Free Republic

President Trump is ready to announce Princeton physicist and leading climate skeptic Will Happer as his senior tech adviser. According to CNN: William Happer, a Princeton atomic physicist and prominent skeptic questioning whether humans are causing rapid climate change, is joining the National Security Council as senior director for emerging technologies, according to NSC officials. Happer, 79, is an emeritus professor of physics at Princeton who served in the Department of Energy under President George H.W. Bush in the early 1990s. He did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment. This will be both a tremendously sensible appointment and a...

Let’s pass a federal law to end all poverty by the year 2040. That will fix everything. Oh wait – we already have hundreds of laws attempting to eradicate poverty that were instituted several decades ago. Funny thing – we still have poverty, and at about the same percentage as when the war on poverty began over a half a century ago. It’s a clear example of the fact just because the government passes a law, it doesn’t magically make it so. But that’s what leftists do. They see a perceived problem, which usually isn’t, and then set about to...

The pastor in First Reformed may work in a church, but his true god isn’t the Lord above. It’s Al Gore. Writer/director Paul Schrader’s film, available now on Blu-ray and other home video outlets, shares the story of a broken man’s quest for redemption. What emerges is the usual array of global warming talking points, the kind Hollywood can’t help inserting into its product ad nauseam. It’s a shame, since First Reformed offers Ethan Hawke’s most powerful performance to date. Reverend Ernst Toller (Hawke) oversees First Reformed, an antiquated church with a broken organ and empty pews. He’s content all...

Progressives (regressives) have been educating (indoctrinating) our American children for decades, inculcating (forcing) ideas such as political correctness (approved speech), globalism (one world government), global warming/climate change (redistribution of wealth), income equality (confiscation of wealth), resistance (anarchy), social justice (reverse discrimination), and tolerance (intolerance). Progressivism has generally succeeded in creating a few generations of snowflakes (melting babies given to tantrums) and college graduates whose degrees were expensive and useless. But nobody is complaining about higher education escalating costs and globalist indoctrination. Progressives have been urging their followers to make everything smart (U.N. compliant), to learn to deal with water shortages...

There's nothing more satisfactory than a sanctimonious jackass getting schooled on his own canards. Rep. Adam Schiff of California is a California Democrat who fits that sanctimonious jackass part. And enter Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, who schooled him good. Check out her tweet:

"What are you doing? What are you thinking? Are you just really going to stand by and stand down and watch this destruction?" she wrote. "You cowards! People are sick! The ecosystem, the marine life is dying! Do your damn jobs and get off your a** and help your people, your state, our environment. This is so wrong, at every level, that there are no words to describe it!"

Amid growing demands from the corn lobby that the government mandate even more ethanol be blended into the nation’s gasoline supplies, new finding call such proposals into question. One of the chief claims of the corn lobby is that ethanol is a more “green” type of energy because it’s renewable. From there, the argument is extended to claim that it’s better for the environment all the way around. But the conclusions of a study underlying the latest EPA report on the environmental impact of ethanol (seven years in the making, dating back well into the Obama administration) concludes that the...

Nearly everything we understand about global warming was understood in 1979. By that year, data collected since 1957 confirmed what had been known since before the turn of the 20th century: Human beings have altered Earth’s atmosphere through the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels. The main scientific questions were settled beyond debate, and as the 1980s began, attention turned from diagnosis of the problem to refinement of the predicted consequences. Compared with string theory and genetic engineering, the “greenhouse effect” — a metaphor dating to the early 1900s — was ancient history, described in any Introduction to Biology textbook. Nor...

The youths argue they have a right to “a climate system capable of sustaining human life,” and that the government had violated the public trust doctrine to the detriment of future generations.

You know you’re a misguided environmentalist if you support banning plastic straws – the latest enviro-craze sweeping the nation – while still consuming trendy Frappuccino-like drinks contained in big ol’ plastic cups. Cups that also have plastic lids. Has it ever occurred to enviro “elites,” who never hesitate to ban any product they dislike, that the plastic cups they routinely use will end up in the same landfill or ocean as those plastic straws? Perhaps the extremist crowd in Santa Barbara, a city that has criminalized the use of plastic straws and will jail and fine offenders, hasn’t noticed the...

