Free Republic

Obese people are contributing to the world food crisis and climate change, experts say. The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine calculated the obese consume 18% more calories than average. They are also responsible for using more fuel, which has an environmental impact and drives up food prices as transport and agriculture both use oil. The result is that the poor struggle to afford food and greenhouse gas emissions rise, the Lancet reported. It comes as the World Health Organization predicts the obese population will double by 2015 to 700m. In the UK, nearly a quarter of adults are...

While no one knows who first uttered the sentiment "It’s better to say nothing and seem a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt," Republican presidential hopeful John McCain’s speech this week on climate change certainly supports the phrase’s validity. McCain spoke at the facilities of Vestas Wind Technology, an Oregon-based firm that manufactures wind-power systems. The irony of the setting was rich given McCain’s outspoken opposition to pork-barrel spending. He even risked his presidential hopes by criticizing ethanol subsidies ahead of the all-important Iowa caucuses. Next to solar power, however, wind power is the most heavily...

Decades after most countries stopped spraying DDT, frozen stores of the insecticide are now trickling out of melting Antarctic glaciers. The change means Adélie penguins have recently been exposed to the chemical, according to a new study. The trace levels found will not harm the birds, but the presence of the chemical could be an indication that other frozen pollutants will be released because of climate change, says Heidi Geisz, a marine biologist at Virginia Institute of Marine Science in Gloucester in the US. She led a team that sampled DDT levels in the penguins. She worries that glaciers could...

You knew this was coming. Global Warming is to blame for everything these days, including Global Cooling. From The Guardian: Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida’s Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes. In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville. Of course, these...

One of the many mandates of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for oil companies to increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. President Bush said, during his 2006 State of the Union address, "America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world." Let's look at some of the "wonders" of ethanol as a replacement for gasoline.Ethanol contains water that distillation cannot remove. As such, it can cause major damage to automobile engines not specifically designed to burn ethanol. The water content of ethanol also risks pipeline corrosion and thus must be...

Emily Derke looked surprised when she was asked why she was attending church on Earth Day. In her mind, the question was not "why" but "why not?" "I see Earth Day as a spiritual thing," said Derke, who drove from her home in Coon Rapids to St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in downtown Minneapolis for an interfaith celebration. "God made the Earth, and now it's up to us to protect it. Everybody here [at the service] is here for the same purpose. It's all about the Earth." Indeed, the faith community has become one of the major players in environmental issues....

Psychology: The alarms that environmental extremists have sounded have given rise to a market for therapists who treat eco-anxiety. What a concept! Scare the wits out of people, then make money off their fear.It's possible that none of the 100 or so "eco-therapists" practicing in the U.S. have been part of the environmentalist shock campaign. Or it could be that, at more than $100 an hour, these practitioners are simply taking advantage of others' weaknesses. But given that the treatments they're prescribing — taking shorter showers, turning off lights, making do with less — are scrawled on the stone tablet...

Farewell the age of reason, welcome the idiocracy. Only George Orwell could have invented - and named - the government's Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) that came into operation yesterday. It is the latest in a long line of measures intended to ease the conscience of the rich while keeping the poor miserable, in this case spectacularly so. The consequences of the RTFO have been much trumpeted on these pages. It says enough that one car tank of bio petrol needs as much grain as it takes to feed an African for a year, or that a reported one-third of...

When it comes to all things "green", common sense seems to have been abandoned. Our failure to think clearly about such matters would be amusing if the potential consequences were not so serious. Consider the recent "lights out" campaign that supposedly should energise the world about the problems of climate change by urging citizens in 27 big cities to turn out their lights for an hour... -Nobody, it seemed, wanted to spoil the party by pointing that the event was immensely futile, that it highlighted a horrible metaphor, or that it caused much higher overall pollution. -Ironically, the lights-out campaign...

To fight global warming, a bill in Sacramento would enable Los Angeles County transit officials to increase taxes on motorists. It's a bad idea that may foreshadow even worse to come. Billed as a "climate change mitigation and adaptation fee," the measure would cost motorists either an additional 3 percent motor fuel tax, or up to a $90 annual flat fee, based on vehicle emissions. The new charges would be on top of taxes already paid at the pump. Either option requires a majority approval by a vote of the people. Climate has changed as long as the Earth has...

