Free Republic

Meteorologist Brian Sussman blows whistle on president's scheme The environmentalist movement isn’t about protecting the environment at all, according to meteorologist-turned-journalist Brian Sussman. It’s about destroying private property, controlling behavior, and expanding government – and the Obama administration has a secret plan to further all of it, he says. Sussman is now blowing the whistle on the real nature of environmentalism in his explosive brand-new book, “Eco-Tyranny.” He reveals secret memos from inside Obama’s Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, outlining a covert plan “to pursue a program of land consolidation” for the federal government to secure tens of millions...

Plans to use surface-to-air missiles to protect the skies over London during the Olympics could be thwarted – because they will disturb the habitat of a rare wild flower.

There was a time when being a charity meant doing something real, something tangible. Operating a soup kitchen. Providing medical help to those in need overseas. Helping orphans here in Canada. Providing valuable goods or services. That’s real charity work. No longer. Now it appears that hyper-political lobbying can count as charitable work too. Yes, you can be a full-time whiner, and that counts as charity work! There’s actually a veritable industry of these professional moaners, these full-time nit-pickers. The green fundamentalists are perhaps just the most vocal example of this phenomenon. There’s no shortage of radical greens getting generous...

“Nature is almost everywhere. But wherever it is, there is one thing nature is not: pristine,” writes science journalist Emma Marris in her engaging new book Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World. She adds, “We must temper our romantic notion of untrammeled wilderness and find room next to it for the more nuanced notion of a global, half-wild rambunctious garden, tended by us.” Marris’ message will discomfort both environmental activists and most ecologists who are in thrall to the damaging cult of pristine wilderness and the false ideology of the balance of nature. But it should encourage and...

One of the most intriguing facts of the Nazi Party membership rolls is how many of its adherents belonged to what today would be considered the green movement. Even many ‘greens' who were not Nazi Party members, like Leni Riefenstahl (1902-2003), the infamous propaganda filmmaker for the Third Reich, became caught up in the new movement. Nazi biologist Walther Schoenichen asserted that National Socialism was the political fulfillment of more 100 years of German Romanticism. With its strong emphasis upon celebrating the authenticity of the German folk people (das volk) indigenously rooted in the natural landscape of their homeland in...

Human Achievement Hour 2011 (Competitive Enterprise Institute) http://cei.org/hah2011 Earth Hour's soft fascism http://www.financialpost.com/analysis/columnists/story.html?id=08eddc35-41ce-... Making light of the phony Earth Hour http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandgta/2011/03/24/17739806.html Resident shines his discontent on Earth Hour http://www.yorkregion.com/news/article/971930--resident-shines-his-discontent...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University researcher is leading an effort to create a new scientific field that will use sound as a way to understand the ecological characteristics of a landscape and to reconnect people with the importance of natural sounds. Soundscape ecology, as it's being called, will focus on what sounds can tell people about an area. Bryan Pijanowski, an associate professor of forestry and natural resources and lead author of a paper outlining the field in the journal BioScience, said natural sound could be used like a canary in a coal mine. Sound could be a...

A panel on “Queer Ecology” was featured at the 2011 Annual Convention of the Modern Language Association (MLA). Four panelists provided their insights on the relationship between “queers” and the environment, coming to sometimes contradictory conclusions. In her lecture “Green Angels in America: Aesthetics of Equity,” Katie J. Hogan of Carlow University argued for “environmental justice,” and used as her vehicle the controversial play Angels in America. Hogan argued that Angels in America is a “contribution to this queer environmental effort” because it “links beauty, environment, and social justice” with an “esthetic of equity.” She argued that “minorities have the...

What can microbiologists who study human bowels learn from those who study the bowels of Earth? Jillian Banfield trades in hell holes. In September, she could be found wading through the dark, hot, sulphurous innards of Richmond Mine at Iron Mountain, California, where blue stalactites ooze the most acidic water ever discovered, with a pH of −3.6. A year before that, she was pumping up a toxic soup of uranium, arsenic, molybdenum and other metals from underneath a decommissioned nuclear-processing site in Rifle, Colorado. From both sites she took samples back to her lab at the University of California, Berkeley,...

.Not surprisingly, vegetarians and environmentalists have largely downplayed the historical record of Nazi Germany’s green streak. Some have been quick to point out that Hitler apparently cheated on occasion with ham, sausage, and seafood dishes. Hitler was also inconsistent with regard to environmental preservationist values and practices, largely because of the need to place Germany on an all out war footing throughout the 1930’s in a vast economy busting arms buildup. Hitler was also a fond of grand building projects National Socialism style and was planning on exploiting the natural resources in the East as much as possible to win...

