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Climate researchers now predict the planet will warm by 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century even if the world's leaders fulfill their most ambitious climate pledges, a much faster and broader scale of change than forecast just two years ago, according to a report released Thursday by the United Nations Environment Program.

COPENHAGEN, Sept 30 (Reuters) - Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara warned on Wednesday the 2016 Olympics could be the last Games, with global warming an immediate threat to mankind. Tokyo is bidding to host the 2016 summer Olympics with Chicago, Rio de Janeiro and Madrid also in the running. The International Olympic Committee will elect the winning candidate during its session on Oct. 2 in the Danish capital. "It could be that the 2016 Games are the last Olympics in the history of mankind," Ishihara told reporters at a Tokyo 2016 press event ahead of the vote. "Global warming is getting...

LONDON — Willy Wonka would be horrified. Children who eat too much candy may be more likely to be arrested for violent behavior as adults, new research suggests. British experts studied more than 17,000 children born in 1970 for about four decades. Of the children who ate candies or chocolates daily at age 10, 69 percent were later arrested for a violent offense by the age of 34. Of those who didn't have any violent clashes, 42 percent ate sweets daily. The study was published in the October issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. It was paid for by...

Note: The following text is a quote: CIA Opens Center on Climate Change and National Security September 25, 2009 The Central Intelligence Agency is launching The Center on Climate Change and National Security as the focal point for its work on the subject. The Center is a small unit led by senior specialists from the Directorate of Intelligence and the Directorate of Science and Technology. Its charter is not the science of climate change, but the national security impact of phenomena such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts, and heightened competition for natural resources. The Center will provide support...

Moose declining in Minnesota's northwoods, among their few strongholds in lower 48 states Researchers say such sightings of moose, an icon in Minnesota's northwoods, are likely to become more rare. A special advisory committee warned last month that climate change threatens moose. ... Minnesota has an estimated 7,600 moose, nearly all in the forests of northeastern Minnesota, where plentiful swamps, lakes and streams provide good habitat. Yet they're beleaguered by increasingly warm weather and parasites such as brainworms, ticks and liver flukes. "Almost without exception all of the indicators are that the population is declining," said Mark Lenarz, a moose...

Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt. (snip) The Senate rejected the amendment by a largely party-line 61-36 margin, with Feinstein opposing the restoration of water deliveries to farmers. The California senator claimed she was blindsided by the amendment to the bill she was managing in the Senate, bizarrely comparing the move to a "Pearl Harbor." "No one from California has called, written or indicated they wanted this on the calendar," Feinstein protested.

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

Spanking can get kids to behave in a hurry, but new research suggests it can do more harm than good to their noggins. The study, involving hundreds of U.S. children, showed the more a child was spanked the lower his or her IQ compared with others. "All parents want smart children," said study researcher Murray Straus of the University of New Hampshire. "This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen." One might ask, however, whether children who are spanked tend to come from backgrounds in which education opportunities are less or inherited...

About half (48%) of white mainline Protestants believe the earth is warming as the result of human activity -- roughly the same proportion as among all Americans (47%) -- but only a third of white evangelical Protestants (34%) share that belief. In fact, white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to say there is no solid evidence that global warming is occurring (31%). While only 39% of black Protestants say global warming is a result of human activity, they are, however, the least likely of the religions studied to deny global warming (15%). The unaffiliated (58%) are the most likely...

The former Cuban leader on Wednesday called the American president's speech at the United Nations "brave" and said no other American head of state would have had the courage to make similar remarks. In a speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, Obama acknowledged that the United States had been slow to act on climate change, but said Washington was now prepared to be a full partner as the world confronts the threat.

Global Warming: President Obama warns of planetary doom at the U.N. if we fail to pass cap-and-trade legislation. Meanwhile, a former warm-monger predicts decades of cooling as the sun stays nearly "spotless."The president had hoped to address Tuesday's United Nations climate change summit in New York with a finished cap-and-trade bill. Failing that, he hoped he'd at least have a version of the Waxman-Markey bill that has passed the House on his desk before the Copenhagen talks in December to cobble together a follow-up to the failed Kyoto Protocol. Not only did that not happen in the cool summer of...

