Free Republic

Thousands of people have gathered in Trafalgar Square in London to urge the Government to take dramatic action to combat climate change. Organisers put the number of people at today's event at about 14,000 The rally's organisers, the Stop Climate Chaos coalition, want Britain to take the lead at the UN global warming conference which begins in Nairobi next week. They are urging the Government to negotiate an international deal to make sure that global temperatures do not rise more than two degrees centigrade from their current levels, and to introduce a Climate Change Bill that demands annual reductions in...

Two scientific events of note occurred this week, but only one got any media coverage. Therein lies a story about modern politics and scientific priorities. The report that received the headlines was Monday's 700-page jeremiad out of London on fighting climate change. Commissioned by the British government and overseen by former World Bank chief economist Nicholas Stern, the report made the intentionally shocking prediction that global warming could eliminate from 5% to 20% of world economic output "forever." Meanwhile, doing the supposedly virtuous thing and trying to forestall this catastrophe would cost merely an estimated 1% of world GDP. Thus...

The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. But at least almost everyone now agrees that we must act, if not at the necessary speed. If we're to have a high chance of preventing global temperatures from rising by 2C (3.6F) above preindustrial levels, we need, in the rich nations, a 90% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030. The greater part of the cut has to be made at the beginning of this period. To see why, picture two graphs with time on the horizontal axis and the rate of emissions plotted vertically. On one...

BONN, Germany -- The industrialized world's emissions of greenhouse gases are growing again, despite efforts under the Kyoto Protocol to cap them and stave off global warming, the United Nations reported Monday. Emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases declined in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet bloc and the shutdown of polluting factories and power plants in eastern Europe. But now those economies are rebounding, contributing to a 2.4 percent rise in emissions by 41 industrialized nations between 2000 and 2004.

The rise of the Appalachian Mountains may have caused a major ice age approximately 450 million years ago, an Ohio State University study has found. The weathering of the mountains pulled carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, causing the opposite of a greenhouse effect -- an "icehouse" effect. Scientists have suspected that our current ice age, which began 40 million years ago, was caused by the rise of the Himalayas. This new study links a much earlier major ice age --one that occurred during the Ordovician period -- to the uplift of the early Appalachians . It also reinforces the...

A group of scientists is questioning the worth of Al Gore's flying visit to New Zealand. The former US vice-president will arrive for half a day next month to promote his film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. During the 80 minute movie, Gore argues for the need to take immediate action to combat climate change. The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition does not accept arguments about man-made global warming. Spokesman Owen McShane claims Gore has been liberal with the truth in his film, when he says Pacific Islanders have been evacuated because their islands are drowning. "There are no...

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered the oldest bee ever known, a 100 million year old specimen preserved in almost lifelike form in amber, and an important link to help explain the rapid expansion of flowering plants during that distant period. The findings and their evolutionary significance are outlined in an article to be published this week in the journal Science. The specimen, at least 35-45 million years older than any other known bee fossil, has given rise to a newly-named family called Melittosphecidae – insects that share some of the features of both bees and...

Science in the United States has become heavily politicized, largely because the federal government transformed itself from a government of limited and specified powers to an all-purpose caring agency. Once upon a time, it provided for the common defense and a common currency. Then the restraints gave way, like the New Orleans levees, and it took on any role that could be called compassionate. Soon it was awash in a flood of issues and missions, and it became less and less able to cope with any of them. Science hopped on board. If the discovery of emergencies and crises entitled...

Global warming is a religion, not science. That's why acolytes in the media attack global-warming critics not with scientific arguments, but for their apostasy. Then they laud global-warming believers not for reducing greenhouse gases, but simply for believing global warming is a coming catastrophe caused by man. The important thing is to have faith in those who warn: The end is near.

New Zealand’s environment is at the core of our quality of life, our national identity and our competitive advantage, yet it is not being well managed. New leadership and direction are needed. The National Party is determined to sustainably develop New Zealand so as to deliver both a strong economy and high environmental standards. We have produced a substantive environment discussion paper containing our vision for tackling New Zealand’s environment issues. I encourage you to download this document from our website or get a copy from your local National MP so you can read the full range of our proposals....

The Disney movie ‘102 Dalmatians’ should be R-rated instead of G, two anti-smoking activists insist. Not because they antagonist was a demented woman bent on turning cute puppies into a fur coat. Nope. Cruella De Vil’s real crime was smoking. “Movies that depict smoking are the single greatest media threat to children say two prominent doctors,” ABC’s Heather Nauert warned her “Good Morning America” audience. Nauert’s October 10 story focused on two activists who call for the Motion Picture Association of America to automatically assign an R-rating to movies with any smoking in it. Yet in her story, Nauert left...