Spain's plans to have 2,000 electric cars on the road by the end of 2010 have been dealt a blow as figures showed just 16 have been sold. The government-backed REVE electric car and wind power project said 15 cars had been sold so far this year, in addition to one last year.

There are a number of things that are simply wrong about the carbon tax. Yesterday we had an article titled Hot Enough For You Yet? giving some overview of general reasons the carbon tax is bad for America. Today we will get into some particular examples where the carbon tax is just plain wrong. The first example will demonstrate how the carbon tax discriminates against small local companies. For our example, we have two companies that make, what else, widgets. The first company, let’s call it Wally’s Old Style Widgets in central Alabama, makes approximately 25,000 widgets per year using...

Nothing brings people together like a disaster, right? Wrong. America has turned down help from around 30 countries and international organizations. Obama has dismissed miracle cures from Croatia, barges from Sweden, and containment boom from various obscure allies, according to the State Department [pdf]. He's definitely not accepting chemical dispersants from the country that started this whole mess, England. Click here to see the offers Obama refused .

You will discover new ways to conserve water and electricity, the supplies of which a thoughtful and ever compassionate government has wisely limited by allowing the infrastructure to deteriorate naturally. Venezuela was once a beautiful but generally laid-back and therefore often relaxing tourist destination. My wife and I spent well over a year there off and on between 1996 and 2001. We enjoyed it so much that we thought of settling there permanently, probably up in the Andes not far from the university city of Merida. Although much of Venezuela’s beauty remains, many things are different. What follows will, I...

What happens when the best and brightest encounter the unexpected. Little off-color language at the end. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

A scramble by Democrats on Capitol Hill to prevent a particular vote on a particular bill highlights for us two of the most pernicious threats to our liberties. Here’s the story. In 2009 the Obama administration’s Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide gas—what you exhale from your lungs and what all plants breathe in—as a dangerous pollutant that the federal government can regulate. This means the EPA can regulate automobiles, manufacturing facilities, and pretty much every activity necessary for the support of human life. But under the Congressional Review Act, passed as part of the Republicans’ Contract for America in...

Snorkeling along a coral reef near Veracruz, Mexico, in 2002, Texas biologist Wes Tunnell spotted what looked like a ledge of rock covered in sand, shells, algae and hermit crabs. He knew, from years of research at the reef, that it probably wasn't a rock at all. He stabbed it with his diving knife. His blade pulled up gunk. "Sure enough, it was tar from the Ixtoc spill," Tunnell said. Twenty-three years earlier, in 1979, an oil well named Ixtoc I had a blowout in 150 feet of water in the southern Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican national oil company...

As you visit us today for the third time since the Deepwater Horizon started gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, the people of Louisiana have questions that must be answered. We're already reeling from the loss of thousands of fishing industry jobs. We now could see an estimated 20,000 oil-services jobs vanish due to your six-month federal moratorium on deepwater exploratory drilling. That could do even greater damage to the economy than the well-chronicled fishing industry losses. Louisianians understand the imperative for improved safety on drilling rigs. The carelessness that caused the disaster, the fumbling response by industry...

STENNIS SPACE CENTER — It could take years — and millions of dollars — before the full impact of the BP oil spill on the Gulf Coast is uncovered, a Hancock County scientist said. Michael Carron, director of the Northern Gulf Institute at Stennis Space Center, met Wednesday with representatives from Mississippi and Florida institutions of higher learning for a one-day briefing with the House and Senate in Washington. They discussed the oil spill and what resources and funding Gulf states universities will need to research its economic, social and environmental impact.

Last week an agitated Chris Matthews tried to hold Dick Cheney accountable for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and this week Matthews is demanding action from President Obama, as the Hardball host pushed the President to nationalize the oil industry to solve the problem. On Monday's Hardball a visibly angry Matthews demanded Obama go after BP: "Why doesn't the President go in there, nationalize an industry and get the job done for the people?" and pointed out that in China they would have a much harsher response to BP: "They execute people for this. Major industrial leaders...

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO — The deadly blowout of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column . . .

