Free Republic

Think about what's been happening. We're a blink away from world war. There are drugs taking the lives of 100,000 Americans a year – the biggest cause of death of those between 18 and 45. The president of the United States is clearly cognitively challenged. His predecessor, a clear-headed man who was a hero to the nation, was just indicted in New York – unjustly. Crime and lawlessness are reaching astronomical levels. Children are now being "groomed" to receive "gender-affirming care" through mutilation. "Gender dysphoria" seems to be rampant, with perhaps millions of girls thinking they are boys and vice...

Investigation into Verra carbon standard finds most are ‘phantom credits’ and may worsen global heating The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading certifier and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation. The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to...

The fast melting of Antarctic ice threatens to slow deep currents in the world's oceans, adversely affecting the climate, the spread of fresh water and oxygen as well as life-sustaining nutrients for centuries, scientists have said. According to a new study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, deep water currents around Antarctica could slow by more than 40% in the next 30 years. The "overturning circulation" of waters in the depths of the oceans would slow by 40% by 2050 in a high-emissions scenario, the study said, warning of repercussions that would last "for centuries to come." New modeling...

It could be argued that the basic arithmetic showing wind power is an economic and societal disaster in the making should be clear to a bright primary school child. Now the Oxford University mathematician and physicist, researcher at CERN and Fellow of Keble College, Emeritus Professor Wade Allison has done the sums. The U.K. is facing the likelihood of a failure in the electricity supply, he concludes. “Wind power fails on every count,” he says, adding that governments are ignoring “overwhelming evidence” of the inadequacies of wind power, “and resorting to bluster rather than reasoned analysis”. Professor Allison’s dire warnings...

A federal fisheries council acknowledged that some power cables for offshore wind turbines could harm certain fish, according to a letter seen by the DCNF. Multiple recent studies have demonstrated that a variety of commercially popular fish can be negatively impacted by their exposure to magnetic fields emitted by high voltage direct current cables, which can confuse their ability to navigate and in some cases leave them exposed to predators. “We were previously aware of this study and agree that it has concerning implications for the possible effects of high voltage direct current cabling on larval behavior and resulting predation...

This week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a new report. Unsurprisingly alarming, the report aimed to turn up the heat on governments, the business world, and every one of us to do more about the energy transition. Decarbonization, the report said, had to move faster and more dramatically. Yet that wasn’t the only document that made the headlines this week. Shell also released a report in which it detailed two different scenarios for the future to 2050. In those scenarios, the supermajor’s analysts pitted energy security against the energy transition – something the IPCC reports have never done....

In a stunning, but not altogether surprising statement, America’s top Navy official declared that “fighting climate change” is a “top priority” for the U.S. Navy. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro announced this last week not at the Pentagon or the U.S. Naval Academy, but at a conference in the Bahamas. It is likely that Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, meeting this week in Moscow to discuss closer military cooperation, shared a high five on hearing the Navy Secretary’s declaration. Del Toro’s admission that strengthening America’s dwindling fleet of naval ships is no higher a priority than...

Recently published data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows that there has not been global warming for the past eight years. And NASA satellite data reportedly confirms that evidence, showing no global warming for eight years and five months, according to JunkScience’s Steve Milloy. But leftists are quick to warn people against drawing the obvious conclusion that the world isn’t about to become a burning ball of fire. Recently published evidence also showed that there was actually a near-record low of major hurricanes in 2022, indicating that weather isn’t getting progressively and exponentially worse globally, despite the...

The World Economic Forum insect overlords have convened in Davos, Switzerland for their annual confab this week, and once again, their focus is “crisis.” Everything is a “crisis” for the WEF and their minions seeded throughout the world’s governments and corporate leaders, and those crises are always “unprecedented.” But this year, they’re trying to foment even more global panic; they’ve declared 2023 to be the “year of the ‘polycrisis.’” In other words, multiple crises at the same time. (Which is the same thing they’ve been saying for years, but with a new, scary epithet attached to it.) Also consistent with...

The Biden administration announced an initiative Thursday to track the “economic role and value” of nature in the U.S., claiming that current economic indicators do not accurately track the impact of the “natural world” on the U.S. economy. The “National Strategy to Develop Statistics for Environmental-Economic Decisions” was announced as a joint initiative between the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC), and represented the work of “27 Federal departments, agencies and offices” to “account for natural assets.” The initiative notes that the Gross Domestic Product...

