Free Republic

The European Union's climate chief says it is a pity Prime Minister Tony Abbott will not attend a major UN climate meeting in New York next week. World leaders including US president Barack Obama and UK prime minister David Cameron will attend the UN secretary-general's Climate Summit on September 23. Mr Abbott will not be attending, despite the fact that he is due to attend a UN Security Council meeting in New York the next day. EU commissioner for climate action Connie Hedegaard said it came as a surprise. "It is, of course, I think, a pity that not everyone...

"Ninety-seven percent of scientists agree: #climate change is real, man-made and dangerous." Remember that statement, a while back, from some bloke on Twitter? What we now know with more than 97 per cent certainty that this guy - or whoever is in charge of running his Twitter account - is either wilfully dishonest or woefully ill-informed. The "97 per cent" claim is an utter nonsense. This report released today by the Global Warming Policy Foundation explains exactly why. First, that word "dangerous". This is a concept that was never mentioned in the study responsible for that 97 per cent claim....

Scientists say the extent of Antarctic sea ice cover is at its highest level since records began. Satellite imagery reveals an area of about 20 million square kilometres covered by sea ice around the Antarctic continent. Jan Lieser from the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) said the discovery was made two days ago. "This is an area covered by sea ice which we've never seen from space before," he said.

This lawless administration plans to bypass the two-thirds requirement for Senate ratification on a climate change treaty by entering into a "politically binding" hybrid agreement to "name and shame" climate scofflaws. Apparently letting the Environmental Protection Agency run amok with regulations fulfilling candidate Obama's pledge to bankrupt the coal industry, and enact a de facto cap-and-trade regime the president couldn't get through Congress, is not enough. The man who said his nomination was the moment the seas began to recede and the planet began to heal now plans to deal the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution yet another...

To put it another way, an area the size of Alaska, America’s biggest state, was open water two years ago, but is again now covered by ice. The most widely used measurements of Arctic ice extent are the daily satellite readings issued by the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, which is co-funded by Nasa. These reveal that – while the long-term trend still shows a decline – last Monday, August 25, the area of the Arctic Ocean with at least 15 per cent ice cover was 5.62 million square kilometres. This was the highest level recorded on that...

Parts of northern Maine saw the first below freezing temperatures since spring, according to the National Weather Service in Caribou.

The unbearable sadness of climate activism: Nicole Thornton remembers the exact moment her curious case of depression became too real to ignore. It was five years ago and the environmental scientist – a trained biologist and ecologist – was writing a rather dry PhD on responsible household water use. Fair enough. That would make anyone depressed. Thornton had always been easily upset by apathy towards, and denial of, environmental issues. But now she began to notice an oddly powerful personal reaction to "the small stuff" – like people littering, or neighbours chopping down an old tree. So, she's a bossy...

the insane ways that the VA focused on solar energy and wind towers over vets. Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him. While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power. ... The cemetery turbine had cost $533,000....

Many scientists and non-scientists are discussing "Global Warming" (or as it is increasingly being called "Anthropogenic Climate Change" or ACC). ACC would simply be an interesting topic for discussion if it were not for the politicization, polarization, and sensationalism that have accompanied the science.

Rupert Darwall is the author of Age of Global Warming (and earning excellent reviews). Darwall has a gift for converting tricky scientific concepts into a story. This month in the City Journal, he beautifully summarizes and updates the story of Murry Salby. He’s interviewed Richard Lindzen and others, and discusses Salby’s work in the context of the way heretics are marginalized. I helped Rupert with some of the background. It’s controversial science, a complex situation, with irrelevant baggage to boot. But that’s exactly the place where science communicators — or in the case of Rupert, excellent historians — are most...

In what looks like the final nail in the coffin for climate-change denial, some of the world’s most credible professional organizations have just announced they will no longer work with “climate deniers.” That’s right, ten of the globe’s top public relations firms have declared that they will no longer “frame the debate” from the “sky is NOT falling” perspective. Along with “the science,” the PR is now settled. A spokesman for WPP, the world’s largest ad agency and parent of Burson Marsteller and Ogilvy Public Relations, said… We ensure that our own work complies with local laws, marketing codes and...

