Free Republic

<p>HOUGHTON -- Federal and state law enforcement officials remained on the Michigan Tech University campus late Monday after bombs found at two university buildings were disarmed. Radical environmentalists are considered possible suspects, a county official said.</p> <p>The bombs, described by university spokesmen as the "real thing," were discovered early Monday morning by campus public safety officers at the U.J. Noblet Forestry Building and the U.S. Forest Service Engineering Laboratory.</p>

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Climate change presents a tough choice for governments determined both to fight global warming and tackle the rising cost of living. Climate measures inflate energy costs by putting a price on burning fossil fuels and also stoke food bills by using farmland and crops to produce renewable fuels. Now near-record oil and food prices coupled with a global economic slowdown have triggered unrest in several countries and demands to ease taxes on fuels and free up farmland for food. "This important part of the global economy, food and energy, has been grossly distorted due to under-pricing...

On the evening of Monday, May 19th, the newly formed River City Animal Defense League (ADL) and friends made our public debut. We took to the neighborhoods, and more specifically the houses of executives and contractors of Gohmann Asphalt and Construction, Inc. Gohmann Asphalt and Construction, Inc. is a disgusting company that has decided to proceed with business in the construction of Interstate-69 (I-69) which is the North American Free Trade Agreement's (NAFTA) superhighway. NAFTA’s superhighway has already been built from Ontario to Indianapolis. It is planned to extend into Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas. Once in Texas...

An environmental activist has been sentenced to nearly 20 years in federal prison for conspiring to destroy a Northern California dam, a genetics lab and other targets. Eric McDavid, 29, of Foresthill, was convicted in March for masterminding what FBI agents described as an eco-terrorist plot in the name of the Earth Liberation Front. The group has claimed credit for arsons across the West. McDavid's defense lawyer argued that his client was a victim of entrapment by an FBI informant. Two co-conspirators pleaded guilty and testified against McDavid. They are awaiting sentencing. According to court testimony, the three considered bombing...

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...

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....

A group of environmental activists has enlisted Google to help flood the congressional switchboard with one million phone calls on Earth Day urging lawmakers to enact eco-friendly measures. "We're really excited about this because Congress keeps saying they don't hear from the American public on climate change," said Kathleen Rogers, president of Earth Day Network, which bills itself as an eco-activism group connecting some 17,000 organizations in 174 countries. "The [presidential] candidates are not being asked about climate change. Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity that we've ever faced." Rogers said her group is finalizing talks with Internet...

Sen. John McCain and his staff have been adamant for days that his upcoming overseas trip to Britain, France and Israel is not political. /snip ...Apparently, though, there will still be room for fundraising. McCain's campaign has sent out an invitation for a March 20 luncheon at Spencer House -- the neo-classical home built for an ancestor of Diana, the late Princess of Wales -- "by kind permission of Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon. Nathaniel Rothschild." The price to attend is $1000 to $2,300. And the dress code for the event? "Lounge suits" -- British for business...

Solving the energy problem is easy if you pay no attention to the laws of physics. That's the wonder of our Congress. To pass is easy; to achieve is something else. This is where I break your green heart. You know that Congress passed a law ordering all cars and trucks to average 35 miles to the gallon by 2020. It won't happen. Another part of that law mandates the production of 36 billion gallons a year of biofuels by 2022. That won't happen either. It's not that automakers [] are just mean and don't want to do it. They...

Wolf Kill Has Ranchers Demanding Re-introduced Wolves Removed By Jon Hanian Burgdorf, ID - The aftermath of a wolf pack attack that occurred last month north of McCall near Burgdorf has left 55 sheep dead and more than dozen maimed. The attacked, which has been confirmed by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, has also galvanized groups opposed to the federal government's efforts to re-establish grey wolves in the state. Ron Gillett heads up the Anti Wolf Coalition of Central Idaho. Gillett says a band of 100 sheep were attacked on September 18th by that wolf pack. "Where they...

The fastest eco boat on the planet will attempt to break the round the world speed record using fuel made from human fat. Pete Bethune, the New Zealand skipper of Earthrace, said the attempt to circumnavigate the globe would begin from Valencia in Spain on March 1 next year. Bethune and his wife mortgaged their house and sold everything they own to help make the project happen, while continuing to seek support from sponsors. Record breaking attempt: Earthrace will attempt to circumnavigate the globe running 100 per cent biodiesel, and with a net zero carbon-footprint Earthrace is a 78 foot...