He may be young but Colin Carlson said he is no stranger to discrimination. Carlson, a gifted child, was at age 12 turned away from his dream school, Connecticut College, amid concerns that he was too young for a dormitory, even though he agreed to live off campus with his mother. Now, more than a year later, 13-year-old Carlson said he has faced trouble again at the University of Connecticut, where he maintains a 3.9 GPA as a double-degree candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology, and in environmental studies. The university barred his entry into an African field ecology class...

What would life in an American city look like if it required its residents go green to combat climate change? Would it be all trees and gardens and bicycles, or would it look more like oppression under Big Brother's green thumb? Cambridge, Mass., home of Harvard University, may be giving the country a glimpse of the answer. Last May, the city officially adopted an order recognizing that there is a climate emergency; but after nearly a year, officials discovered the city's carbon footprint was nonetheless growing worse. Cambridge Mayor Denise Simmons, therefore, brought together nearly 100 activists and concerned citizens...

The futuristic 3-D adventure, directed by James Cameron, has received scathing reviews from Vatican Radio as well as the Holy See's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.The epic movie, which will be released in Italy this week, has received generally favourable reviews in the United States and Britain, amazing critics and cinemagoers with its technical mastery and blend of real-life actors and animation. It takes place in 2154 on the planet Pandora, light years away from Earth, where humans have established an environmentally-destructive mining colony.But the record budget had failed to impress the Catholic Church hierarchy in Rome."It has a great deal...

This isn't an idle exercise. Bioethics matters. The field exerts tremendous influence over the most important questions of public policy and moral values: How should we treat the most vulnerable and dependent among us? What makes us human? Indeed, is it even morally relevant that one is human? Trends in bioethics, thus, illuminate where we are as a society and the nature of the culture we are creating for our progeny. 10: The ascendance of an anti-human environmentalism.Deep ecology, the most radical expression of environmentalism, maintains that human beings are the world's enemy -- the AIDS of the Earth, as...

This spring, Swedish high street chain H&M will be delivering an eco-friendly collection full of flirty dresses, skirts and colorful tops – all in romantic floral patterns. All the pieces in the collection are made from organic and recycled materials, which means while buying from the collection, you’ll be helping to save the environment.

Pope Benedict XVI Rome, Italy, Dec 16, 2009 / 02:18 pm (CNA).- “The Pope denounces the ecological crisis but does not belong to the church of Al Gore," wrote Giuliano Ferrara, director of Italian daily Il Foglio, in his editorial column after reading Benedict XVI's message for the World Day of Peace.  Ferrara described the papal message as being "of great culture" in its reminder that man must be valued above all other living things.The Pontiff's message underscores the threats to the environment and the necessity of taking decisive action to find long-term, inter-generational solutions to the crises of today. ...

People who use bottled water as a fashion or life-style statement, or who think bottled water is better or safer than tap water, should take a look at this.

ELCA Council Approves Charter, Hears Secretary's Report, Elects Leaders 09-263-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) approved a charter for a comprehensive study of the ELCA and its future mission. A task force will conduct the study with the goal of bringing a report with recommendations to the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Orlando. The council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. It met here Nov. 13-15. The project, "Living into the Future Together: Renewing the Ecology of the Evangelical...

Freaked Out Over SuperFreakonomics Global warming might be solved with a helium balloon and a few miles of garden hose. By BRET STEPHENS Suppose for a minute—which is about 59 seconds too long, but that's for another column—that global warming poses an imminent threat to the survival of our species. Suppose, too, that the best solution involves a helium balloon, several miles of garden hose and a harmless stream of sulfur dioxide being pumped into the upper atmosphere, all at a cost of a single F-22 fighter jet. Good news, right? Maybe, but not if you're Al Gore or one...

OCEAN SPRINGS — Little is known about whale sharks or why they come to the northern part of the Gulf by the hundreds in June and July, within 30 miles of the Coast. But they do. And biologists from USM’s Gulf Coast Research Lab took what they do know about the giant, docile animals from the data they have collected and went whale shark hunting last week. They were successful beyond their wildest expectations, placing satellite tags on three and measuring and documenting several more. Shark biologist Eric Hoffmayer and research assistant Jennifer McKinney, along with a German videographer...

Deep ecology is the modern way of life, based on the shifting away from the reality exclusively in terms of human values and experiences established by environmental and green groups and movements. This way of life is noticeable by a new explanation of "self" which minimizes the importance of the reliance on reason as the best guide for beliefs and actions together between human organism and its environment. It then allows importance to be placed upon the basic values of other species, systems, and processes of nature. Deep ecology is often stated as "deep" because it poses the deeper questions...