Here we go again. I was watching Sean Hannity tonight (9/17/2009), and have been following loosely the situation in the San Joaquin Valley of California with their water crisis over the small Delta Smelt minnow and its endangered species listing. The Farmers have water rights to that water. There is no legal water rights for that water for a minnow over the farmers. There is only a manufactured judicial legal decision by liberal judges based on junk science and the whims of administrators and bureaucrats that create these incidents based on the Endangered Species Act and a rabid environmental...

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- A group of major institutional investors called Wednesday for a global effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50% to 85% by 2050 from 1990 levels. The call comes ahead of key meetings on the topic at the United Nations and elsewhere. Faced by delays in the U.S. over climate change legislation and global meetings later this year in Copenhagen to update the Kyoto Protocol, a group of 181 investors managing $13 trillion in assets weighed in with a joint statement to help produce action by political leaders around the globe. "Today's investor statement is the...

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) kicked off the new campaign on Thursday to create a national security push to pass climate change legislation. Climate change, Kerry argued, will likely trigger some of the most critical threats to national security in the future, and should be addressed with aggressive action this year. His speech was the keynote address at a conference that the American Security Project, a bipartisan national security think tank, hosted at The George Washington University. The event was titled, not so subtly, “The Day Before,” and marks the eve of the eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Kerry, chair...

Caster Semenya, woman who rocked athletics world, 'is hermaphrodite' Rick Broadbent and Fred Bridgland in Johannesburg Sex tests carried out on Caster Semenya, the world 800 metres champion, show that she is a hermaphrodite, a source close to the case claimed last night. If the allegation is backed up by the official results, the South African may find herself stripped of her gold medal and banned from racing. The IAAF, the world governing body, refused to comment on the claim last night, but earlier in the day its general secretary, Pierre Weiss, said: “It is clear that she is a...

Just how many communists are there holed up in the Obama White House anyway? John Holdren, Obama's biggest radical and Science Czar, slammed the idea of American exceptionalism and explicitly said that we need to redistribute energy and material resources during the Bali Conference on global warming on July 12, 2007. John Holdren says the US should redistribute the wealth with green policies:

Environmentalists hope the push in Congress for climate change legislation is not overwhelmed by the debate dominating Capitol Hill over changing the U.S. healthcare system. But it might be. Already two months behind schedule and unsure whether enough Democrats will play along, Senate leaders still aim to pass a bill by December when a United Nations summit convenes in Copenhagen to set worldwide goals for reducing carbon dioxide and other pollutants. But as the debate over healthcare legislation rages and with President Barack Obama due to address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday to try to rescue the faltering...

As a member of the American Psychological Association for 36 years, I am filled with indignation at the recent statement of the APA that deems it “inappropriate” for therapists to treat homosexual clients. Such therapy is called reparative therapy and has as its goal the establishment of a heterosexual orientation in place of a homosexual one. This statement of the APA has been issued despite the fact that there are a number of outstanding members of that organization, including two past presidents, who have strongly supported reparative treatment.Issued in August, “Appropriate Therapeutic Responses to Sexual Orientation” advises treatments that “increase...

The United States Department of Education requires all state and local education institutions to collect data on ethnicity and race for students and staff. This information is used for state and federal accountability reporting as well as for reporting to the Office of Civil Rights and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. School district staff and parents or guardians of students enrolling in school are requested to provide this information. If you decline to provide this information, please be aware that the USDE requires school districts to use observer identification as a last resort for collecting the data for federal reporting. Please...

August 29, 2009 — Today’s Evolutionary Just-So Story is brought to you by New Scientist: “Girls Are Primed to Fear Spiders.” Once upon a time, while cavemen were out hunting and gathering, the women back home had to learn to avoid dangerous animals. David Rakison of Carnegie Mellon University put this all into evolutionary terms for the rest of us:...