The success of the major Anglosphere nations at last week's United Nations climate conference in Bali marks the beginning of the end of the age of climate hysteria. It also symbolizes a significant shift of political leadership in international climate diplomacy from the once-dominating European continent to North America and its Western allies. This power shift has perhaps never been more transparent and dramatic than in Bali, when Australia's Labour government, under the newly elected Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, announced a complete U-turn on the thorny issue of mandatory carbon dioxide emissions targets. Only days after Australia's delegation had backed...

PRAY - For rancher Randy Petrich, the removal of gray wolves from the endangered-species list - a move that would open up the animals to hunting in the Northern Rockies for the first time in decades - couldn't come soon enough. Petrich has seen fresh wolf tracks almost every morning this fall - close enough to threaten his cattle. "I believe that any wolf on any given night, if there happens to be a calf there, they will kill it," ... Just 12 years since the wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park ... federal officials say the sharp rise...

The federal government and a conservation group have reached a settlement agreement that creates protections for two endangered species that call the waters off the Florida Keys home. The Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity had filed a lawsuit against the National Marine Fisheries Service for not doing enough to protect several endangered species including elkhorn and staghorn coral and smalltooth sawfish. The National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday agreed to a timetable for designating critical habitat for sawfish and coral, which are at risk of extinction. The Endangered Species Act requires critical habitat designation for species as soon as they...

The damage wrought by hurricanes Katrina and Wilma in 2005 spelled the end of the venerable Flamingo Lodge at Everglades National Park. Now as park officials consider options for a replacement, they have to factor in more than just the dangers of inundation from a storm surge. On the northern edge of Florida Bay, Flamingo, and other vast tracts of the 1.5-million-acre park, are threatened by global warming-induced sea level rise, officials say. The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change earlier this year estimated that oceans will rise between 7 inches and 23 inches over the course of this century...

BY TIMOTHY O'HARA Citizen Staff Monroe County may seek national park status for some sensitive wetlands and animal habitat to thwart potential, costly property-rights lawsuits from landowners who wouldn't be able to develop under proposed growth regulations. If the county approves the latest Tier System maps, which show where building is allowed and prohibited, it could face $1 billion in lawsuits, according to a proposal Growth Management Director Andrew Trivette presented to the County Commission on Wednesday. National park status must be approved by a congressional act, which could take years, Trivette said. Congress either could create a new national...

Natural weather variations have offset the effects of global warming for the past couple of years and will continue to keep temperatures flat through 2008, a study released Thursday said. But global warming will begin in earnest in 2009, and a couple of the years between 2009 and 2014 will eclipse 1998, the warmest year on record to date, in the heat stakes, British meteorologists said. Existing global climate computer models tend to underestimate the effects of natural forces on climate change, so for this analysis, Met Office experts tweaked their model to better reflect the impact of weather systems...

Never mind higher temperatures, climate change has a few nastier surprises in store. Bill McGuire says we can also expect more earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides and tsunamis. Unlike most apparently intractable problems, which have a tendency to go away when examined closely and analytically, the climate change predicament just seems to get bigger and scarier the more we learn about it. Now we discover that not only are the oceans and the atmosphere conspiring against us, bringing baking temperatures, more powerful storms, floods and ever-climbing sea levels, but the crust beneath our feet seems likely to join in too.

In the matter of "greenhouse gases," carbon dioxide is, shall we say, the gas du jour. We should surely be up to date and knowledgeable on CO2, which is said to be forming a kind of blanket which prevents the escape of all this global heat to outer space. So can I table the question: How does the carbon dioxide get up there? Carbon dioxide is one-and-a-half times heavier than air. I doubt even Al Gore would try to challenge that. So why doesn't it just lie around at ground level like autumn mist, and, of course, choke us all...

June 8, 2007 A snapshot of America, June 2007 Thanks to online shopping, I rarely head into bookstores, but today I needed to buy a gift in a hurry and so I ventured into one - the place was empty and I found what I needed quickly and then browsed a bit. While the temperature outside was only about 73 degrees, the day was humid and the store felt very warm to me. We don’t have central air in the house, just ceiling fans, and they pretty much do the trick, but when I’m shopping, I like to feel cool...

