Free Republic

On July 8 I received the Climate Science Whistleblower Award at the Ninth International Conference on Climate Change sponsored by the Heartland Institute and other cosponsoring organizations held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The following are remarks I prepared for my acceptance statement:~~snip~~I wrote my negative comments on the Endangerment Finding support document because I believed EPA was using bad science ... But it is very encouraging to find that others agree with my decision to do so, which EPA clearly did not. My offending comments to EPA led to my being immediately muzzled at the same time that Obama was...

As of today, Australia no longer has the most expensive “carbon” price in the world. The voters didn’t ask for a tax in 2010,  but it was forced on them in 2011. They rejected it wholeheartedly in 2013 but it still has taken months to start unwinding this completely pointless piece of symbolism which aimed to change the weather. The machinery of democracy may be slow, but this is a win for voters.11:15am EST today: The Australian Senate passes the carbon tax repeal bill.“Australia has become the first country in the world to abolish a price on carbon, with the Senate...

The Stunning Key That Could Unlock 160 Billion Barrels of Oil Trapped Underneath America By Matt DiLallo | More Articles July 20, 2014 | Comments (0)  Photo credit: Flickr/Melissa  It is estimated that there are 160 billion barrels of oil still trapped underneath this country in what are considered depleted oil fields. That's a tremendous amount of oil given that America uses about seven billion barrels of it each year. In fact, if we could only find the key to unlock this trapped oil we could extend fleeting our reserves by more than 22 years.That's why it probably comes as a surprise...

Noah Rothman wrote up Quinnipiac’s gubernatorial poll yesterday, prompting me to wonder over at Townhall whether the polling outfit was holding back its Senate numbers for separate release. We now have our answer. A virtual deadlock, and advantage Gardner: The closely-watched U.S. Senate race is tied with 44 percent for U.S. Rep. Cory Gardner, the Republican challenger, and 42 percent for Sen. Mark Udall, the Democratic incumbent, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Another 10 percent are undecided. This compares to the results of an April 24 survey by the independent Quinnipiac University showing Sen. Udall at...

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia's government repealed a much-maligned carbon tax on the nation's worst greenhouse gas polluters on Thursday, ending years of contention over a measure that became political poison for the lawmakers who imposed it. The Senate voted 39 to 32 to axe the 24.15 Australian dollar ($22.60) tax per metric ton of carbon dioxide that was introduced by the center-left Labor government in July 2012. Conservative lawmakers burst into applause as the final tally was announced. Prime Minister Tony Abbott's conservative coalition government rose to power last year on the promise of getting rid of the tax, assuring...

Can you imagine telling the IRS you don’t need to complete all their forms or provide records to back up your claim for a tax refund? Or saying your company’s assurances that its medical products are safe and effective should satisfy the FDA? Especially if some of your data don’t actually support your claims—or you “can’t find” key data, research and other records, because your hard drive conveniently crashed? But, you tell them, people you paid to review your information said it’s accurate, so there’s no problem. Do you suppose the government would accept your assurance that there’s “not a...

Murray Energy CEO Robert Murray says he is scared to death for this country, for poor people, those who live on fixed incomes and for people who are retiring. Murray says Obama is illegally using the EPA and the Clean Air Act to take over the US Electric Power Grid and in the process he’s destroying low-cost energy. Murray points out that coal is only 4 cents per kilowatt-hour and Obama wants to replace it with renewable energy sources, wind and solar, that cost 22 cents per kilowatt-hour. By 2030, according to Murray, we will be down from 40% coal-fired...

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is seeking an alliance among "like-minded" nations to thwart efforts to introduce carbon pricing and American President Barack Obama's move to push climate change through global forums like G20.

The U.S. power sector must cut carbon dioxide emissions 30 percent by 2030 from 2005 levels, according to federal regulations unveiled on Monday that form the centerpiece of the Obama administration's climate change strategy. The Environmental Protection Agency's proposal is one of the most significant environmental rules proposed by the United States, and could transform the power sector, which relies on coal for nearly 38 percent of electricity. Gina McCarthy, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said on Monday that between 2020 and 2030, the U.S. amount of carbon dioxide the proposal would reduce under the plan would be more...

<p>The Obama administration took aim at the coal industry on Monday by mandating a 30 percent cut in carbon emissions at fossil fuel-burning power plants by 2030 -- despite claims the regulation will cost nearly a quarter-million jobs a year and force plants across the country to close.</p>

The President thinks his plan will “boost the economy by $43 billion to $74 billion” – he’s living in a fantasy world. From Bloomberg (apparently one of those “read in” to tomorrow’s announcement): President Barack Obama will propose cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from the nation’s power plants by an average of 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, according to people briefed on the plans.

