Free Republic

Darwin called him, ‘My good and kind agent for the propagation of the Gospel—i.e. the devil’s gospel.’2 ‘Out of his provocations came … the West’s new faith—agnosticism (he coined the word).’3 Huxley, although an unbeliever, was thoroughly familiar with the gospel, and had little time for Christians who compromised their position by supporting the anti-biblical belief of evolutionary naturalism. He wrote: ‘I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ,...

The economic free fall gripping the nation may bring down one of the main environmental objectives: capping the greenhouse gases that are blamed for global warming. Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate, and both presidential candidates, continue to rank tackling global warming as a chief goal next year. But the focus on stabilizing the economy probably will make it more difficult to pass a law to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. At the very least, it will push back when the reductions would have to start. As one Republican senator put it, the green bubble has...

A slowdown in the world economy may give the planet a breather from the excessively high carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions responsible for climate change, a Nobel Prize winning scientist said on Tuesday. Atmospheric scientist Paul J Crutzen, who has in the past floated the possibility of blitzing the stratosphere with sulfur particles to cool the earth, said clouds gathering over the world economy could ease the earth's environmental burden. Slower economic growth worldwide could help slow growth of carbon dioxide emissions and trigger more careful use of energy resources, though the global economic turmoil may also divert focus from efforts...

Weather forecasters around the country warn of one of the coldest winters in several years. Scientists also say that the Eastern United States will have more snowfall than last year's record highs. "The winter as a whole in the population-dense Eastern third of the nation will be a one-two punch of higher heating prices and lower temperatures," he said. "It may be a shock to some when compared with above-average temperatures of last year in the East," said Joe Bastardi of AccuWeather. Bastardi on Wednesday said that this winter will be off to a cold start in mid-December. The cold...

No one, including Gov. Sarah Palin, questions that Alaska's climate is changing more rapidly than any other state's. But her skepticism about the causes and what needs to be done to address the consequences stands in sharp contrast to the views of her running mate, Sen. John McCain, and place her to the right of the Bush administration and several other Republican governors. Although Palin established a sub-cabinet to deal with climate change issues a year ago, she has focused on how to adapt to global warming rather than how to combat it, and she has publicly questioned scientists' near-consensus...

Startle Response Linked to Politics More Sensitive May Mean More Conservative, Study Finds By Shankar Vedantam Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, September 19, 2008; A09 People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button issues, according to unusual new research published yesterday. The finding suggests that people who are particularly sensitive to signals of visual or auditory threats also tend to adopt a more defensive stance on political issues, such as immigration, gun control, defense spending and patriotism. People who are less sensitive...

Fierce individualists, Americans figure that we choose our own political beliefs — but actually it could come down to biology. Individuals who are more easily startled by threats are more likely than others to support protective policies, such as military spending, the Iraq War and the death penalty, finds a new study. ... The researchers measured levels of skin moisture as indicators of stress and anxiety for each participant as he or she looked at threatening images, including a large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed individual with a bloody face and an open wound with...

WASHINGTON - Crucial Arctic sea ice this summer shrank to its second lowest level on record, continuing an alarming trend, scientists said Tuesday. ADVERTISEMENT The ice covered 1.74 million square miles on Friday, marking a low point for this summer, according to NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colo. Last summer, the sea ice covered only 1.59 million square miles, the lowest since record-keeping began in 1979. Arctic sea ice, which floats on the ocean, expands in winter and retreats in summer. In recent years it hasn't been as thick in winter. Sea ice is...

Joe Biden’s comment today, suggesting some contradiction between support for those born with developmental disabilities and opposition to embryo-destructive research is among his more appalling and insulting gaffes to date. As CBS reports it, Biden said: "I hear all this talk about how the Republicans are going to work in dealing with parents who have both the joy, because there's joy to it as well, the joy and the difficulty of raising a child who has a developmental disability, who were born with a birth defect. Well guess what folks? If you care about it, why don't you support stem...