Yesterday, Post readers were moved by the image of our Prime Minister, in Poland on April 5, kneeling at the Death Wall of Auschwitz, the worst of the Holocaust extermination camps. In the museum guest book he wrote, "Lord, bless the souls of those who suffered and perished here, and deliver us from evil." Prime Minister Stephen Harper pays tribute to Holocaust victim at Auschwitz.Peter Andrews/Reuters. Stephen Harper's prayerful posture and traditional words of commemoration for the lost souls of a barbaric era reveal a sensibility noticeably out of sync with the religion of environmentalism that presently dominates our culture....

Several dozen leading members of the Southern Baptist Convention, including its current President and several past Presidents, recently released a "Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change." I attended Liberty University, a school affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention and specifically affiliated with Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Both the church and the University were founded and led by Jerry Falwell until his death last May. The school and church are now led by Rev. Falwell's two sons: Jerry Falwell, Jr. is the Chancellor and President of Liberty University, and Jonathan Falwell is the senior pastor of the...

COLLEGE STATION – The more you know the less you care – at least that seems to be the case with global warming. A telephone survey of 1,093 Americans by two Texas A&M University political scientists and a former colleague indicates that trend, as explained in their recent article in the peer-reviewed journal Risk Analysis. “More informed respondents both feel less personally responsible for global warming, and also show less concern for global warming,” states the article, titled “Personal Efficacy, the Information Environment, and Attitudes toward Global Warming and Climate Change in the USA.” The study showed high levels of...

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades. Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide. Using advanced computer models to...

David Carlson, professor of oceanography from Oregon State University, will speak from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Feb. 28 in Ramsey Auditorium. His free presentation, titled "Exploring the Polar Regions at a Critical Time," will offer the latest climate data from around the world. He will discuss tips on how to help slow warming. The presentation, partially sponsored by the Fermilab Friends for Science Education, is open to the public.

Former Republican National Committee chairman — and the man who reportedly advised President Bush in early 2001 not to regulate carbon dioxide — has switched sides and is now being paid to lobby for greenhouse gas regulation on behalf of the eco-activist group Environmental Defense. According to Greenwire’s John Fialka (Feb. 21), ED board member and hedge fund tycoon Julian Robertson is putting up the cash to hire DC lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Ken Mehlman and former Democratic congressman Vic Fazio will lead Akin Gump’s efforts. "Their first mission is to find the right political formula...

Environment: In 2005, America used 15% of its corn crop to replace just 2% of its gasoline. Two new studies say use of biofuels will leave the world a warmer and hungrier place.The law of unintended consequences has reared its ugly head once again, with a study published in the Feb. 7 issue of the journal Science. According to University of Minnesota ecologist and study co-author David Tilman, converting the grasslands of the U.S. to corn for ethanol releases excess CO2 emissions of 134 metric tons per hectare (equal to 2.47 acres). The reason is that plants, from grasses to...

Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking, according to a government adviser. "We have to make people think that it's unfashionable just as we have with smoking. We need a similar campaign to convince people that this is wrong," said Tim Lang, the Government's naural resources commissioner. Phil Woolas, the environment minister, added that the amount of money spent on mineral water "borders on being morally unacceptable". Their comments come as new research shows that drinking a bottle of water has the same impact on the environment as driving a car for a kilometre. Conservation groups and...

(CNSNews.com) - As part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "Green the Capitol" initiative, the House of Representatives bought $89,000 worth of carbon credits in November. House Republicans, however, want more oversight for what they see as a program subject to "deception, waste and fraud." In announcing the initiative in June 2007, Pelosi said buying carbon offsets would balance out about 24,000 tons of carbon emissions from House operations. "Offsets are credits that are purchased -- in this case, from the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) -- to offset carbon emissions through investment in other U.S.-based environmentally friendly projects," the California Democrat...

It may sound like science fiction, but it’s only a matter of time before the world’s militaries learn to wield the planet itself as a weapon. Preventing global warming from becoming a planetary catastrophe may take something even more drastic than renewable energy, superefficient urban design, and global carbon taxes. Such innovations remain critical, and yet disruptions to the Earth’s climate could overwhelm these relatively slow, incremental changes in how we live. As reports of faster-than-expected climate changes mount, a growing number of experts worry that we might ultimately be forced to try something quite radical: geoengineering. Geoengineering involves humans...