It’s safe to say CNN anchor Bill Weir is not a fan of climate change deniers. On Thursday, the Twitter account for Fox Nation, a blog run by Fox News, tweeted a link to a post headlined, “Climate Doesn’t Cooperate With Al Gore’s Group’s Visit to Denver EPA Hearings.” The story, aggregated from the Washington Times, relates to a Denver visit by former Vice President Al Gore‘s “Climate Reality Project” for EPA hearings on power plant emissions. The group showed up to hand out ice cream even though it was 58 degrees. Weir retweeted the link, with his own comment:...

Nearly 120 wind turbines catch fire each year – ten times the number reported by the industry – according to new research. The figures show that fires are the second biggest cause of accidents in wind turbines, after blade failure. ... because the turbines are so far off the ground, it is almost impossible to put the fires out, leading to the whole structure potentially being destroyed. Dr Guillermo Rein of Imperial College said: “Fires are a problem for the industry, impacting on energy production, economic output and emitting toxic fumes. “This could cast a shadow over the industry’s green...

Climate Deceit: Tom Steyer — the left's answer to the Koch brothers — says he has repented his fossil-fuel sins "based on the scientific evidence" to save the planet and the Democrats. And just what evidence would that be? please give this another read. it has been severely cut/edited from its original formBillionaire Steyer, having made a fortune extracting fossil fuel from the earth, confessed his guilt July 14 in Politico. "The more I learned about the energy and climate problems we currently face," he said, "the more I realized I had to change my life." So now he intends...

Do We Always Believe What Scientists Say? by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Many Americans are convinced that mainstream narratives are true—like humans descended from ape-like ancestors or that burning fossil fuels causes global warming. But many times large contingents totally disagree with these popular ideas. How can equally intelligent and educated people arrive at such opposing conclusions? Conventional thinkers often assume that those who diverge from mainstream narratives simply need more science education. However, a new study shows why some other factor must be to blame. Kan Kahan, a professor at Yale Law School, studied the way people reason as...

A top federal wildlife official said there's too much uncertainty about climate change to prove it threatens the snow-loving wolverine — overruling agency scientists who warned of impending habitat loss for the so-called "mountain devil." There's no doubt that the high-elevation range of wolverines is getting warmer, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Regional Director Noreen Walsh said. But any assumption about how that will change snowfall patterns is "speculation," Walsh said. She told her staff to prepare to withdraw a proposal to protect the animals under the Endangered Species Act. Walsh's comments were contained in a May 30 memo obtained...

fter years of starts and stops, the next frontier has finally arrived for biodiesel. Starting Tuesday, Minnesota will require all diesel fuel sold here to contain at least 10 percent biodiesel -- except during the winter, when the requirement will be 5 percent biodiesel. Currently, state law requires every gallon of diesel fuel to contain at least 5 percent biodiesel -- and 2 percent during the winter -- so supporters are excited to see Minnesota raise the bar to a highest-in-the-nation level.

Climate change may shrink the ice caps and devastate the coasts, but here in the farmlands of Minnesota and the Dakotas, a milder climate may bring some benefits, a new report suggests. That was one twist in a report issued Tuesday by a group of top corporate and political officials, including Greg Page, executive chairman of Wayzata-based agribusiness giant Cargill. While the group's other notables warned Tuesday about possible devastation ahead, Page delivered a conflicted -- even hopeful -- view of how food production would adjust to a changing climate. For instance, a warming climate is expected to shift the...

A physics professor is so fed up with the claims made by “climate change deniers” that he has launched a “$10,000 Global Warming Skeptic Challenge.” The challenge issued by Dr. Christopher Keating, a professor who previously taught at the University of South Dakota and the U.S. Naval Academy, according to a news release, will award prize money to anyone who uses the scientific method to prove that human activity has not been a factor leading to climate change.

Various statements and events defy the claim of a ‘universal consensus’ on ‘harmful’ climate change. “Have you noticed that the nature of the crisis du jour may change, but the solutions always involve higher taxes and more power for the political class?” ... There’s a reason some global warming enthusiasts demand that the media refuse to print or broadcast skeptical views. Polls show Americans continually rank “climate change” near the bottom of lists of important issues. Apparently, “global warming is harmful because shut up” is the only argument many activists have left. And there’s a reason the Environmental Protection Agency...