Free Republic

Today is my last day as a staff reporter for The New York Times. After spending more than a quarter of a century writing about science and the environment, more than half of that time here, I am switching gears for the second half of my professional life. I’ll be continuing to blog, write and work with video. And I’ll certainly keep contributing to this remarkable newspaper as it works to sustain a reliable view of the fast-changing planet while straddling the uncertain interface between the front page and home page. But my prime focus now will be education and...

Because of  the recent revelations of "Climategate" (see source materials below) and my experience raising two children in private and public schools  in California, I believe we need to start a nationwide campaign to get "global warming" immediately removed from the curriculum of our schools.   We cannot wait for politicians or activists to do any more damage to our future generation.  "Global warming" is not just an objectionable and discredited scientific theory. Teachers are grafting the loony climate-change premise onto lifestyle, religion, and politics in "science" classrooms. It cannot stand.  The leaked e-mails and subsequent evaluation of their contents, which inspired the term "Climategate,"...

For all who have challenged the notion that man is single-handedly destroying the planet with everything from America's industrial system to your shiny SUV — all the way down to your uncle's favorite cow "Gertrude" on the farm, take a moment to lower your shields as the opposition is about to be sent on the run. As reported by Jon Lott on FOXNews.com, validated e-mails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England show an extended conspiracy by scientists to hide facts that would challenge man-made global warming and to purposely skew data presented to...

An e-mail scandal demonstrates that matters are uncertain. The issue is, however, politicized. No president should make deals in an environment like that. With the publication of damaging e-mails from a climate research center in Britain, the radical environmental movement appears to face a tipping point. The revelation of appalling actions by so-called climate-change experts allows the American public to finally understand the concerns so many of us have articulated on this issue. "Climategate," exposes a highly politicized scientific circle -- the same circle whose work underlies efforts at the Copenhagen climate-change conference. The agenda-driven policies being pushed in Copenhagen...

Apparently, you don't really need a whole bunch of temperature data to know what's happening with temperatures.  Don't bother looking for trends of 0.007 degrees per year averaged over the planet (the rate over the last century, per the IPCC[pdf]) by wading through all that adjusted, quality-controlled and homogenized data, fudge factors or not.  Just look at the polar ice caps and ... QED. "Stop hyperventilating, all you climate-change deniers. The purloined e-mail correspondence published by skeptics last week -- portraying some leading climate researchers as petty, vindictive and tremendously eager to make their data fit accepted theories -- does...

The Met Office, Britain's national weather service, "has embarked on an urgent exercise to bolster the reputation of climate-change science" in the wake of a whistle-blower's revelation of widespread misconduct by climate scientists, London's Times reports:More than 1,700 scientists have agreed to sign a statement defending the "professional integrity" of global warming research. They were responding to a round-robin request from the Met Office, which has spent four days collecting signatures. . . . One scientist told The Times he felt under pressure to sign. "The Met Office is a major employer of scientists and has long had a policy of only appointing...

A skeptical public repeatedly has been told that questions about purported global warming are closed. "I think everybody is clear on the science. I think scientists are clear on the science ... I think that this notion that there's some debate ... on the science is kind of silly," said President Obama's Press Secretary Robert Gibbs when asked Monday about the president's response to the controversy. The flack was talking smack. Contrary to the whitewash job conducted by propagandists, there are 450 academic peer-reviewed journal articles questioning the importance of man-made global warming. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine...

Global Warmageddon is such an insidious enemy that it is at its worst when it isn’t even occurring. Damn! How does one fight at enemy like that? If that statement seems impossible, then I must refer you to two recent press reports. The first, from the Associated Press, tells us with much urgency and no doubt, that the effects of global warming over the last 12 years (the 12 years since the Kyoto Protocol was written – apparently how the Cult of Warmageddon now dates time), have been far worse than any of the dire predictions made in the year...

BEIJING - Food prices are set to rise around the globe after years of decline, with climate change making it harder for the world's poorest to get adequate food, according to a report released Tuesday. Rising global temperatures as well as growing food consumption in rapidly developing countries such as China and India are pressuring the world food system, meaning that food prices will rise for the foreseeable future, according to the International Food Policy Research Institute. Joachim von Braun, the director of the Washington-based research group, said food prices have been in a declining trend since scientists began developing...