Your baked potato may not be quite as nutritious by the end of the century, a new study suggests. As carbon dioxide levels continue to accumulate in the atmosphere due to the use of fossil fuels, the increase could cause a decrease in the nutritional value of many key food crops, says Max Taub of Southwestern University in Texas, who analyzed more than 200 experiments conducted by other researchers. The experiments looked at the effects of higher levels of the greenhouse gas on the protein amounts in barley, rice, wheat, soybean and potatoes, key food crops, especially in poorer countries,...

British people are now convinced about the dangers of global warming but are either baffled about how to stop it or are ignoring the issue. Analysts say few people are taking action to deal with the threat of climate change, although over the past 12 months the vast majority have come to accept that it poses a real threat to the world. Opinion polls reveal much confusion among the public about what Britain should do to combat the problem. A backlash is now a real threat, said Phil Downing, head of environmental research for Ipsos Mori. 'There's cynicism because on...

You don't have to be religious to qualify as a fundamentalist. You can be Al Gore, the messiah figure for the global warming cult, whose followers truly believe their gospel of imminent extermination in a Noah-like flood, if we don't immediately change our carbon polluting ways. One of the traits of a cult is its refusal to consider any evidence that might disprove the faith. And so it is doubtful the global warming cultists will be moved by 400 scientists, many of whom, according to the Washington Times, "are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate...

Pope Benedict XVI has launched a surprise attack on climate-change prophets of doom, warning them that any solutions to global warming must be based on firm evidence and not on dubious ideology. The leader of more than a billion Roman Catholics suggested that fears over man-made emissions melting the ice caps and causing a wave of unprecedented disasters were nothing more than scare-mongering. The German-born Pontiff said that while some concerns may be valid it was vital that the international community based its policies on science rather than the dogma of the environmentalist movement. His remarks will be made in...

DETROIT — When General Motors Corp. pulls the cover off a new supercharged version of the Corvette at the Detroit auto show next month, it will unveil a performance car designed to rival or better even the fastest, most expensive exotic cars from Europe. But the Corvette's chief engineer says the 2009 Corvette ZR1 may be the last in a long tradition of Detroit performance cars, endangered by stronger federal fuel economy regulations and limits on carbon dioxide emissions.

In addition to raising auto fuel efficiency standards 40 percent, an energy bill passed by Congress yesterday bans the incandescent light bulb by 2014. President Bush signed the 822-page measure into law today after it was sent up Pennsylvania Avenue in a Toyota Prius hybrid vehicle. The House passed the bill by a 314-100 vote after approval by the Senate last week.

He is known as the "hard man" of climate-change negotiation. But after 12 exhausting days of trying to reach a worldwide agreement on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, it was suddenly all too much for Yvo de Boer. As the 200-nation Bali conference wrangled over a minor procedural matter, the Dutch diplomat in charge of the talks burst into tears and had to be led away by colleagues. Moments earlier, Mr de Boer had been warning delegates that failure to reach an agreement on global warming could "plunge the world into conflict". Officials from China, which feels Western countries should do...

Forget about having your own printer, coffee pot or a mini-refrigerator in your office. Heck, you can forget about having your own office, too, because you’ll probably get assigned a modular desk in a big, open space. That’s what it’s like to work in a green data center. IT workers are finding that they have to make sacrifices for the greater good of cutting back on energy usage in these facilities. Read the latest WhitePaper - Challenges and Solutions for Centralized Remote Office Management Operators of the nation’s greenest data centers say it takes time for employees to get used...

BALI, Indonesia - World powers meeting at a UN climate change conference in Indonesia this week won't be able to craft a meaningful plan to address global warming without co-operation from the United States, the top emitter of greenhouse gases, the UN's climate chief said Sunday. The United States refused to sign the last major international treaty on reducing greenhouse gases, undermining its effectiveness. Delegates from 190 countries will gather on the resort island of Bali on Monday for one of the largest global warming conferences ever, bringing together about 10,000 people including Hollywood luminaries, former vice-president Al Gore, fishermen...