Having failed to get the Democrats’ cap-and-trade scheme through Congress, President Obama intends to create it through fiat, with the Environmental Protection Agency scheduled to issue today what amounts to a bill of attainder against coal-fired electricity generators. The regulation will set a national limit on greenhouse-gas emissions from coal plants and then offer states a phony menu of choices for meeting that standard, stacking the policy deck in such a way as to force them into cap-and-trade programs administered by multistate cartels. It is far from obvious that the Obama administration has anything like the legal authority for this;...

Before President Obama took office in 2009, the amount of electricity being produced by coal-fired utilities was approximately fifty percent of the total. Today it is approximately forty percent and, when the Environmental Protection Agency regulations take effect as of June 2, more such utilities are likely to close their doors. The basis for the regulations is utterly devoid of any scientific facts. Environmentalism, as expressed by many of the organizations that advocate it is, in fact, an attack on America, its economic system of capitalism, and its need for energy to maintain and grow its business and industrial base....

The Environmental Protection Agency will seek a 30% reduction in U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions by 2030 from existing power plants based on emission levels from 2005, according to two people briefed on the rule, setting in motion the main piece of President Barack Obama's climate-change agenda. The draft rule, to be proposed Monday and scheduled to be completed one year from now, will give flexibility to the states, which must implement the rules and submit compliance plans to the EPA by June 2016. States can decide how to meet the reductions, including joining or creating new cap-and-trade programs, deploying more renewable...

Eruptions continue at the volcano after yesterday's major explosion. Dense ash plumes rising from the summit crater can be seen on this morning's satellite images, and a MODIS hot spot is visible on the latest satellite data, suggesting fresh magma continues to arrive at the volcano's summit crater. In the meanwhile, the ash and SO2 plume has drifted and spread over more than 3000 km to the E and SE, covering a vast area that includes parts of northern and eastern Australia.

Lawmakers and Washington interest groups are engaged in a battle over whether looming EPA rules will help or hurt as President Obama prepares to announce a highly anticipated performance standard for power plants June 2. The proposed standard will require existing natural gas and coal-fired power plants to release no more than 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour of electricity - easily done with natural gas but unobtainable by present day coal plants. Although coal still provides almost 40 percent of U.S. electricity, the White House's new point man on energy, John Podesta, said Wednesday that climate change necessitates coal’s...

Geneva (AFP) - Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations have crossed a new threshold, the UN's weather agency said Monday, highlighting the urgency of curbing manmade, climate-altering greenhouse gases. In April, for the first time, the mean monthly CO2 concentration in the atmosphere topped 400 parts per million (ppm) throughout the northern hemisphere, which pollutes more than the south, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said. "This should serve as yet another wakeup call about the constantly rising levels of greenhouse gases which are driving climate change," WMO chief Michel Jarraud said in a statement. "If we are to preserve our planet for...

Item is copyrighted 1998-2008. The bibliography is extensive. The project is all inclusive of data collected to that point.

em>"Probably for the next decade, the most dominate technology around the world will be coal..." -Jeff Immelt The fastest growing source of energy in the world last year was coal, and it is going to stay that way for a very long time. With that in mind, one has to wonder why President Obama has insisted on the gut-wrenching destruction of the coal industry that has costs thousands of jobs, and has sent electricity costs to all-time highs. This, combined with last month's report from the International Energy Agency, state that reaching the goal of carbon emission reduction would cost...

FR is prohibited from posting from Wired.com, title and link only: http://www.wired.com/2014/03/clean-coal/

More Americans believe in God than in man-made global warming ... how remarkably resilient Americans are in the face of relentless environmental brainwashing. The schools, the universities, the government, the green NGOs, Hollywood and the MSM have invested billions of man hours and dollars trying to persuade them that climate change is the greatest threat of our age. But according to this survey, only 33 per cent are buying it - ... all the latest research suggests that the importance of CO2 and other greenhouse gases has been grossly exaggerated in the various computer models predicting catastrophic global warming, which...

Now, here’s something you won’t here on the mainstream news. Fracking has eliminated CO2 more than more than all of the solar panels and wind turbines in the world. John Stossel at FOX News reported: On my TV show this week, statistician Bjorn Lomborg points out that “air pollution kills 4.3 million people each year … We need to get a sense of priority.” That deadly air pollution happens because, to keep warm, poor people burn dung in their huts. Yet, time and again, environmentalists oppose the energy production most likely to make the world cleaner and safer. Instead, they...

