Free Republic

“A typical person is more than five times as likely to die in an extinction event as in a car crash,” says a new report.Nuclear war. Climate change. Pandemics that kill tens of millions. These are the most viable threats to globally organized civilization. They’re the stuff of nightmares and blockbusters—but unlike sea monsters or zombie viruses, they’re real, part of the calculus that political leaders consider everyday. And according to a new report from the U.K.-based Global Challenges Foundation, they’re much more likely than we might think. In its annual report on “global catastrophic risk,” the nonprofit debuted a...

Billionaire climate activist Tom Steyer is launching a $25 million campaign to get millennials to vote for candidates who care about climate change this year. The effort through Steyer’s NextGen Climate organization, for which he’s the main donor, will focus on sending campaigners to more than 200 colleges in seven battleground states. Steyer said the effort is meant to take advantage of millennials’ strong convictions and desire to take action on climate change and to direct that energy toward electing the right people to office. “Today, over 80 percent of young voters prefer candidates who offer clean energy solutions, so...

Not only will Burlingame be the center of the Republican political universe for three days starting Friday, when White House presidential hopefuls Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and John Kasich speak at the state Republican Convention, but some Democrats are taking advantage of the media spotlight shining on California, too. Billionaire San Francisco environmental activist Tom Steyer launched an 30-second ad Thursday ripping Cruz and Trump for their dubious attitudes toward climate change and urging people to vote against them. On Monday, the former hedge fund manager has announced his NextGen Climate Action super PAC would spend $25 million this year...

The Swedish government is showing their commitment to green principles and fighting climate change by spending tax payer money on developing ‘meat’ made out of crickets and mealworms. Vinnova, the Swedish government agency that distributes money for research and development, spending some 2.7 billion kronor (£230 million) a year has announced its latest tranche of funding for creating a greener, more sustainable future — by weaning Europe off meat. It is hoped people will want to eat a so-called “climate smart” diet instead, reports FriaTider.

You’ve read about the climate fraud committed ‘on an unbelievable scale’ by the shysters at NASA. You’ve read about how NOAA overestimated US warming by 50 percent. Now it’s NSIDC’s turn to be caught red-handed fiddling the data and cooking the books.

Conservatives’ attitudes toward climate change and other environmental concerns shift when the issues are reframed in terms more closely aligned with their values, a new study from Oregon State University indicates. Researchers found that people who identified as conservative were more likely to support “pro-environmental” ideals when the issues were framed as matters of obeying authority, defending the purity of nature and demonstrating patriotism. The study underscores the ways in which discussions of important topics are informed by a person’s moral and ideological perspective, said the study’s lead author, Christopher Wolsko, an assistant professor of psychology at OSU-Cascades. “We think...

Rise in CO2 has 'greened Planet Earth' - BBC News. By Roger Harrabin BBC environment analyst Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial society have driven a huge growth in trees and other plants. A new study says that if the extra green leaves prompted by rising CO2 levels were laid in a carpet, it would cover twice the continental USA. Climate sceptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet. But the researchers say the fertilisation effect diminishes over time. They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives. The lead...

The article “US Senate Considering Albedo Modification Geoengineering Proposal” appeared as I finished this article. It commented on the plan to introduce particles into the atmosphere to increase the reflective capability of the Earth’s atmosphere known as the albedo. Most responses correctly identified it as unwise. Isn’t it already happening? Jet contrails from commercial airline flights reduce the amount of sunlight that makes it to the surface, as this satellite image shows:Jet contrails as seen by satellite. Credit: NASA Langley Research Center The Senate proposal is not new. In 2009, John Holdren pushed the same idea as a Daily Mail...

Europe’s plans to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by switching from conventional oil to biofuels actually ended up increasing emissions, according to a study published Monday by the environmental group Transport & Environment (T&E). The study found, on average, biofuel from vegetable oil creates 80 percent more CO2 emissions than the conventional oil it replaces. The report estimates the biofuels create new emissions equivalent to putting an extra 12 million cars on the road.

For the New Criterion, Ben Weingarten, commentator and Founder & CEO of ChangeUp Media sits down with Mark Steyn, international bestselling author, political pundit, cultural critic and hardened climate change dissenter Mark Steyn for an in-depth interview. During their discussion, Weingarten and Steyn discuss the chilling of free speech by the climate alarmists and their enablers in the political and legal system, the stakes of the defamation suit filed against Steyn by climate scientist Dr. Michael E. Mann over a critical blog post, why it is the scientific community that resembles a racket rather than demonized “Big Oil,” the misogyny...