Severe flooding hit California’s Salinas Valley on Thursday, as the Salinas River burst its banks, flooding farmland and threatening to cut off access to the Monterey Peninsula. Several levees have broken along the banks of the Salinas River, located just south of the Bay Area, with footage of the destruction going viral on Friday morning. So much water is pouring out of the basin that the entirety of the Monterey Peninsula risks being cut off entirely from road access, NBC News reported.

Recently a claim has gone viral about a decision by the Oxfordshire, England county council to divide the city into sectors that can be traversed by walking in 15 minutes or less, and then restrict residents’ travel from one sector to others to no more than 100 days a year—except by special permit available by application and at a price. The actual facts of the plan are, frankly, difficult to ascertain. The council has placed a formal document about it online. The document is nearly impenetrable. No wonder reports are highly conflicting—and, I’m pleased to say, generally exaggerated. There are...

The spectre of future energy blackouts is once again looming in Germany, with the country’s plan to cut consumption falling significantly short amid cold winter weather. A cold snap that has hit the north of Europe is now seriously threatening Germany’s energy security, with the country now reportedly falling far short of hitting gas savings targets of 20 per cent needed to avoid rolling blackouts. While many officials across the country had warned that there is a very real threat that Germany could be facing serious energy shortages over the next few months, bigwigs close to the government have repeatedly...

Leading activists with climate change protest group Just Stop Oil have admitted that they drive petrol cars, but still claim that this doesn’t make them hypocrites. Erm, okay then. “Dr Larch Maxey, 50, a climate scientist from the eco group, said some members still drive cars and fill up with petrol – but rejected the idea that it was hypocritical,” reports the Telegraph. According to activist leaders, they are “victims” of the “fossil fuel economy.” Maxey says that people who call for the oil industry to be shut down but then drive petrol cars shouldn’t be called out for hypocrisy...

The Biden administration on Wednesday announced a new proposed rule that will prevent new or newly renovated federal buildings from being powered by fossil fuels by 2030. The new standards will force the government to use green energy technologies to power its buildings in hopes of cutting carbon emissions and meeting international climate goals, according to an Energy Department (DOE) memo. Starting in 2025, government buildings, which are responsible for roughly 25% of all federal carbon emissions, must also reduce their on-site emissions relating to energy use by 90% compared to 2003 levels. “Ridding pollution from our buildings and adopting...

Why do some climate alarmists essentially wish us all dead? Because they think people are bad for the earth. They don't believe in God. They claim to believe in science. But what is the evidence that people are supposedly bad for the earth? The Atlantic recently had an article (January/February 2023 issue), focusing on this idea that some experts today are promoting human extinction, for the sake of the planet. They write: "From Silicon Valley boardrooms to rural communes to academic philosophy departments, a seemingly inconceivable idea is being seriously discussed: that the end of humanity's reign on Earth is...

Farmers in Germany have been banned from properly fertilizing large areas of their land under strict EU rules pushing the green agenda. The use of nitrate fertilizers has been further restricted for large swathes of farmland in North Rhine-Westphalia, which is now likely to drastically reduce yields. Although German authorities have implemented the ban, it is ultimately at the behest of the European Union, which is seeking to reduce the amount of nitrogen to tackle ‘climate change.’ The policy has already wreaked havoc in the Netherlands. As The Daily Fetched reported in September: Dutch farmers have risen in protest to...

Oil meets 97% of American transportation needs, is a core component of over 6,000 everyday goods, and has no significant substitute. Oil has to be used, regardless of price. Look around you: oil is integral to everything that you see. Diesel and jet fuel derived from oil are literally the lifeblood of domestic and international commerce. There is no such thing as “transitioning” away from oil: oil is as invaluable and irreplaceable as water, which is why it’s the world’s most traded commodity.

President Joe Biden, fresh from a surprisingly good November election for his fellow Democrats, has redoubled his commitment to rid the world of natural fuels (oil, gas, coal) and impose an all-electric universe powered in large part by offshore wind farms. To that end, Biden recently announced massive wind lease areas offshore from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and Galveston, Texas. One is a 188,023-acre tract located 56 miles offshore from Lake Charles; the other is a 508,265-acre tract 24 nautical miles offshore from Galveston. While Louisiana’s Democrat Governor John Bel Edwards is ebullient about the economic prospects for offshore wind, his...

Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos is planning to donate the majority of his $124 billion fortune to charities that fight climate change, according to CNN. Bezos, who is the world’s fourth-richest man, said that he was “building the capacity to be able to give away this money” to fight climate change during an interview with CNN. The billionaire did not say what percentage of his money he would give away or offer specifics on where the donated money would be spent.