Since we first covered the Climategate Files here at PJ Media in 2009, the controversy has continued, but with some interesting changes. For example, the term "global warming" has pretty universally been replaced with the term "climate change." The language has changed, and the facts have changed. There are lots of new facts, and a whole lot of them dispute the climate dogma. Of course, the more the climate dogma is disputed, the more the climate change cultists resist. On the other hand, we've seen a lot more people coming out as thinking maybe, just maybe, there are some points...

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has been hounded lately by allegations of rich spending and poor judgment. While he could have detonated himself during recent congressional-oversight hearings, the former Oklahoma prosecutor seems to have survived those tests. Nonetheless, EPA’s inspector general, the Government Accountability Office, and various congressional panels continue to probe Pruitt’s official conduct. While Pruitt has plenty for which to answer, on at least three key counts, he seems to be cleaner than his critics claim. Pruitt’s foes have attacked him for allocating too much on bodyguards. Senator Tom Udall (D - New Mexico) slammed Pruitt for “taking 30...

VIENNA (AP) — Arnold Schwarzenegger is urging President Donald Trump to join in efforts to promote green energy, saying he would have "a lot of victories." The former California governor spoke Tuesday at the R20 Austrian World Summit, an offshoot of a Schwarzenegger climate change initiative. Schwarzenegger has sparred with Trump, who last year announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris climate accord. Schwarzenegger said: "Those of you who resist because you can't imagine success without fossil fuels: we ask you to join us. Everyone. Also you, President Trump: Join us." He added: "You said ... you want to have...

Monsanto introduced its glyphosate-based Roundup brand in 1974. But it is only now, after more than 40 years of widespread use, that the government is investigating the toxicity of “glyphosate-based herbicides” on human cells.

Thinking of building or purchasing a newly constructed home in California? Even assuming you can somehow afford to own one in one of the most brutal real estate markets in the country, get ready for the cost to go up further. The state government is preparing to pass a new law which will mandate that every new house, condo or other building up to three stories high must have solar panels installed and comply with a “net-zero energy” profile. (This means that they have to produce enough of their own solar power to offset all electricity off the grid and...

Global tourism accounts for 8% of total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, four times more than previously believed, new research says. Some gases, including carbon dioxide and methane, trap heat in the atmosphere, producing a "greenhouse effect," and so make the planet warmer. The amount of greenhouse gases released by a particular activity is referred to as its "carbon footprint." The increasing carbon footprint of global tourism between 2009 and 2013 represents a 3% annual growth in emissions, according to University of Sydney researchers. Their paper was published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change.

There are three big drivers of weather for any place on Earth: the latitude, the local environment, and solar system cycles. The biggest weather factor is latitude – are you in the torrid, temperate, or frigid zone? These climatic zones are defined by the intensity of heat delivered to Earth's surface by the sun.

Around the world, billions of consumers voluntarily consume fossil fuels to live safe, comfortable, prosperous lives. Tens of thousands of entities and tens of millions of employees provide oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity to them. As such, plentiful, affordable, reliable energy is a global good with moral and enrichment implications—is, has been, will be. Strange, then, that climate-change alarmists/activists are suing the largest, most profitable energy companies by using local “nuisance” ordinances to claim damages related to global warming. In California, for example, San Francisco, Oakland and other cities have sued BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch...

Just when you thought the radical environmental movement could not possibly get any stranger, another absurdity comes along. A few years ago, Professor Elizabeth Stephens at U.C. Santa Cruz published something she called the Ecosex Manifesto. She encouraged her art students to have sex with the Earth. This involved tree hugging and licking, writhing in the mud, and many other bizarre behaviors. Now Professor Sarah Ensor at the University of Michigan is fully embracing this and has proposed that people start erotic relations with plants. She believes that environmentalism cannot fully develop without these "relationships." These people seem to have...

A prominent environmental activist took the unusual road of not only blaming rising electricity costs squarely on renewable sources, but also for deriding the mainstream media for ignoring the connection. Michael Shellenberger, the president and founder of Environmental Progress, explained in a Forbes blog post Monday how the unreliability of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, is the main reason why electricity bills around the world have been getting higher. Despite renewable energy technology slowly becoming more affordable, Shellenberger notes, electricity costs are still rising because of the unpredictable nature of wind and solar. Both sources produce excess...