Free Republic

Forget about the birthers, and the nutty claims that Barack Obama was not born in the United States. More and more, we are hearing from people who might best be described as anti-birthers. Their claims have nothing to do with long- versus short-form Hawaiian birth certificates. Instead, they advance a simple proposition: that the birth of each additional American child is a kind of calamity for the environment. The most recent example of anti-birth thinking comes from Paul Murtaugh and Michael Schlax of Oregon State University. In a study called “Reproduction and the carbon legacies of individuals,” they suggest...

For people who are looking for ways to reduce their "carbon footprint," here's one radical idea that could have a big long-term impact, some scientists say: Have fewer kids. A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices people might employ during their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs. "In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on...

Unfortunately for Democrats, global warming is much more complicated science than what their theories predict. The greatest contributing factor to global temperatures isn’t atmospheric carbon dioxide, it’s the sun. The sun’s release of energy has natural variations and it is currently in a state known as solar minimum; the lowest energy output by the sun as it oscillates through an approximate 11 year cycle of activity, also known as the Schwabe cycle. This is the primary reason for the colder than normal temperatures recorded across the country this summer.

The call was made in the report ‘Hope in God’s Future’, received by the annual Methodist Conference on Wednesday. The report encourages people to repent in particular for their complicity in systems that exploit creation and prey on the powerless, but also offers advice on how Christians can make positive lifestyle changes. Rev David Gamble, the President of the Conference, said the report sent out a challenge to the Church to tackle the issue head on and commit to “significant action” over the next few years. “The first step in making a difference is the recognition of what we’ve done...

Enlarge ImageSlimming down. Sheep on the remote Scottish isle of Hirta have been getting smaller.Credit: A. Ozgul/Science Call it the case of the shrinking sheep. On the remote Scottish island of Hirta, sheep have been getting smaller, shrinking an average of 5% over the last 24 years. Don't blame evolution, though. Researchers say climate change is the real culprit. The Hirta sheep belong to a breed known as Soay, after the remote Scottish island where they arose. One of the most primitive forms of domestic sheep, Soays first came to Hirta in 1932. Because Hirta is a remote island,...

June 29, 2009   Mr. GRRRRR   Re: The American Clean Energy and Security (ACES) Act, H.R. 2454   Dear Friend:   Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACES), H.R. 2454.   For 2009, our top goal should be energy independence.  I support exploring for energy off our coasts, expanding nuclear power and building a natural gas pipeline across Canada to lower heating costs in the Midwest - an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy.    As a Navy veteran, I think is time to set America's policy towards defunding Middle Eastern dictatorships by cutting...

The EPA is now considering designating CO2 a dangerous pollutant. The regulation of essential elements of life by our government scares me. It should scare us all. I am devastated by the notion that our own government founded on freedom would regulate and control the most fundamental aspects of life on earth. Regulation on life's important things is certainly tyranny and certainly will destroy the world, at least the nation and supposed freedom, we leave to our children. Please, do not regulate the essential elements of life. Freedom is too precious to take it away in such pointless ways. Carbon...

ABSTRACT: Democratic leaders in the House have scheduled a Friday vote on a climate change bill that would establish a complex cap-and-trade system to limit the nation's greenhouse gas emissions, a priority for President Obama. The House Rules Committee unveiled the latest version of the bill, which weighs in at 1,201 pages. It features new items such as $7.5 billion in "green bonds" for a new federal financing agency called the Clean Energy Deployment Administration, extra emission allowances for politically powerful rural electric cooperatives, greater flexibility for states that want to use free allowances for mass transit, and tweaks benefiting...

Is an imperfect climate bill (Waxman-Markey) better than no bill at all? Al Gore says yes.To bring environment supporters together, Gore will host a nationwide conference call on June 23 at 8 p.m. ET. The purpose, according to his Repower America e-mail sent to a selected audience, is “to build urgency around this bill and make sure it passes. We have to go to the grassroots – we have to continue building support in communities across the nation.”“As this climate legislation moves before the full Congress this summer, we have an opportunity unlike anything we’ve seen yet,” the e-mail concludes.Gore...

Growing up as a teenager in the 1950s, I could not wait to get my license to drive and I liked the sporty look of the British MG. These days I drive a Volkswagen. In that short tale can be found the seeds of the end of the American auto industry. Here’s some history. In 1952, the merger of several British auto companies resulted in the British Motor Corporation. It was the largest of its day with 39% of British output. Despite established dealerships for the various models, a series of poor management decisions resulted in the loss of market...