PARTICIPANTS in a ritualistic ceremony danced, chanted and played drums while one of their friends lay dying from heat exhaustion, an inquest has heard. Deputy State Coroner Anthony Schapel today was told the group believed Rowan Douglas Cooke was "astral-travelling" after being exposed to extreme heat inside a North American Indian-style "steam lodge". Mr Cooke, 37, of Melbourne, spent several hours unconscious at a campsite 325km north of Port Augusta, before two men went to a nearby homestead for help. He had t

EUGENE, Ore. - Their guilt isn't in question. The six men and four women already admitted being involved in a series of arson fires that did $40 million in damage to research facilities, a ski resort and other businesses in the West. But are they terrorists as the government says? A federal judge was set to hear arguments Tuesday on a motion by the government to add a so-called terrorism enhancement to their sentences. Prosecutors want Judge Ann Aiken to declare the group terrorists — something defense attorneys argue has never happened in 1,200 arsons nationwide claimed by Earth Liberation...

Catron County Manager Bill Aymar says officials only want to prevent problems by asking the federal government to remove a pregnant female Mexican gray wolf released on the county's border after it killed two cows elsewhere. But Victoria Fox, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says the agency has no reason to remove the wolf. The dispute over the animal -- designated F924 -- began as soon as it was released April 25 in southwestern New Mexico. The next day, the county demanded it be removed as an "imminent danger." Fish and Wildlife rejected the demand last...

The Misanthropes By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, May 07, 2007 4:20 PM PT Eco-Radicals: They've long been with us, those who would rid Earth of humans. But now, thanks to some media currency, we can see where the environmental movement is headed. Encouraging families to have fewer children seems innocuous, perhaps thoughtful. It's easy to dismiss those who support such measures as harmless busybodies, not ill-willed environmentalists. Beware, however, of apparent banality. Groups such as England's Optimum Population Trust have to be subtle. While a planet with few people — or perhaps no people — is their ideal,...

BUENA VISTA, COLO.—You can huff and you can puff but you will never be able to blow down the walls of the Las Manos Bed and Breakfast in Buena Vista, Colo. The walls are made of straw. Well, mostly. They are actually constructed from bales of straw and covered with concrete stucco. They are solid, fire proof, and have an energy efficient insulation value of R-50. The unique exterior wall structure is just one of the fascinating elements of the B&B set within view of Colorado’s majestic 14,000-foot peaks. The 2,600-square-foot home, which includes two large suites ranging from 600...

In a few weeks the US Congress is likely to vote to phase out the standard incandescent lightbulb within a decade. The frantic race to see who can best appease the global warming alarmists will claim another victim, the friendly glow of the direct descendant of Thomas Edison's filament-based light bulb.   Why would the humble lightbulb, a staple commodity that has raised the standard of living throughout the world, be in the bullseye?  It was the incandescent electric light bulb that abolished the tyranny of the night. Our 19th and 20th century ancestors believed it one of the greatest...

The situation has confounded local environmentalists, who are now evenly divided on whether the solar power plant or the nest of squirrels is more important to their cause.

Eco-anxiety' latest worry for Americans March 25, 2007 By JUSTIN NOBEL Columbia News Service Global warming, pesticides in food, nuclear waste — it's enough to keep a person up at night. Indeed, a growing number of people have literally worried themselves sick over various environmental doomsday scenarios. Their worry even has a name: eco-anxiety. Making environmentally friendly lifestyle changes can also prove therapeutic, she said. The fears of the eco-anxious are fueled by abundant media coverage of crises like global warming, collapsed fisheries and food shortages. The Oscar-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" warns that only 10 years might remain to...

Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.....

Activists who have served for decades in the trenches of Canada's environmental movement welcomed the events, crediting Gore's newfound celebrity status with helping to silence naysayers in Canada and bringing badly needed credibility to the science of global warming. "I think Gore, the whole Gore phenomenon, has really put the issue over the top in Canada," said Stephen Hazell, executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. "Prior to Al Gore's movie, the deniers were still in full howl. ... He has given the claim that this is a serious issue a lot more credibility." While the federal government has...

There can be no surer evidence of the negative impact that mankind is having on the environment than the increasing number of cases of animals attacking humans. While the world continues its spin toward a heat-death caused by humanity's spewing of environmentally dangerous carbon dioxide into our fragile atmosphere, the animals now appear to be taking matters into their own paws and fins.

