Free Republic

.....“There is nothing more disgusting than rich people who do nothing to undermine the material position of their own class vaguely calling for peace and love,” Fergie wrote on Instagram on November 2. “It gives me actual bloodlust.”“We’re frightened to go out to restaurants, or cafés in town. It’s chilling,” the man in Great Barrington added. He tells me that the police aren’t much help—“they won’t come”—when it comes to Fergie and his followers, and that he’s considering moving towns. (The police declined to comment and directed me to the DA’s office who, through a representative, emailed to say that...

How much money do you think it will cost to save the world from a climate catastrophe? According to King Charles III, it's about $5 trillion. Every year. That’s what the British royal told a packed conference of green advocates and state leaders on Friday who flew from all around the world – many on private jets – to meet up at the plush United Nations climate summit in Dubai, known as COP 28. Charles did not give a breakdown of who should pay what, or where exactly the money would go, although he did say that the funds should...

A video of security officers wrestling a protester to the floor in the lobby of the Jackson Lake Lodge in Wyoming, outside the Federal Reserve’s most closely watched annual conference, clocked more than a million views. A protest that disrupted a speech by Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, at the Economic Club of New York this fall generated extensive coverage. And when the activists showed up again at Mr. Powell’s speech at the International Monetary Fund in early November, they seemed to get under his skin: The central bank’s usually staid leader was caught on a hot mic using...

The climate crisis threatens the chances of gender equality being achieved in the countries most vulnerable to global heating, the UN has said. As Cop28 opens in Dubai, UNFPA, the UN’s reproductive and maternal health agency, released data showing that the 14 countries most at risk from the effects of the climate crisis are also those where women and girls are more likely to die in childbirth, marry early, experience gender-based violence or be displaced by disaster. “The climate crisis affects everybody but there are subgroups least able to adapt,” said Angela Baschieri, UNFPA’s technical lead on climate action. “It...

DUBAI (Reuters) -World Bank President Ajay Banga said on Friday the development lender will devote 45% of its annual financing to climate-related projects by 2025, up from a target of 35%, and extend debt repayment pauses following climate disasters. Banga made the announcements at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai as the next steps in a broad overhaul of the World Bank to better respond to climate change and other global crises. "We're putting our ambition in overdrive and putting to work more than $40 billion per year -- around $9 billion more than the original target," Banga said. Under...

… Eating more plants and fewer animals is among the simplest, cheapest and most readily available ways for people to reduce their impact on the environment, climate scientists have long said. According to one University of Michigan study, if half of U.S. animal-based food was replaced with plant-based substitutes by 2030, the reduction in emissions for that year would be the equivalent of taking 47.5 million vehicles off the road. An explosion of new types of plant-based “meat” — the burgers, nuggets and other cuts that closely resemble meat but are made from soybeans and other plants — is attracting...

French President Emmanuel Macron addressed the COP28 summit on Friday as world leaders gathered in Dubai for the second day of UN climate talks. Macron urged G7 nations at UN climate talks on Friday to set an example to other countries and "commit to putting an end to coal" by 2030. Speaking at COP28 in Dubai, Macron said investing in coal was "truly an absurdity".

The negative impact on the climate from passenger vehicles, which is considerable, could have dropped by more than 30% over the past decade if not for the world’s appetite for large cars, a new report from the Global Fuel Economy Initiative suggests. Sport utility vehicles, or SUVs, now account for more than half of all new car sales across the globe, the group said, and it’s not alone. The International Energy Agency, using a narrower definition of SUV, estimates they make up nearly half. Over the years these cars have gotten bigger and so has their cost to the climate,...

Rights groups are preparing for the COP28 climate talks in the United Arab Emirates with trepidation, fearing surveillance and detention under the oil-rich monarchy's strict criminal justice system. The UAE, an autocratic federation of seven sheikhdoms, bans unauthorised protests, outlaws homosexuality and prohibits criticism of rulers and speech that is deemed to create or encourage social unrest. Defamation as well as verbal and written insults, whether published or made in private, are prosecutable by law. The country's penal code also criminalises offending foreign states or jeopardising ties with them.

Thanksgiving “could soon become another victim of climate change,” a recent report by ABC News warned. The report said rising temperatures “threaten the abundance and quality” of ingredients that make up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. “As a result, these essential food items could become increasingly scarce and more expensive, potentially forcing families to omit or make substitutions in key recipes on their Thanksgiving menus,” the report said.