The social engineering spin of the green mindset dictates that we should buy ‘green' cars, divert food crops to fuel them, restrict air travel and ban plasma TVs and, of course, traditional light-bulbs. So let's take a closer look at the current green-led switchover: the dimly-lit realities behind ‘green' light bulbs. Back to the ‘dark ages' In the US, Republican Jane Harman (D-Calif.) introduced legislation aimed at setting a target date of 2012 to ban the sale of traditional incandescent light-bulbs, switching America over to low-energy alternatives. After all, low-energy "compact fluorescent bulbs" (CFLs) use just one-fifth of the energy...

By Marc Morano - Climate Depot - May 4, 2009 Washington, DC - NASA scientist James Hansen, perhaps the most vocal voice in the U.S. warning of a man-made global warming crisis, has declared he hopes Congressional efforts to pass a cap-and-trade climate bill fail. "I hope cap and trade doesn't pass, because we need a much more effective approach,” Hansen said during a keynote lecture at Columbia University's climate conference on May 2, 2009. Hansen urged Congress to “abandon cap-and-trade initiatives altogether and implement a simple carbon tax instead” according to a May 4, 2009 article titled "Hansen hopes...

A fired British executive is suing his former employer on the grounds that he was unfairly dismissed due to religious views – his belief in global warming.  According to the Independent: “In the first case of its kind, employment judge David Sneath said Tim Nicholson, a former environmental policy officer, could invoke employment law for protection from discrimination against him for his conviction that climate change was the world's most important environmental problem.� The judge ruled that Nicholson’s extreme green views fit the definition of “a philosophical belief under the Employment Equality (Religion and Belief) Regulations, 2003.�  So strong were...

Aerosols bumped up world’s plant productivity by 25 percent in the 1960s and 1970s, new research suggests The world’s vegetation soaked up carbon dioxide more efficiently under the polluted skies of recent decades than it would have under a pristine atmosphere, a new analysis in the April 23 Nature suggests. The trend hints that relying on forests and other vegetation to sequester carbon may not be effective if skies continue to clear, researchers say. Major volcanic eruptions throw large quantities of aerosols, such as small bits of fractured rock and droplets of sulfuric acid, high into the atmosphere. Those particles...

OK , let’s get serious. REDUCE CARBONS – get on the bandwagon with me. I will start this campaign with listing some of the ways this can be done with little negative impact on our economy. Please add to this list. Then we must do our patriotic duty and forward these recommendations to the Czars in charge of this problem and get them fixed. Also the United Nations will have to get involved so these solutions can be activated world-wide. 1 Eliminate night ball games. That includes NFL, AL, NL, NHL, NBA, etc. Of course this applies to colleges and...

April 17 (Bloomberg) -- House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman said he won’t compromise on his proposed 20 percent reduction in greenhouse gases over the next decade in the face of criticism from lawmakers who say the economy could suffer. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aaE9Lr1448tM&refer=home

The US government is to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, having decided that it and five other greenhouse gases may endanger human health and well-being. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced the move following a review of the scientific evidence. The decision marks a major change from the Bush presidency, when the EPA argued it could not regulate CO2 because the gas was not a pollutant. Developing countries have asked for the US to show leadership on climate. Many are not prepared to curtail their own emissions without firm indications that the US is willing to make significant reductions. Carbon-cutting legislation...

EPA agrees to study acidic seas; move adds to regulation momentum The Obama administration took another step toward regulating carbon dioxide, issuing a notice Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency will review whether those emissions should fall under the Clean Water Act. The EPA earlier this year determined that C02 should be regulated under the Clean Air Act due to its impact on temperatures. But Tuesday's notice — soliciting scientific data as to what extent seas are made more acidic by C02 — could extend regulation out to U.S. waters. The notice was in response to a petition filed by...

Looking back three years ago, it is hard to fathom how much has changed from the frenzied pace of development then going forward. Land and housing prices were still rising, ever-larger development projects were being launched, and growth debates were raging across Southern California. That’s all gone now. As key real estate players suddenly find themselves without jobs, as more developers file bankruptcy, and more projects bite the dust, the depth of this “downturn” is sinking in. Many, of course, have “been through this before.” By that they mean, they’ve weathered the cyclical postwar busts that have intermittently interrupted the...