Evidence for punctuated equilibrium lies in the genetic sequences of many organisms, according to a study in this week's Science. Researchers report that about a third of reconstructed phylogenetic trees of animals, plants, and fungi reveal periods of rapid molecular evolution. "We've never really known to what extent punctuated equilibrium is a general phenomenon in speciation," said Douglas Erwin of the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study. Since its introduction by Stephen Jay Gould and Niles Eldredge in the 1970s, the theory of punctuated equilibrium -- that evolution usually proceeds slowly...

Evidences for a Young Sunby Keith DaviesSelect for 17k diagram of H-R Stellar evolution main sequence, (courtesy Barry J. Kellett, Rutherford Appleton Lab.) According to current models of stellar evolution, when a star like our Sun is very young, its enormous output of energy is provided by gravitational contraction. As it grows older, the models show that the source of its energy should change over to that of nuclear fusion as it slowly develops a very hot and dense core. Where exactly does our Sun fit into this sequence? The standard model of the Sun assumes that it is around...

Several days ago, the 'Maria S Merian' returned from her second Arctic expedition with data confirming trends of Arctic warming. "Compared to last summer, the water that flows from the Norwegian Sea to the Arctic has been an average 0.8 degrees Celsius warmer this summer," says expedition leader Dr Ursula Schauer of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research. "This is in addition to the last two years already having been warmer than the previous 20 from which we have regular measurements. Over the Yermak Plateau, an oceanic ridge, the oceanographers documented water of more than four degrees...

Mastodons Driven to Extinction by Tuberculosis, Fossils Suggest Kimberly Johnson for National Geographic News October 3, 2006 Tuberculosis was rampant in North American mastodons during the late Ice Age and may have led to their extinction, researchers say. Mastodons lived in North America starting about 2 million years ago and thrived until 11,000 years ago—around the time humans arrived on the continent—when the last of the 7-ton (6.35-metric-ton) elephantlike creatures died off. Scientists Bruce Rothschild and Richard Laub pieced together clues to the animals' widespread die-off by studying unearthed mastodon foot bones. Rothschild first noticed a telltale tuberculosis lesion on...

Where's the stormy weather? National Post Monday, October 2, 2006 Page: A15 Section: Issues & Ideas Byline: Lorne Gunter Hurricane Isaac is currently churning away in the mid-Atlantic. It became a hurricane Saturday morning, but will probably lose that designation sometime today before its western edge passes over Newfoundland tomorrow. Unless you live in the eastern half of Newfoundland, though, it's unlikely you were even aware of Isaac. It is the fifth hurricane of the season. Yet like the other four, Isaac has come nowhere near the North American mainland. Only two of the five have even crossed land...

JR Dunn and Marc Morano will be on WCTC 1450 AM to discuss 9/11 conspiracy theories, Global Warming, and the media's role in promoting junk science this Monday afternoon (October 2nd ~ 2 pm to 5 pm Eastern). They will be guests of Keith Rasmussen who hosts Loud & Clear on Central Jersey 1450. J.R. Dunn is a frequent contributor to The American Thinker. He was editor of the International Military Encyclopedia for twelve years and has been instrumental in de-bunking the assertions of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth. Mr. Dunn will join Loud & Clear at 2:15 pm (Eastern)....

I called Tim Russert to ask if Dick Cheney had washed his hands after their interview on Sunday. "No-o-o," he replied, sounding confused. Any sort of scrubbing, I wondered? Antiseptic wipe, Purell, quick shower on the way out? No, Tim assured me, the vice president did not stop at the basement shower at NBC, or even drop by the men's room you pass on the right as you head out to the parking lot. According to The New York Times' health section on Tuesday, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate were not alone in wanting that "damned spot" out. "People who...

Where are the Hurricanes? I blame global warming...http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1155133659.shtml Scott Kirwin Aug 9, 2006 Nearly a year ago the country was being slammed by hurricanes. As Americans suffered some claimed that the ferocity of Katrina and Rita was due to global warming. A search of Dean's World shows that this site is one of the few that argued against that idea over the course of 2005. So here we are, a year later. Where are the hurricanes? Where is the fury of Mother Nature? Where are her righteous swirls of rain and wind that shall smite the evil non-Kyoto Protocol signing...

By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer 57 minutes ago WASHINGTON - Most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, says a study that one researcher says "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina. ADVERTISEMENT A series of studies over the past year or so have shown an increase in the power of hurricanes in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, a strengthening that storm experts say is tied to rising sea-surface temperatures. And most of that temperature increase can be blamed on global warming caused...