Warming Fraud: Exaggerating the degree and impact of climate change has been part of the global warming alarmists' strategy. Now it seems even academics are doing it, publishing a paper that provides a "rationale" for lying. Stirring up fear over man-made global warming isn't a new approach for the alarmists. Years ago many said it was acceptable to embellish global warming and its effects. After all, the public doesn't get it, and it's for their own good. Fuhai Hong and Xiaojian Zhao, economics professors at Asian universities, recently published a paper titled "Information Manipulation and Climate Agreements," in the American...

For two consecutive days last week, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the earth's atmosphere exceeded 402 parts per million (ppm,) higher than at any time in at least the past 800,000 years, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Carbon dioxide levels tend to peak in May, which means that they are likely to rise even more. According to an article in Mashable, a news and tech website, the latest figures "put humans into uncharted territory." Just last month, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a damning report that illustrated the growing dangers of...

We have to first assume that global warming, or climate change, or whatever it's called this week, is caused by us. That is a big assumption, one that Dear Leader Barack Hussein Obama embraces. Plus, as reinforcement, we have this Fact Sheet from Obama about methane gas as a contributor to global warming, I mean climate change, uh, I mean ... : ... last June, President Obama issued a broad-based Climate Action Plan, announcing a series of executive actions to reduce carbon pollution, prepare the U.S. for the impacts of climate change, and lead international efforts to address global climate...

Another day is The Backdown? Everything is more important than carbon action these days. In China, real pollution is trumping the fake kind. China has been toying with carbon markets, but this month announced they might have to back away. (The shame!) [Reuters]  “…the all-out efforts to combat China’s disastrous pollution levels might get in the way of plans to tax carbon dioxide emissions in a bid to stunt the rapid growth of greenhouse gas emissions, Zhu Guangyao, the vice environment minister, said.“We have to reflect the requests of the majority through many consultation rounds,” he told the Beijing Morning...

MADISON, Wis. — Of all the national casualties expected from the Obama administration’s “War on Coal,” manufacturers in Wisconsin’s 6th Congressional District could be hit the hardest. That’s the finding of a new analysis, published by the conservative Heritage Foundation, that tracks the long-term economic impact of the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed limits on carbon dioxide emissions — strict standards that, industry officials assert, would all but kill construction of new coal-fired power plants and force existing facilities into early retirement. Energy expert Nicolas Loris analyzed the effects of a 20-year phase-out of coal. His study projects significant job loss...

OSLO (Reuters) - A little-known technology that may be able to take the equivalent of China's greenhouse gas emissions out of the carbon cycle could be the radical policy shift needed to slow climate change this century, a draft U.N. report shows. Using the technology, power plants would burn biomass - wood, wood pellets, or plant waste like from sugar cane - to generate electricity while the carbon dioxide in the biomass is extracted, piped away and buried deep underground. Among techniques, a chemical process can strip carbon dioxide from the flue gases from combustion. The process - called bio-energy...

The following as been excerpted from Twilight of Abundance: Why Life in the 21st Century will be Nasty, Brutish, and Short by David Archibald:The United States is needlessly penalizing itself and squandering its resource endowment, all because of the big lie that carbon dioxide is causing dangerous global warming. The Chinese, in contrast, merely pay lip service to that big lie. The only reason they are making a token effort on the “global warming” front is to encourage Western countries to continue hobbling their own economies. One can be forgiven for thinking that there must be some truth in the...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants is tainted by secretiveness and collusion with environmental groups, according to a conservative environmental lawyer. Energy and Environmental Law Institute attorney Chris Horner has presented an 81-page regulatory comment showing the EPA’s “New Source Performance Standard” (NSPS) — which limits carbon emissions from new coal plants — was developed by officials masking their true agendas, using secret and private email accounts and in collusion with environmental groups.

Will the Supreme Court permit EPA climate decisions to stand?If it does, the impacts on our lives, livelihoods, liberties and living standards will be enormous Guest opinion by Paul Driessen The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. The case will determine how far EPA can extend its regulatory overreach, to control “climate changing” carbon dioxide from power plants and other facilities – by ignoring the Constitution’s “separation of powers” provisions, rewriting clear language in the Clean Air Act, and disregarding laws that require the agency to consider both the costs...