There are already too many people living on Planet Earth, according to one of most influential science advisors in the US government. Nina Fedoroff told the BBC One Planet programme that humans had exceeded the Earth's "limits of sustainability". Dr Fedoroff has been the science and technology advisor to the US secretary of state since 2007, initially working with Condoleezza Rice. Under the new Obama administration, she now advises Hillary Clinton. "We need to continue to decrease the growth rate of the global population; the planet can't support many more people," Dr Fedoroff said, stressing the need for humans to...

The EPA has officially declared that CO2 is endangering the public's health and welfare. This means that there will be new pressure on businesses to cut their emissions. It also sets the stage for cap and trade legislation: WSJ: A finding that CO2 is a threat to public health and welfare also would ratchet up pressure on Congress to enact a system that caps greenhouse gases and creates a market for businesses to buy and sell the right to emit them, as President Barack Obama has proposed.

A physicist from Colorado State University and his colleagues from the North American Carbon Program (NACP) have discerned and confirmed the unforeseen advantages of rising carbon dioxide levels. Through the processes of photosynthesis and respiration, scientists have been able to elucidate why plants are growing more rapidly than they are dying. The NACP is employing methods, such as the use of cell phone and aircraft towers to monitor and retrieve carbon data for their continuing study. Too much carbon dioxide can be a bad thing, but sometimes it can have a positive effect on plants and trees. The more carbon...

Politicians who bow to the demands of the world's climate alarmists have long sought various means of reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. ... But the "rules of the road" will soon be become much more stringent, and you and I may be asked - if not mandated by law - to make an unprecedented lifestyle change that could dramatically curtail one of our most cherished personal freedoms, all in the name of "saving the planet." Writing for the scientific journal Global Environmental Change, two academics at Oregon State University - Paul Murtaugh and Michael Schlax - identify this lifestyle change in...

ITEM: U.S. News & World Report for February 20, 2009 interviewed Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the new chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Waxman said that "broader legislation" is needed beyond the passage of the so-called economic stimulus bill. "What we need to move to is legislation to deal with global warming.... It's the key to our revitalized economy and our long-term prosperity as a nation."Critics of "cap-and-trade" legislation, noted the magazine, say such action will outsource jobs to other countries, presumably "the last thing we need during an economic crisis." Dodging, Waxman responded: "We're going to...

WHAT is your carbon legacy - not the emissions you are personally liable for, but those of your descendants? Ask Paul Murtaugh, a statistician at Oregon State University in Corvallis.If you have a child, he says, you and you partner are each responsible for half its emissions. If that child has kids, one-quarter of their emissions are down to you, and so on. How it adds up depends on population trends and emission changes in the future.Murtaugh used UN population projections, which say that after 2050, birth rates in all countries will be 1.85 children per woman, on average....

The atmosphere is cooling, the ice is expanding, the seas are not rising -- even though carbon emissions are increasing. The evidence is now crystal clear to anyone with an unwashed brain that man-made global warming theory is sheer unadulterated bunkum. So how do the warmers react to the ever more embarrassing evidence that they have hitched their reputations to the biggest anti-scientific scam in history? By ratcheting up the hysteria to fever pitch and shrieking that their predictions about the impending irreversible environmental apocalypse have grievously underestimated the catastrophe which is going to be far, far worse. At the...

Climate Change: Washington is about to crack down on carbon dioxide emissions. It had better hurry because it won't have much time before the backlash strikes. The public is losing its faith in the global warming religion.The Environmental Protection Agency, under new management, wants to regulate emissions of CO2, as well as other greenhouse gases, as part of its campaign against global warming. The next step is to establish a reporting system, which was proposed Tuesday, so the government can monitor private activity and eventually tax carbon emissions. As many as 13,000 factories, power plants, refineries and other commercial enterprises...

Has it occurred to you that constantly telling children and teens that “global warming” is real and that the Earth is in deadly peril constitutes child abuse? That thought came to me as I enjoyed some of the excellent seminars and speeches during the March 8-10 second annual Conference on Climate Change. Here were some of the nation’s leading climatologists and others spelling out in detail precisely why there is no global warming and, indeed, why the Earth is now into a decade-old cooling trend. The experts believe that the Earth will stay in this trend for easily another decade...