Vanessa Kerry, who in June became the first-ever Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health for the World Health Organization, will be front and centre at the upcoming COP28 climate conference in Dubai. So will her father, John Kerry, in his capacity as the Biden administration's Special Climate Envoy. Vanessa Kerry discussed the immediate and future climate challenges facing the world in an interview with FRANCE 24's Marc Perelman. Asked about her appointment as Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health, Vanessa Kerry explained that "the climate crisis is a health crisis" with "seven million people a year dying from...

The fall of the Berlin Wall was indeed a watershed in the collapse of the Soviet Empire, yet one could argue the true death knell came two months before at a small grocery store in Clear Lake, Texas.. he fall of the Soviet Union is sometimes remembered as Nov. 9, 1989, the day the Berlin Wall symbolically collapsed. While the physical barrier endured for some two more years, on that day, East German Communist Party officials announced they would no longer stop citizens of the German Democratic Republic from crossing the border. The fall of the barrier that scarred Germany...

The "polluter elite" are disproportionately driving climate change, according to a new report — with the wealthiest 1% of people in the world putting out as much carbon pollution as the poorest two-thirds. The report, by The Guardian, the international charity Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, found that climate change and "extreme inequality" have become "interlaced, fused together and driving one another." The report also found that the richest 10% percent of people worldwide made up roughly half of emissions that year. "It would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99% to produce as much carbon...

BRUSSELS/LONDON (Reuters) - Wealthy nations could provide 100 of the world's most vulnerable countries a combined $25 billion in annual protection against climate disasters for as little as $10 million per nation, research published on Tuesday showed. With rich nations under pressure to fill the pot, researchers from the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainability Leadership said they had reached a "breakthrough" in understanding how to use this money to protect countries from the spiralling cost of storms, drought and rising sea levels. Donor funds of $10 million per recipient country, when used as premium support, could yield $200 million...

Argentina’s newly-elected president, Javier Milei, is taking a wrecking ball to the destructive leftist policies that have destroyed his once-prosperous nation. Ahead of his electoral victory, the libertarian gave some advice to Americans about how to avoid the road Argentina traveled. Speaking to Tucker Carlson in an interview last month about the dangers of socialism, the politician urged Americans to “never allow yourself to be seduced by the siren song of social justice." “Don’t get caught up in that terrible concept that where there is a need, there is a right,” he continued, noting that this doesn’t happen on its...

New rules to make it easier for consumers to request repairs for goods will be voted on by the European Parliament. The legislation seeks to introduce a “right to repair”, in order to reduce unnecessary waste. It will require producers and sellers of goods to prioritize the repair of an item during its guarantee period, when it is cheaper or equal to the cost of replacement. After that time, consumers will also still have a right to request the repair of certain products. However, this does not extend to items like cars or batteries. Items such as washing machines, vacuum...

For the first time since record keeping began, Earth has surpassed a critical temperature threshold that scientists have long warned could unleash the worst effects of climate change. On Friday the planet soared 2.07 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, or the 1850 to 1900 average, according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. Not all hope is lost, however. The Fifth National Climate Change Assessment, released last week by the White House, underscored that every fraction of a degree of warming added or averted will make a difference.

The UN chief issued his rallying call as the global body warned in a new report that countries' greenhouse gas-cutting pledges put Earth on track for warming far beyond key limits – possibly up to a catastrophic 2.9 degrees Celsius this century. The response must "light the fuse to an explosion of ambition in 2025," he said. "That means national plans with clear 2030 and 2035 targets, that align with 1.5 degrees, that cover the whole economy, and that plot a course for ending fossil fuels." Taking into account countries' carbon-cutting plans, the UN warned Monday that the planet is...

One of the great pleasures of autumn is its colorful aesthetics. The phenomenon in which normally green leaves transition into shades of red, orange, yellow and eventually brown is known officially as "leaf phenology," which some people eagerly anticipate each year. But like many ways in which climate change is radically altering our weather patterns — from blistering heat waves to sea level-induced floods — autumn itself is changing. According to a study published earlier this year in the journal PLOS One, the season length is growing, meaning that it is taking longer for leaves to change their colors. And...

…Here’s the challenge: if we try to simply air condition our way to safety, we will create a health equity divide between those who can afford cooling and those who can’t. We will also worsen climate change by dramatically increasing energy use that leads to fossil fuel emissions—at least until we have a carbon-free grid to run those humming air conditioners. Then there is the waste heat that air conditioners emit into cities—they protect those inside while making it hotter and more dangerous outside. Make no mistake, heat resilient homes and air conditioning must be part of the solution. But...