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. Environmental Protection Agency. The case will determine how far EPA can extend its regulatory overreach, to control “climate changing” carbon dioxide from power plants and other facilities – by ignoring the Constitution’s “separation of powers” provisions, rewriting clear language in the Clean Air Act, and disregarding laws that require the agency to consider both the costs and benefits of its regulations and what it is regulating. Put more bluntly, the Court will decide whether EPA may deceive and defraud the American people, by implementing regulations that...

'Smart growth" projects across the country aim to jam people into high-density housing near mass transit systems. Proponents think this will make people abandon their automobiles, reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But new research shows "stack-and-pack" housing is an ineffective way to reduce carbon dioxide levels. Researchers at the University of California Energy and Resources Group in Berkeley used Census, weather, economic and transportation data — 37 variables in total — to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from the energy, transportation, food, goods and services consumed by U.S. households. They calculated "household carbon footprints" for more than 31,000 U.S. ZIP codes (of...

‘We had both higher temps and an ice age at a time when CO2 emissions were 10 times higher than they are today’ Unknown-4 Selected Highlights of Dr. Patrick Moore’s Feb. 25, 2014 testimony before the U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee: ‘There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years.’

A co-founder of Greenpeace told lawmakers there is no evidence man is contributing to climate change, and said he left the group when it became more interested in politics than the environment. Patrick Moore, a Canadian ecologist and business consultant who was a member of Greenpeace from 1971-86, told members of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee environmental groups like the one he helped establish use faulty computer models and scare tactics in promoting claims man-made gases are heating up the planet. “There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of...

Climate: Al Gore was at it again over the weekend, scaring people unnecessarily about global warming. He, and others like him, should be held accountable for constantly trying to terrify the public. Will they ever be? Preaching Saturday in Kansas City, the former vice president and current hysteric in chief declared while prattling on about the California drought that "the Dust Bowl is coming back, quickly, unless we act." About that first Dust Bowl, the one in the 1930s: Was that also caused by man-made global warming, during a time when human carbon dioxide emissions were much lower? Or was...

Though you wouldn't necessarily know it based on news coverage, the United States in the reign of President Barack Obama is enduring the most prolonged period of slow growth and high unemployment since World War II. The president asserts that he saved us from another Great Depression, which, like his claim that the stimulus would "create or save" millions of jobs, is about as provable as the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. The Obama administration has done little to spur job creation, but a great deal to inhibit it. The president mocks the...

DAVID GREENE, HOST: … wealthy donors like Tom Steyer are putting a pistol to someone's head, forcing their pet issues on candidates. Steyer himself sees things very differently. He quit his hedge fund with $1.5 billion and now in his view he's fighting as hard as he can with money and passion to do something very noble - save the planet. .. With plans to pour $100 million into key elections this year, Steyer joins this elite group of wealthy individuals trying to influence politicians and voters. Steyer says he doesn't agree with the growing influence of money in politics...

It has the makings of a royal mess for “King Barack.” Monday morning’s Supreme Court argument about the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases went badly for the Obama administration — so much so that the real question before the justices seemed to be how severe the EPA’s loss would be. The administration’s solicitor general, Donald Verrilli, pleaded with the justices to recognize the “urgent problem” of climate change, because the “threat to future generations gets worse” with each passing year. But as the argument played out, the court’s swing justice, Anthony Kennedy, made clear that he agreed...

In the short space of less than two weeks, there have been several climate change actions that might be signs bordering on desperation. First, Secretary of State John Kerry stated that climate change was like a weapon of mass destruction. And then, President Obama announced plans for additional heavy-duty vehicle fuel efficiency and greenhouse gas standards to further reduce carbon emissions that he claimed are having a severe impact on our weather. On top of these Administration announcements, a hedge fund billionaire announced a commitment of $100 million in climate advocacy. Climate change advocates have been on defense since last...

BERKELEY, Calif., June 4, 2012 – Solar cells do not offset greenhouse gases or curb fossil fuel use in the United States according to a new environmental book, Green Illusions (June 2012, University of Nebraska Press), written by University of California – Berkeley visiting scholar Ozzie Zehner. Green Illusions explains how the solar industry has grown to become one of the leading emitters of hexafluoroethane (C2F6), nitrogen trifluoride (NF3), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6). These three potent greenhouse gases, used by solar cell fabricators, make carbon dioxide (CO2) seem harmless. Hexafluoroethane has a global warming potential that is 12,000 times higher...