Soon, “low-flow” toilets may not be the only environmental bathroom inconvenience American experience. As if there weren’t enough reasons for the public to dive head first in to hysteria of so-called manmade global warming, Americans are now being told their urinary tracts are at risk. Dr. Margaret Pearle, a urologist professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, warns that “global warming” can potentially cause an additional 2 million kidney stone cases, according to a March 1 report by the Ivanhoe Broadcast News. “We are predicting that there will be an increase in the prevalence of stone...

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials. The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen. The...

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet, according to top Obama administration officials. The decision, which most likely would play out in stages over a period of months, would have a profound impact on transportation, manufacturing costs and how utilities generate power. It could accelerate the progress of energy and climate change legislation in Congress and form a basis for the United States’ negotiating position at United Nations climate talks set for December in Copenhagen. The...

Erwin Knoll said, “Everything you read in the newspapers is absolutely true, except for that rare story of which you happen to have first hand knowledge.” Most media coverage of the disastrous fires in Australia missed important information and directly or indirectly quoted environmentalists who incorrectly attributed them to global warming. It was another shameless attempt to divert attention away from the cooling trend that undermines the hypothesis that humans are causing warming. The story was also another example of how environmentalism pushed without understanding is potentially devastating. Fire tragedy highlights scale of global warming emergency and need for...

Angry residents last night accused local authorities of contributing to the Victorian bushfire toll by failing to let residents chop down trees and clear up bushland that posed a fire risk. During question time at a packed community meeting in Arthurs Creek on Melbourne's northern fringe, Warwick Spooner — whose mother Marilyn and brother Damien perished along with their home in the Strathewen blaze — criticised the Nillumbik council for the limitations it placed on residents wanting the council's help or permission to clean up around their properties in preparation for the bushfire season. "We've lost two people in my...

A bestselling author has called octuplets-mother Nadya Sulamen a 'murderer' and warns of overpopulation saying, "we need to lose 4.4 billion people." “STOP HAVING CHILDREN.” Steven Kotler has declared that responsible adults should stop having children in order to save the planet. Those who are having kids, are being selfish and stealing from the future, the rest of humanity, and “every living thing on the earth,” he wrote. Have too many kids and you should go to jail. This isn’t a joke. Kotler writes a blog called “The Playing Field” on the Psychology Today Web site. He is a best...

Obama says we are doomed. but he will save us.

Global warming fears should be all about science, not opinion. But, unlike the nature of the atomic force or the presence of life on Mars, one's beliefs about warming are likely to correlate with one's worldview on economics, politics, and culture. For many this constellation of beliefs and values adds up to an ideology: anti-carbonism. Anti-carbonism rests on three foundational assumptions, all essentially in the realm of science: First, warming is the result of man-made CO2. Second, such warming is harmful, even catastrophic. Third, a program of policies and actions can prevent these harms. So far, despite more than $9...

Beginning January 1, 2009, millions of asthma sufferers will no longer legally be able to obtain the low-cost albuterol inhalers that enable them to breathe. The inhalers have been outlawed by FDA regulations under the UN Montreal Protocol on Ozone Deplation.  Few things are more terrifying than being smothered, yet millions of Americans who suffer from asthma and other respiratory ailments experience this sensation on a regular basis. For many it is not just an unpleasant and debilitating experience, but a life-threatening one. For decades, these sufferers have received emergency relief from albuterol metered-dose inhalers (MDIs). These traditional MDIs, however,...

President 'has four years to save Earth' US must take the lead to avert eco-disasterBarack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen who last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially, that action will have to be taken within Obama's first administration, he added. Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and major disruptions of weather patterns in the near future....

Many of the solar parks that stretch across vast tracts of the Spanish countryside are guilty of fraud, Spain's National Energy Commission (CNE) has found. In the past two years, Spain's solar industry has grown by a spectacular 900%. The country now has the third largest solar capacity in the world, behind the United States and Germany. But an ongoing investigation by Spanish authorities has so far unearthed nearly 4,200 photovoltaic installations that were falsely registered as being online by a 30 September deadline in order to receive higher levels of subsidy from power companies. According to the CNE report,...

Last night, December 15, I attended the [local Elementary School's Christmas Production]. The children were well rehearsed, and the principle characters read their parts remarkably well. The closing number’s choreography was cute. The singing was outstanding. In my opinion, it was the worst show I have ever seen in my half century of living!I was not prepared when I was tricked into sitting through a half hour long political statement on “Global Warming.” I was not appreciative that my grand-daughter is being taught this unproven theory of mankind destroying the Earth, and that even Santa must do something to prevent...