London, UK (BANG) - Britain's Prince Charles wants grey squirrels exterminated. The future king - a keen environmentalist - has claimed it is essential to eliminate the animal, introduced from North America in the 19th century, because of the threat they pose to native red squirrels. In a letter to the Country Land and Business Association, Charles - patron of the Red Squirrel Survival Trust said: "In order to be able to save the red squirrels and ensure their future in this country, it is absolutely crucial to eliminate the greys which, as you know, are an alien species to...

Willy was never really free. The killer whale star of the Hollywood movie Free Willy had to be cared for by humans even after he was released and he never successfully integrated with his wild kin. Researchers now say attempts to return him to the wild were misguided. We believe the best option for [Willy] was the open pen he had in Norway, with care from his trainers," says Malene Simon of the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, who participated in efforts to reintegrate the cetacean in the wild and is lead author of the study. "He could swim as...

The Washington Federal Appeals Court ruled that the Bush administration did not properly study the environmental impact of expanding oil and gas drilling off the Alaska coast and canceled the program aimed at finding new reserves. “The Bush Administration’s contention that the needs of humans outweigh the needs of aquatic life off the Alaskan coast is unsubstantiated,” wrote Judge Terra Greene for the court. “Up to this point, humans have thrived without accessing these oil resources. This presents a prima facie case that they will continue to do so without extracting the oil.” The court instructed the Interior Department to...

The state Department of Ecology in 1996 officially declared Burnt Bridge Creek to be severely polluted with fecal coliform. The environmental regulators, it turns out, had unwittingly contributed to the problem. This week, Vancouver city workers made a startling discovery near the regional office shared by Ecology and the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife at 2108 Grand Blvd. At some point in the building's history, a sewer pipe that was supposed to be connected to the city's sanitary sewer main had been incorrectly connected to a stormwater line instead. "The only thing that's supposed to be in the stormwater...

Rise of sea levels is 'the greatest lie ever told' The uncompromising verdict of Dr Mörner is that all this talk about the sea rising is nothing but a colossal scare story, writes Christopher Booker. If one thing more than any other is used to justify proposals that the world must spend tens of trillions of dollars on combating global warming, it is the belief that we face a disastrous rise in sea levels. The Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt, we are told, warming oceans will expand, and the result will be catastrophe.

There are two major initiatives currently being persued by the crop of liberals in power. One is the ongoing set of bailouts of various groups of voters, and financial institutions, being advocated by those officially in power in DC, and the other, the "green movement" being pushed by powerful special interests, with backing from DC (and the UN, and Brussels, and...). While I applaud their good intentions, and their skill in paving, I'm not particularly impressed with the destination. Let's take a brief look at each of these trends, and see if we can't come up with a counterproposal. First,...

Bat study raises doubts over our understanding of Earth's ecosystems. One of the most common techniques for diagnosing the ecological health of a region may be painting an inaccurate picture of biodiversity, a study of the bats on the tiny volcanic island of Montserrat suggests.To understand an area's ecology, researchers are often asked by funding agencies to conduct a short survey, known as a rapid biodiversity assessment.Such surveys are convenient: they fit easily into the typical 3-5-year timescale of a PhD, match the length of time within which grant-giving agencies expect to see results, and are relatively quick to write...

Scientists discussed the merits and demerits of pumping sulfur into the Earth’s atmosphere as a temporary “fix” to global warming at a forum hosted in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 21 by the American Meteorological Society (AMS). The idea is to artificially re-create the effects of volcanic eruptions to temporarily cool the planet. In 2006, Nobel Prize-winning chemist Paul Crutzen and National Center for Atmospheric Research Senior Scientist Tom Wigley suggested that “geo-engineering” might be used as a quick, but temporary, remedy for global warming. This idea was one of the issues discussed at the AMS forum. “In particular, Crutzen and...

Kingstown, a group of kids insisted I see their “fairy-house village.” Together we trooped across the grassy field that doubles as the school’s auditorium and gym, to the edge of the woods. There, a darling neighborhood of small, fragile structures, made entirely of stems, bark and dried flowers, housed fairies. While one fairy nut chatted about the inhabitants, the other kids talked — over each other, of course — about the importance of using natural materials. They love making art out in the woods. “It’s the best art,” squealed one girl. All the kids I met that day are excited...

