizens on Thursday accusing the French state of failing to act to halt climate change. The NGOs want to the court to hold the state responsible for ecological damage and say victory would mark a symbolic step in the fight to persuade governments to do more. An international accord signed in Paris five years ago aims to limit global warming to less than 2 degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels, and preferably to 1.5 degrees. The French case is part of a mounting...

There were a number of lessons to be learned from the DC events. Has anyone taken them to heart? What a day! Or, rather, what media hysteria. In fact, what happened in D.C. was almost entirely safe, normal, peaceful, and constitutional. (For that small percentage of the D.C. event that deviated from those standards, here’s hoping that an honest investigation will uncover the identities of all those who committed criminal acts and lead to their prosecutions. I believe that no true patriot at that event would have death, injury, or defiling the American flag with violence on his or her...

FBI warns of armed protest threats at U.S. state Capitols WAND 17)(WAND) - The FBI has warned American law enforcement about possible armed protests at all 50 state Capitols. The protests could happen beginning Jan. 16, the memo said. A senior law enforcement official told NBC News an armed group threatened to go to Washington, D.C. on that day and stage an uprising if President Donald Trump is removed from office by Congress. The official said the memo featured information provided by the ATF, DEA, Defense Department, Park Police and the U.S. Marshals, along with other agencies. Sources of information...

US greenhouse gas emissions tumbled below their 1990 level for the first-time last year as a result of the response to the coronavirus pandemic. A preliminary assessment from research group Rhodium says that overall emissions were down over 10%, the largest fall since World War II. Transport suffered the biggest decline, with emissions down almost 15% over 2019. Energy emissions also fell sharply, due to a decline in the use of coal. With stay-at-home orders in place, economic activity ground to a halt in March and April and this had significant implications for greenhouse gas emissions. In transport, the restrictions...

Over the last six months, Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa riots caused two billion dollars in property damage, killed at least 25 people, and injured over 2,000 police officers. Rioters occupied and burned a police station in Minneapolis. They attacked a federal courthouse in Portland every night for months. In Seattle, Antifa set up an "autonomous zone" where five people were murdered, including two teenagers shot to death when they drove "too fast" near an armed checkpoint. Senator Kamala Harris applauded the rioters. In June, amid the burning and looting of large swaths of Minneapolis, she said the riots...

LONDON - Companies must listen to scientists and align their plans to reach net zero targets with a global pact to fight climate change, executives told a Reuters Next conference on Monday. But time is running out and scientists have delivered stark warnings that society as a whole needs rapid and unprecedented change to curb global warming and avoid catastrophic climate change. “Governments and companies need to be thinking about what the scientists are telling us. COVID-19 teaches us that,” said Sean Kidney, Chief Executive Officer, Climate Bonds Initiative. “Look at the mess made in Britain and the United States...

From unprecedented wildfires across the US to the extraordinary heat of Siberia, the impacts of climate change were felt in every corner of the world in 2020. We have come to a "moment of truth", United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in his State of the Planet speech in December. "Covid and climate have brought us to a threshold." BBC Future brings you our round-up of where we are on climate change at the start of 2021, according to five crucial measures of climate health. 1. CO2 levels The amount of CO2 in the atmosphere reached record levels in...

After being permanently banned from Twitter and Facebook, US President Donald Trump will now also be digitally removed from Home Alone 2: Alone In New York where he had a cameo. Actor Christopher Plummer is expected to replace him. The announcement was made from the verified Twitter account of Dan Slott, who is the comic writer for Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, She-Hulk, Spider-Verse. "BREAKING NEWS: Donald Trump to be digitally replaced in HOME ALONE 2 with actor, Christopher Plummer," Dan Slott wrote on Twitter. https://twitter.com/DanSlott/status/1347751813890650114?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1347751813890650114%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ibtimes.co.in%2Ftrump-be-digitally-removed-home-alone-2-cameo-scene-after-twitter-ban-831960 Donald Trump, who was then a prominent personality in the US had appeared in a cameo...

In the span of a week, from late December to early January, temperatures high in the atmosphere above the Arctic jumped by 100 degrees Fahrenheit. While this may sound alarming, it's a natural phenomenon that happens every couple of years, but experts say human-caused climate change may be making these events more likely. The remarkable event is called a Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW), and it involves the temperatures 50,000 to 100,000 feet above the ground. It disrupts the typical winter climate pattern in the Arctic stratosphere famously known as the polar vortex, and typically leads to more extreme winter weather...