It may well turn out that George W. Bush's greatest service to the country won't involve terrorism or Iraq at all, but his steadfast refusal to be buffaloed into joining the panicky consensus on global warming. Rumor had it that Bush intended to embrace the warming thesis at last in his State of the Union address. Instead Greens nationwide went into depressed tailspins as he called for an attack on the problem by means of technical advances, a curve ball very much in the old Bush mode, of a type that we've seen too little of recently. Bush is acting...

Millions of acres of prime recreational opportunities in Montana are threatened with closure. Your action could mean the difference between a "closed" sign and a "trail open" sign. Please take a moment to read the information below and act on the action items. the U.S. Forest Service is planning a de-facto Wilderness management regime on all "Recommended Wilderness Areas" (RWA). Under normal circumstances, the "Recommended" Wilderness classification is just that: a recommendation. The decision of "whether Wilderness" is supposed to be left to Congress and the American People. Sadly, the Northern Region of the U.S. Forest Service seems to think...

CBS/AP) Investigators were trying determine what caused a wind-whipped fire that roared through a tony beachfront neighborhood and destroyed five homes, including one belonging to Suzanne Somers. The point of origin of the blaze was believed to be above a park along Pacific Coast Highway, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief P. Michael Freeman said Tuesday. "At this point nothing is being ruled out in terms of the cause," he said. Monday's sunset blaze, driven by Santa Ana winds, was blown downslope from Malibu Bluffs Park over about 20 acres and across Malibu Road along the beach, destroying five homes, and...

Environmentalist groups want the new Congress to reject common sense policies encouraging more domestic energy production to wean America off foreign energy. Instead, green groups want to discourage energy production and consumption of the most readily available sources: coal, oil and natural gas, because they generate carbon dioxide (CO2), and nuclear, which produces no CO2. For green groups, “energy independence” seems to mean not depending on energy! Will the new Congress yield to their pressures? Green groups say they want public policies that will make the U.S. less dependent on foreign energy sources, but they oppose efforts to produce energy...

WASHINGTON (AP) – Opponents of oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge are going on the offense after playing defense for a quarter of a century. They want the new Democratic Congress to make an oft-challenged drilling ban permanent. Legislation introduced in the House on Friday would make the oil-rich 1.2 million-acre coastal strip of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge a permanently protected wilderness, and end repeated efforts to open the area east of the Prudhoe oil field to energy companies. “The consensus is that there should not be drilling in the refuge, so the logical next step is to...

WASHINGTON - Environmental groups filed two court challenges Wednesday aimed at blocking construction of Maryland's Intercounty Connector, a highway that officials say will ease commutes and take vehicles off local streets. The 18-mile, six-lane highway connecting Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George's County has long been championed by regional business groups, but faced stiff opposition from environmentalists as well as concerns over its cost. It finally won federal approval in May. In one lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club claim the air quality analysis conducted by federal...

Whoever named Surprise Canyon got it right. Mere miles from bone-dry Death Valley, the canyon cradles two unexpected jewels: a gushing mountain stream and what's left of a once-bustling silver mining town. Environmental groups allege that, before they won protection for the area in 2001, off-roaders destroyed the canyon by cutting trees, dumping boulders in the water and using winches to drag their Jeeps up the waterfalls.

An Arizona appeals court on Wednesday upheld a jury’s $600,000 judgment in favor of a rancher in a defamation lawsuit, rejecting an environmental group’s argument that documents it posted on the Internet were shielded by the First Amendment. The Court of Appeals upheld a Pima County Superior Court jury’s award of compensatory and punitive damages to Jim Chilton in his lawsuit against the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit with offices in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, D.C. A lawyer for the rancher said the appellate court had stood up for a person wrongly defamed, while an attorney...

Prince Charles launched his 'green revolution' with a stark warning that we are all 'living on borrowed time' if we don't stop eating up the world's resources. In a forthright speech in front of leading figures, including Prime Minister Tony Blair, the Prince said: 'We are consuming the resources of our planet at such a rate that we are, in effect, living off credit and living on borrowed time. 'It is our children and grandchildren who will have to pay off this debt and we owe it to them and ourselves to do something about it before it is too...

Billions of people could be wiped out over the next century because of climate change, a leading expert said. Professor James Lovelock, who pioneered the idea of the Earth as a living organism, said as the planet heats up humans will find it increasingly hard to survive. He warned that as conditions worsen, the global population which is currently around 6.5 billion, may sink as low as 500 million. Prof Lovelock also claims that any attempts to tackle climate change will not be able to solve the problem, merely buy us time. Given the dire situation we face, he urged...