Linking increased fuel economy to the larger issue of economic growth, President Obama on Tuesday directed his administration to write new rules to improve mileage for the nation’s big-rig trucks. Mr. Obama made the announcement during a speech at a suburban Maryland Safeway distribution center and cast it as the latest move in his so-called “year of action,” a time he’ll act without Congress wherever possible. “Improving gas mileage for these trucks is going to drive down our oil imports even further,” Mr. Obama said. “That reduces carbon pollution even more, cuts down on businesses’ fuel costs, which should pay...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Roger Bezdek. The Environmental Protection Agency, other government agencies and various scientists contend that fossil fuels and carbon dioxide emissions are causing dangerous global warming and climate change. They use this claim to justify repressive regulations for automobiles, coal-fired power plants and other facilities powered by hydrocarbon energy. Because these rules are costing millions of jobs and billions of dollars, a federal Interagency Working Group (IWG) devised the “social cost of carbon” concept – which attaches arbitrary monetary values to the alleged impacts of using hydrocarbons and emitting carbon dioxide. SCC estimates...

Video at link. Stymied by the GOP's long resistance to cap and trade legislation, the EPA this week began public hearings -- the next step toward a final rule -- to cut carbon dioxide emissions from new coal plants. The rule would limit emissions to 1100 pounds per Megawatt hour, a level the coal industry says is technologically unattainable. Green energy proponents disagree. "Opponents say this will prevent ever building another coal-fired plant in the United States today. They say that the technology is not commercially available. These claims are scare tactics," Rep. HenryWaxman, D-Calif., said in a press conference...

In his State of the Union address, President Obama advocated an energy policy aimed at reducing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which he claims are causing catastrophic changes to the earth’s climate and “harming western communities.” In his policy prescription, the president advocates a combination of increased regulation of the energy and transportation industries and more government spending on research designed to bring low-carbon-emitting sources of energy, i.e., so-called renewables, to market. He considers those actions to be the only viable options “leading to a cleaner, safer planet.” But the president’s concerns for the planet are based upon flawed and...

With the possibility of the coldest Super Bowl ever coming this week, this story about CO2 concentration seemed appropriate. Ryan Scott Welch writes: Anthony as you know, many people don’t know much about the earth’s atmosphere. For example, when questioned about how much CO2 is in our atmosphere most people give me a guess of somewhere between 30% and 70%. When I tell them that CO2 is only 0.04% or really about 395 ppm (parts per million) they generally look at me as if I was speaking some kind of foreign language. The layman simply cannot convert 0.04% of the...

At a fundamental level, carbon dioxide is the basis of nearly all life on Earth. It is the primary raw material or "food" utilized by the vast majority of plants to produce the organic matter out of which they construct their tissues, which subsequently become the ultimate source of food for nearly all animals and humans. Consequently, the more CO2 there is in the air, the better plants grow, as has been demonstrated in literally thousands of laboratory and field experiments. . . . . .increased levels of atmospheric CO2 generally produce increases in plant photosynthesis, decreases in plant water...

Get specific. That’s the message conservative intellectuals and strategists have for the Republican Party as it faces an assault from President Obama and Democrats on issues resonant with struggling voters such as the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits. Obama’s income inequality push comes as the tide appears to be rising for the left on economic and social issues, something evident in everything from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s election to the legal selling of marijuana in Colorado. Some conservatives fear that the party has failed to make its case on how its policies can improve the lives...

The Environmental Protection Agency didn’t let a Clean Air Act requirement that mandated technologies be “adequately demonstrated” hinder their new performance standards ruling that puts a 1,100-pound limit per megawatt hour on carbon emissions from new coal power plants. Not only is there no scientifically-supportable climate benefit for limiting such emissions, there is no viable commercial-scale technology to achieve that ideological pipedream. Even if it mattered, the most modern coal-fired plants can only reduce CO2 emissions to 1,800 pounds. What’s more, they already knew that. Or at least they certainly should have after a fact-finding working group within EPA’s own...

After decades of controlling America’s energy narrative, on January 5, CBS’s 60 Minutes fired a shot that has put the green lobby on the defensive. The next day, two very different media outlets lobbed blows that could represent a new trend; a change of tone in Washington. The 60 Minutes piece, featuring correspondent Lesley Stahl, aired, perhaps intentionally, at a time when it may have had the lowest possible viewership, as it aired opposite the NFL playoff game between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers. You may have missed it. But environmental/renewable-energy believers took the hit—and they...