To stop climate change, the nation must "stop coal," a top environmental architect urged during a speech at Ramapo College's conference on climate change. Edward Mazria, who has led efforts nationwide to build more-energy-efficient buildings, said the only way to control global warming is "an immediate moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants in the United States" and a phaseout of older coal plants. "Climate change is the greatest challenge we have ever faced," he told an audience of more than 400 at the conference. "Either we get it under control or we face very dramatic consequences." Mazria is the...

DETROIT (AP) — The Detroit Lions say they'll take on the Green Bay Packers without warming the globe, buying a stake in a replanted rain forest in Ecuador to offset the up to 933 tons of carbon dioxide the Thanksgiving Day game is expected to generate. The Lions will follow the standards for greenhouse gas offsets laid down by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, according to the environmental engineering company handling Thursday's "green game" at Ford Field. It may seem odd to plant trees in South America because of U.S. football fans' tailpipe emissions, but there is strong logic to it,...

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy. But the very thought makes her shudder with horror. Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet. Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible "mistake" of pregnancy should never happen again, that...

New satellite imaging has revealed that hurricanes Katrina and Rita produced the largest single forestry disaster on record in America - an essentially unreported ecological catastrophe that killed or severely damaged some 320 million trees in Mississippi and Louisiana. The die-off, caused initially by wind and later by the pooling of stagnant water, was so massive that researchers say it will add significantly to the greenhouse gas buildup - ultimately putting as much carbon from dying vegetation into the air as the rest of the American forest takes out in a year of photosynthesis. In addition, the downing of so...

WASHINGTON - Just days after the Nobel prize was awarded for global warming work, an alarming new study finds that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing faster than expected. Carbon dioxide emissions were 35 percent higher in 2006 than in 1990, a much faster growth rate than anticipated, researchers led by Josep G. Canadell, of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Increased industrial use of fossil fuels coupled with a decline in the gas absorbed by the oceans and land were listed as causes of the...

EAST MONTPELIER, Vt. — Every fall, Marilyn Krom tries to make a trip to Vermont to see its famously beautiful fall foliage. This year, she noticed something different about the autumn leaves. "They're duller, not as sparkly, if you know what I mean," Krom, 62, a registered nurse from Eastford, Conn., said during a recent visit. "They're less vivid." Other "leaf peepers" are noticing, too, and some believe climate change could be the reason.

Carbon health warnings for all new cars Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent All advertising for new cars will have to carry cigarette-style “health warnings” about their environmental impact, under a European plan to force manufacturers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Companies that produce the most polluting cars will also have to pay penalties of up to £5,000 per vehicle, with the proceeds used to reduce the cost of the most efficient cars.Advertisements in newspapers and magazines, will have to devote at least 20 per cent of the space to details about fuel economy and CO2 emissions. At the moment manufacturers have...

Proponents of pacts such as Kyoto want us to spend enormous sums of money doing little good for the planet a hundred years from now. We need to find a smarter way. The first step is to start focusing resources on making carbon emissions cuts much easier. The typical cost of cutting a ton of carbon dioxide is currently about $20. Yet, according to a wealth of scientific literature, the damage from a ton of carbon in the atmosphere is about $2. Spending $20 to do $2 worth of good is not smart policy. It may make you feel good,...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama said Sunday that his religious beliefs influence his plans for how to protect the environment. Speaking before religious leaders and others at what he called an "interfaith forum on climate change," the Illinois senator said God has entrusted humans with the responsibility of caring for the earth, and "we are not acting as good stewards of God's earth when our bottom line puts the size of our profits before the future of our planet." "It is our responsibility to ensure that this planet remains clean and safe and livable for...

Al Gore Called Away Unexpectedly for 'Exciting and Urgent Mission' Thursday , October 11, 2007 A simple phone call by Al Gore to Sen. Barbara Boxer's office has touched off widespread speculation that the former vice president is getting ready to make an even bigger splash — perhaps as a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The politician-turned-environmental-crusader contacted the California Democrat to beg out of a Thursday fundraising event for her, where he was to headline alongside musicians Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne, the political blog SFGate.com reported. Click here to read the SFGate.com blog. In a note sent to event...