Two environmental groups say they will sue to stop construction of the intercounty connector, arguing that building the highway would violate sections of the federal Clean Air Act. Environmental Defense and the Maryland chapter of the Sierra Club said the Washington region already fails to meet certain clean-air standards and that building the six-lane, 18-mile highway would increase pollution. The $2.4 billion intercounty connector would link Interstate 270 in Montgomery County with Interstate 95 in Prince George's County. "There are elementary schools and nursing centers close to the ICC, and people who live and work within several hundred yards of...

LONDON – Unchecked global warming will devastate the world economy on the scale of the world wars and the Great Depression, a British government report said Monday, as the country launched a bid to convince doubters that environmentalism and economic growth can coincide. Prime Minister Tony Blair said unabated climate change would eventually cost the world the equivalent of between 5 percent and 20 percent of global gross domestic product each year. He called for “bold and decisive action” to cut carbon emissions and stem the worst of the temperature rise. “It is not in doubt that, if the science...

4x4 drivers face £300 bill to park outside home By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 1:38am BST 26/10/2006 Millions of drivers of sports cars and 4x4s face hefty charges to park outside their own homes under a scheme being pioneered by a local council. Town hall chiefs across the country were said last night to be closely watching a move by Liberal Democrats in Richmond upon Thames, south-west London, to target the owners of so-called "gas-guzzlers". Owners of these 4x4s parked in Richmond could face hefty charges The borough wants to introduce a sliding scale of charges for...

DUBLIN -- In a stainless-steel cabinet between two gurneys, Josh Moonman stores bottles of a pink fluid, labeled with skulls and crossbones, that is used for embalming bodies. "If I were to open one of those lids now and let you smell it, it would knock you back," says Mr. Moonman, an embalmer for Ireland's Fanagan Group of mortuaries. Because the fluid contains formaldehyde, which is poisonous, European Union regulators are considering banning the chemical as a potential threat to human health and the environment. Among the worries, environmentalists say: decaying bodies leaching toxic chemicals into the ground. But a...

MARTINSVILLE, Ind. - In a town that is one of the key battlegrounds in the Interstate 69 fight, environmental groups Monday announced a federal lawsuit to block design and planning of the Evansville-to-Indianapolis leg of the highway. The plaintiffs, including the Hoosier Environmental Council and several business owners, allege that the Indiana Department of Transportation ignored harmful environmental impacts of building a direct route between Evansville and Indianapolis. It also claims INDOT was biased against a route that would have upgraded the existing U.S. 41-Interstate 70 corridor into a new highway. It accuses 11 defendants - state and federal agencies...

Logging trucks are again rumbling through town after a nearly 15-year hiatus. The Forest Service has reopened - or has plans to reopen - numerous drainages south of Eagle Ranch to logging... There are currently two active sales south of Eagle, with another in the works, said Cary Green, the White River National Forest's timber management assistant for the Eagle area. The 60-acre Beecher Gulch salvage timber sale, on Hardscrabble Mountain, sold in 2005, and about 500,000 board feet of timber is currently being harvested... A typical 2,000-square foot, single-family home requires about 27,000 board feet of framing lumber, paneling...

For nearly a century, Californians have fashioned themselves the innovators the United States and the world follow. Not so on global warming. The California Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger have just passed and signed global warming legislation that looks an awful lot like a watered-down version of the failed Kyoto Protocol. That's soooo 1990s. Kyoto was supposed to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide, the main human-generated global warming gas, to 7% below 1990 levels by 2008-2012. Nationally, carbon dioxide emissions have risen about 18% since then. California legislation cuts state's emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, a much larger effective...

Negotiations are intensifying between the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over an ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in California. Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez said he expects to introduce amendments next week on Assembly Bill 32 -- which would make California the first state to impose pollution caps on industries to combat global warming. The Democratic leader said in an interview that he intends to address governance and enforcement concerns of environmentalists, business groups and the Schwarzenegger administration to pass the bill by the Aug. 31 close of the legislative session. "This bill is going to be on the...

People for the Impartial Treatment of Animals (PITA) spokesperson Flora Freebird explained, "If people insist on the enslavement of animals, then those animals should be entitled to just compensation for the freedom they are denied as well as the work they perform."