Yes, kids, science is a wonderful thing. But not nearly as wonderful as climate modeling, which can perform supernatural miracles. Honest! Climate modeling can raise the level of the oceans (even without Obama's intervention), it can burn up the planet a hundred years from now, and Shazzam! -- the models can save us again -- all without leaving your video games, and without the benefit of the real-world data that you need for boring old regular science. At least, that's what Nature -- the oldest science journal in the world, going back to Isaac Newton -- now claims. According to...

BERN (AFP) – Some 5,000 years ago, on a day with weather much like today's, a prehistoric person tread high up in what is now the Swiss Alps, wearing goat leather pants, leather shoes and armed with a bow and arrows. The unremarkable journey through the Schnidejoch pass, a lofty trail 2,756 metres (9,000 feet) above sea level, has been a boon to scientists. But it would never have emerged if climate change were not melting the nearby glacier. So far, 300 objects dating as far back as the Neolithic or New Stone Age -- about 4,000 BC in Europe...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Worldwide sea levels may rise by about 2.6 to 6.6 feet by 2100 thanks to global warming, but dire predictions of larger increases seem unrealistic, U.S. scientists said on Thursday. They examined scenarios for loss of ice from Greenland, Antarctica and the world's smaller glaciers and ice caps into the world's oceans, as well as ocean expansion simply due to rising water temperatures.

Terry Moran from "Nightline" -- Funniest goof ever!

Despite record lows in solar magnetic activity, thought to influence the climate, trends continue to point to a clear rise in temperatures worldwide. This is reflected by increased melting and other significant changes.

Then in 1999 an obscure young US physicist, Michael Mann, came up with a new graph like nothing seen before. Instead of the familiar rises and falls in temperature over the past 1,000 years, the line ran virtually flat, only curving up dramatically at the end in a hockey-stick shape to show recent decades as easily the hottest on record. This was just what the IPCC wanted, The Mediaeval Warming had simply been wiped from the record. When its next report came along in 2001, Mann's graph was given top billing, appearing right at the top of page one of...

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama’s two daughters, Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, are big fans of Hannah Montana – and maybe there’s a reason why. Teen star Miley Cyrus, known as Hannah Montana in the Disney Channel TV series television of the same name, is now crusading for global warming alarmism. But she admits she isn’t really sure what it means. Disney, conveniently owns ABC, a network that often hypes climate change alarmism. On the 15-year-old singer’s recently released album “Breakout,” she sings that she wants America to wake up and deal with global warming. The song, “Wake Up...

Ten polar bears have been spotted swimming in open water during an aerial survey as the peak of summer sea ice melting nears. Drowning polar bears has only been seen as a threat to the species in recent years as the extent of sea ice recedes to historic low levels. Last year, there was more open water than ever before recorded; this year's melt, while dramatic, won't reach the same extent as 2007.

In a finding that will be bittersweet for Hillary Clinton supporters, a new Pew survey finds that when it comes to honesty, intelligence and a handful of other key traits valued in leaders, the public rates women as superior to men. < > On the policy front, more than 50 percent of respondents said women are better than men at dealing with social issues such as health care and education, while 42 percent said men have an edge over women in the way they deal with crime and public safety. More than 50 percent said men are better than women...

LONDON (Reuters) - The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday. The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average. Global temperatures vary annually according to natural cycles. They are driven by shifting ocean currents, and dips do not undermine the case that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing long-term global warming, climate scientists say. Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El...

Obsessed with rankings, Americans are bound to see the Beijing Olympics as a metaphor for a larger and more troubling question: Will China overtake the U.S. as the world's biggest economy? Well, stop worrying. It almost certainly will. China's economy is now only a fourth the size of the $14 trillion U.S. economy. But given plausible growth rates in both countries, China's output will exceed America's in the 2020s, projects Goldman Sachs. But this is the wrong worry. By itself, a richer China does not make America poorer. Indeed, because there are so many more Chinese than Americans, average Chinese...