In the face of a monolithically climate alarmist academia, media and government, several courageous individuals are working to unsettle the purportedly “settled science” of climate change, arguing that carbon dioxide atmospheric enrichment provides manifold benefits for mankind, that flawed economic models are being used to justify anti-capitalist and destructive public policies, that mild warming of the planet ought to be celebrated and fighting back courageously against those who wish to chill free speech by using the law to litigate science. This is their story. Featured speakers include Mark Steyn, international bestselling author and commentator, Dr. Craig Idso, Founder Former President...

In a speech he said he was giving “to recognize the importance of the signing” of the Paris climate agreement, Sen. Jeff Merkley (D.-Ore.) declared on the Senate floor last week that “global warming is…the more challenge of our generation.” […] “We know what the stakes are,” the senator said. “We don’t need computer models to look 50 years into the future because the impacts are here today. We see it in our own communities. We see it in our own States. We see it through the impact of droughts, the impact of wildfires, the impact of heat waves, the...

Thirty-five dollars: As I write, that’s the price for a barrel of oil. We’re extracting like crazy and burning like there’s no tomorrow, for real, pumping carbon dioxide into the air we all share. Meanwhile, very few pumps are turning a profit. Ten thousand dollars: that’s what I would have offered a climate change denier pundit, who prefers to be called a climate change “doubter.” I was ready to pay Marc Morano $10,000 if 2016 turns out not to be one of the 10 hottest years ever recorded. He didn’t take the bet, because 2016 will indeed be among the...

Thanks to a Clinton-era statute and an obscure vote last month by the United Nations, federal law now officially makes it illegal for the Obama administration to send a single penny of your money to the UN climate bureaucracy. That is good news for U.S. taxpayers, of course. But it puts the UN and the Obama administration in an awkward position as they struggle desperately to convince other governments that the UN's much-touted “global-warming” regime, officially signed Friday, is not going to crumble in the face of a hostile Congress and a U.S. Constitution that has been trampled at every...

resident Obama’s global warming plan would cost America’s poorest families billions annually, according to a report published Thursday by the Manhattan Institute. The study estimates that Obama’s global warming plan would increase the costs of living for the poorest American families an additional $19 billion per year, equivalent to increasing their taxes by 166 percent. The tax increase would also raise taxes on other poor families by an extra $25 billion, equal to a 33 percent tax increase. Living costs for the richest households would only increase by 4 percent.Obama wants to implement the Enviromental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan,...

A research letter published in the journal Nature finds that climate change has made the weather in the United States far more enjoyable over the past four decades.

QUINAULT tribal members can attest to the urgency of climate change from an up-close and personal perspective. We're being forced to relocate part of our village of Taholah on the Washington coast. Ocean encroachment, increasingly severe storm surges and flooding are forcing more than 1,000 of our people to permanently move to higher ground. Tribes are not primary contributors to weather changes. Blame it on industrial smoke stacks, thousands of cars that clog the freeways and exploiters who destroy natural habitat. But we're often the first to feel the impact because of our proximity and connection with rivers, inland seas...

Back in 1970, when the world celebrated the first Earth Day, environmentalists were worried that without dramatic measures, the future would be catastrophic for the Earth and civilization. But their grim predictions haven’t come true, The Daily Caller News Foundation pointed out today, assembling a list of seven incorrect predictions of doom regarding the planet and civilization. The following are highlights from their list. The end of civilization within three decades Nobel laureate George Wald prophesied in 1970 that civilization would end “unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” The Daily Caller reported. Civilization is still here. Hundreds...

Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that he will impose mandates on the commercial real estate sector to achieve dramatic greenhouse gas emissions among the city's building stock — by far the city's biggest contributor to global warming. In an announcement tied to Earth Day, the mayor's office said the requirements, along with city programs and incentives, would help kickstart the mayor's goal of cutting building emissions dramatically over the next 35 years. The mandates are a significant development for the city's real estate world. When de Blasio announced a plan two years ago to cut building emissions, he threatened...

Presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and potentates from 175 countries gathered at the United Nations in New York Friday to sign the UN’s Paris climate accord, which proponents say is aimed at slowing the (fictitious) crisis of global warming by reducing manmade greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide (CO2). Secretary of State John Kerry (shown), with his granddaughter on his lap, signed for President Obama, who was returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. President Obama declared last December, following the Paris summit that the newly-created pact "represents the best chance we have to save the one planet...