It is mid-afternoon in an airy, lower-Manhattan flat, on the ninth floor of a posh-looking building with a doorman. It is a bit dark and there are no lights on. There is a strange quiet feel to the flat, perhaps due to the lack of any appliances - no fridge humming, no TV interference, even no air conditioning, though it is hot and humid outside. Walk into the bathroom, and you will notice that there is no toilet paper, no bottles of shampoo or toiletries. In the kitchen, berries and cheese are laid out on the counter and there are...

(LONDON) - Eating less meat could help slow global warming by reducing the number of livestock and thereby decreasing the amount of methane flatulence from the animals, scientists said on Thursday. In a special energy and health series of the medical journal The Lancet, experts said people should eat fewer steaks and hamburgers. Reducing global red meat consumption by 10 percent, they said, would cut the gases emitted by cows, sheep and goats that contribute to global warming. "We are at a significant tipping point," said Geri Brewster, a nutritionist at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York, who was not...

There are two important prerequisites for this new carbon credit business: 1) Your country must have signed the Kyoto Protocol (the United States has still not signed it as of March 2007). These credits are made possible by the Kyoto's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). That's why sometimes this new line of trading is also referred to simply as "CDM" business. 2) You have to register your "carbon saving" project with the United Nations before you can sell your credits to other international purchasers. This is an amazing opportunity for the developing countries to get rich while overhauling their energy infrastructure....

How to Gain A Climate Consensus By George P. Shultz Wednesday, September 5, 2007; A21 We in the United States -- and we as global citizens -- live in what is, in many respects, a golden moment. Economic growth is globally strong, and, if security threats can be contained, this expansion, with some ups and downs, can be sustained. Strong growth means increased use of energy at a pace that can strain the capacity to supply what is needed at a reasonable price. This highlights two urgent questions: how to use energy without producing excess greenhouse gases that create disruptive...

For all the money spent, nobody can say if the offsets have done much to alleviate global warming.... Without government regulation and mandatory caps on emissions, all that is left to drive offset sales is guilt and marketing. Offset companies charge what the market will bear. "How much are you willing to spend to feel good or to impress your neighbors?" asked Marland, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For Katy Hansen, a 29-year-old law school student, the answer was $429.99. She wanted to offset the travel of the guests to her May wedding in Madison, Wis., and paid San Francisco-based...

"And the Lord spoke all these words: I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt not have strange gods before me. (Exodus 20: 1-3) Their names are Legion, for they are many; the Romans knew them as Juno, or Diana, or Ops. Freyr, Gerd, Idun, and Jord ruled the Norse, Dziewona and Mokosh were their names to the Slavs. The Hawaiians had Papa, the Aztecs Coatlicue, the Egyptians had Geb and Nut.  The Celts had many: Cerunno, Cyhiraet, Druantia, Maeva. The ancient Canaanites had...

The Earth might be having health problems these days, but global warming denial is alive and well. Witness Cal Thomas' column Wednesday in this space, which even by his overheated standards was a doozy. Cal pronounced warming a hoax perpetrated by "global warming jihadists."

Nicholas Kristof: I ran into Al Gore at a climate/energy conference this month, and he vibrates with passion about this issue -- recognizing that we should confront mortal threats even when they don't emanate from Al Qaeda. "We are now treating the Earth's atmosphere as an open sewer," he said, and (perhaps because my teenage son was beside me) he encouraged young people to engage in peaceful protests to block major new carbon sources. "I can't understand why there aren't rings of young people blocking bulldozers," Mr. Gore said, "and preventing them from constructing coal-fired power plants."

Though Austin Chronicle writer Robert Bryce is likely not a household name, his column published in Thursday's Energy Tribune is a must-read for all anthropogenic global warming skeptics. In "Al Gore's Zero Emissions Makes Zero Sense," Bryce not only skewered the Global Warmingist in Chief's schlockumentary "An Inconvenient Truth," but he also deliciously mocked all the sycophant devotees of the former vice president that have failed to recognize the obvious as they tour the country professing imminent planetary doom at the hands of a naturally occurring gas that happens to be a necessity to all forms of life. With that...