LONDON - Last year tied with 2016 as the world's warmest year on record, rounding off the hottest decade globally, as the impact of climate change intensified, the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service said on Friday. Scientists said the latest data underscored the need for countries and corporations to slash greenhouse gas emissions quickly enough to bring within reach the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement and avoid catastrophic climate change. "The extraordinary climate events of 2020 show us that we have no time to lose," said Matthias Petschke, Director for Space in the European Commission, the E.U.'s executive...

KINGMAN, Alberta - Larry Asp grew up playing shinny outside in this tiny rural town he calls home again after 40 years away. Since returning, he also holds the keys to the outdoor “Rink of Dreams” that gives the 90 local residents the chance to skate outside during the keen Canadian winters. Out here on the prairie an hour’s drive southeast of Edmonton, the ice in the former “Lutefisk Capital of Alberta” doesn’t seem to freeze as long as it used to, not like when Asp was a kid. Pond hockey has been a tradition for generations in places like...

Antarctica wasn’t quite a region of ice for most of the year. It is widely believed that millions of years ago, when the planet earth was already a massive landmass called Gondwana, trees flourished near the South Pole. Now, newfound, intricate fossils of some of these trees are revealing how the plants thrived — and what forests might look like as they march northward in today’s warming world.

There are grounds for suspicion that provocateurs may have been the point of the spear in violently attacking the Capitol. First, to state the obvious, there is no question that Trump supporters criminally entered the Capitol and behaved abominably. All who breached the inadequate protective perimeter must be prosecuted to the full measure of the law. Throw the book at them! But there are grounds for suspicion that provocateurs, anxious to discredit Trump, his supporters, conservatives, and those who question the integrity of the presidential vote may have been the point of the spear in violently attacking the Capitol. Rowan...

Paris (AFP) - More than half the world's nations failed to submit upgraded commitments by year's end to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, straggling behind the schedule of accelerated climate ambitions set out in the Paris Agreement. Almost every country on the planet signed up to the 2015 Paris deal, which calls for capping global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial levels, and 1.5C if possible. As the December 31, 2020, deadline approached, several large emitters said they would achieve net-zero output this century, but many nations allowed the year end to pass without publishing details...

It's always nice to end a bad year with a bombing. My desk overlooks an intersection. Looking out on it, Christmas Eve was gloomy and depressing. No lights, no people, virtually no cars. Just dark and cold and rain. I have no greater expectations for New Year’s Eve. The morning after I saw a fat grey squirrel racing up the tall holly at the corner of my front lawn, picking up in its mouth huge dried leaves blown there from the sycamore tree, scampering across the gutter on the garage and disappearing from my view. I stepped out to see...

President-elect Joe Biden has made no secret that tackling climate change will be one of his top priorities. But to enact his platform to reduce global warming he may find an unexpected ally: Republicans. Biden campaigned on the most ambitious climate agenda in history: one that included plans for pioneering green energy and infrastructure projects and proposals to address environmental racism. Large chunks of his "Build Back Better" economic agenda are explicitly tied to climate-related policies. Biden has said he will re-enter the U.S. in the Paris climate accord on his first day in office and will prioritize undoing dozens...

TOKYO - Japan aims to eliminate gasoline-powered vehicles in the next 15 years, the government said on Friday in a plan to reach net zero carbon emissions and generate nearly $2 trillion a year in green growth by 2050. The “green growth strategy,” targeting the hydrogen and auto industries, is meant as an action plan to achieve Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga’s October pledge to eliminate carbon emissions on a net basis by mid-century. Suga has made green investment a top priority to help revive the economy hit by the COVID-19 pandemic and to bring Japan into line with the European...

Of the many threats from climate change, sea-level rise will most certainly be among the most impactful, making hundreds of thousands of square miles of coastline uninhabitable and potentially displacing over 100 million people worldwide by the end of the century. This threat is a top concern for national security experts because forced migration poses significant risks to international security and stability. The magnitude of this threat depends heavily on how much the oceans rise in the coming decades. But because of the complex dynamics of massive ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, exact estimates remain elusive, ranging from just...

Dr. Dean Winslow, infectious disease specialist at Stanford Health Care “The recently described SARS-CoV-2 variant has several substitutions both in the envelope spike protein and outside of that region that make this variant more transmissible between people. However, it does not appear to be more virulent or cause more severe disease. While it has not been specifically studied, these changes are not predicted to adversely affect the ability of the currently fielded vaccines to provide protection.”