A type of chimpanzee known to use sex for greetings, reconciliations, and favors may not be all about peace, love, and understanding after all. A new study reveals that some bonobos—one of humankind's closest genetic relatives—hunt and eat other primates. Groups of the endangered chimpanzee subspecies were observed stalking, chasing, and killing monkeys they later consumed. /* snip */ "The second I read this, I thought: Oh good, finally!" said primatologist Elizabeth Lonsdorf of the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. "Bonobos being so peaceful never sat well with me," said Lonsdorf, who was not involved with the study. "We see...

New Zealand is home to 2,065 native plants found nowhere else on Earth. They range from magnificent towering kauri trees to tiny flowers that form tightly packed mounds called vegetable sheep. When Europeans began arriving in New Zealand, they brought with them alien plants — crops, garden plants and stowaway weeds. Today, 22,000 non-native plants grow in New Zealand. Most of them can survive only with the loving care of gardeners and farmers. But 2,069 have become naturalized: they have spread out across the islands on their own. There are more naturalized invasive plant species in New Zealand than native...

The Chicago Tribune posted a story in the July 30 edition that highlights the often absurd hyperbole all too common in the language of environmentalists and eco-watchers. The story detailed the findings of scientists studying Lake Michigan and the ecology of the Great Lakes, one of them saying it is in "catastrophic" shape. Native fish and vegetation are being crowded out by new species and the "Great Lakes are at a tipping point" the Trib warns. It's all presented as some major disaster that should alarm us all, as if Mother Nature is being ruined, presumably by man. But a...

One of the favorite targets of conservative pundits (and rightly so) is the liberal tendency to extremes. Oftentimes, a liberal will see a societal problem, and pronounce :”This needs government!” Quite often the liberal will see a real problem, too, but will either end up creating a massive, wasteful bureaucracy (say, Medicare or Social Security), or else use the problem as a excuse for a vastly disproportionate growth in governmental power (say, the IRS). As H. L. Mencken once wrote, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”...

When baseball's All-Stars gather for tonight's midsummer classic in Yankee Stadium, they'll participate in what organizers are billing as the “greenest” event in Major League Baseball history. All-Star Game planners are trying to reduce the event's ecological damage and encourage fans to lead eco-friendly lives. Coordinators are doing things such as ordering a giant red carpet made of recycled fibers, handing out reuseable tote bags and sponsoring a playground made largely from recycled materials. Such efforts are all the rage across the sports world. The Olympic planning committee in Vancouver, British Columbia, recently announced that the 2010 Winter Olympics will...

Bugs. They want us to eat bugs. I speak of a recent article in Time that explains why eating bugs is good for the environment. As it goes, bugs require "little room and few resources to grow." Bugs are cold-blooded invertebrates, you see. They are efficient. Much more of the grub they eat is converted into edible bug body parts than is the case with our friends the cows. Cows are warm-blooded vertebrates. They need to consume lots more food just to keep their body temperature steady. Their food is grown on farms. Fossil fuels must be burned to harvest,...

.....As senator, and then vice president, Gore used his power to channel money toward those who “played ball” and away from those who doubted GW. The latter found that grant money dried up, promotions were denied, and even jobs were terminated. Gore’s colleague, Colorado Senator Timothy Wirth, became Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs in charge of promoting GW theory and international agreements to address the alleged problem. Wirth was quoted as bragging that he could change a lot of minds with a billion dollars per year of State Department money. Indeed, recent estimates are that $50 billion has been...

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Fashion designers are giving new life to worthless candy wrappers, newspapers and plastic bags; turning trash into trendy tote bags, purses and jewelry. From "post-consumer and industrial waste" comes durable, funky accessories reportedly worn by celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz and Petra Nemcova. One self-described eco-fashion label, Ecoist, has partnered with Coca-Cola, Luna Bar, and Aveda to create handbags made from misprinted and discontinued packaging. "We tap into that source of waste because it is reliable and unfortunately it's abundant," said Ecoist co-founder Jonathan Marcoschamer. "We believe that for the next few years there's...

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Fashion designers are giving new life to worthless candy wrappers, newspapers and plastic bags; turning trash into trendy tote bags, purses and jewelry. From "post-consumer and industrial waste" comes durable, funky accessories reportedly worn by celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan, Cameron Diaz and Petra Nemcova. One self-described eco-fashion label, Ecoist, has partnered with Coca-Cola, Luna Bar, and Aveda to create handbags made from misprinted and discontinued packaging. "We tap into that source of waste because it is reliable and unfortunately it's abundant," said Ecoist co-founder Jonathan Marcoschamer. "We believe that for the next few years there's...