Climate change and the inevitable extinction of the human species have been emphatically underlined by scientists studying coral reefs. But some leaders don’t listen, even though the loss of these reefs, already at 20%, constitutes a serious blow to the balance in the ecosystem that is the key to maintaining survival of the earth and the global warming that is leading to man’s extinction.

NBC's Ann Curry aborted her quest to find proof of global warming at the peak of Tanzania's Mt. Kilimanjaro. But at about a half mile shy of her goal, she did find proof that sub-zero degree temperatures and thin, low oxygen concentration air might do a 52 year old woman and her crew serious harm, particularly when altitude safety rules take the back seat to ideology. For those of you who may not know, as part of last week's silly "Ends of the Earth" series, itself part of their even sillier "Green is Universal" week, the network dispatched four Today...

“Kill your air conditioner,” wrote Joe Klein in Time Magazine. “The unnecessary refrigeration of America has become a chronic disease.” What? I’m tempted to laugh at the lunacy. It’s as silly as banning the light bulb in an attempt to save the planet. Who could be that stupid? Well, in a few years incandescent light bulbs will be illegal. We’ll be forced to buy compact fluorescents, which require Hazmat disposal teams when broken. In today’s green environment, nothing is too insane. Frighteningly, our industry is increasingly considered politically incorrect. A decade ago, the New York Times reported that an Italian...

Al Gore called Wednesday for "civil disobedience" to combat the construction of coal power plants without the ability to store carbon, Reuters reported. The former vice president, whose efforts to raise awareness of global warming have made him the most prominent voice on that issue, made the comment during a session at the fourth annual Clinton Global Initiative in Manhattan.

Everyone's always talking about how an aging population, with more retirees, is going to wreak havoc on Social Security and the federal budget. Here's my question: What impact will that have on the planet? After all, my grandparents don't seem to care much about global warming, their refrigerator is from the 1970s, and they use an awful lot of air conditioning at home. Give it to me straight: Are Grandma and Grandpa bad for the environment? "Do it for the kids" has always been one of the most popular arguments in favor of environmentalism: Older people need to get their...

Is Al Gore nuts? I’m serious. Is it possible that the disappointment of losing the presidential campaign eight years ago destabilized him? If you think about it, since then, he’s been a changed man. First he got fat. He went through a dramatic physical change. He put on a significant amount of weight and grew a beard and got reclusive. Then he lost the weight and found a cause. Manmade global warming. It absolutely became his theme in life. After being largely silent on the issue during eight years as the vice president and a good run in the Senate,...

A whole new industry is springing up that will dwarf Al Gore's ripping off of the population through Global Warming. Companies are figuring out how to work the ridiculous "Carbon Credits" debacle to make big bucks. Rhodia, is a French Company, makes adipic acid which is a chemical used in the production of nylon. They have moved their operation to South Korea and Brazil. Why? A by-product of their manufacturing process is the creation of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that is over 300 times more potent as an atmospheric warming agent than carbon dioxide. Rhodia destroys the nitrous oxide...

Due to pending disasters predicted because of global warming, government scientists are urging the creation of a new Earth Systems Science Agency -- by merging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Geological Survey... 'The United States faces unprecedented environmental and economic challenges in the decades ahead,' the group warns. 'Foremost among them will be climate change, sea-level rise, altered weather patterns, declines in freshwater availability and quality and loss of biodiversity'... Developing...

Pictured: The floating cities that could one day house climate change refugees An architect has come up with an innovative answer to rising sea levels - a city that floats around the world. The self-contained 'Lilypad' city will be home to around 50,000 'climate refugees' from the worst hit areas - including London. {snip} The 'Lilypad' cities would be powered by renewable energy sources {snip} But now a visionary architect has found a solution which will see people in the affected cities making a new home for themselves on the futuristic-looking Lilypad. {snip} As land-based cities flood, the Lilypad will...

Evidence of serious flaws in the multi-billion dollar global market for carbon credits has been uncovered by a BBC World Service investigation. The credits are generated by a United Nations-run scheme called the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The mechanism gives firms in developing countries financial incentives to cut greenhouse gas emissions. But in some cases, carbon credits are paid to projects that would have been realised without external funding. The findings reinforce doubts that the CDM is leading to real emission cuts, which is not good news for the effort to combat climate change. And in one case a company...