http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/environment/ en-us Sun, 3 Jan 2010 22:07:46 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2420215/posts THE Roads and Traffic Authority has proudly announced the success of a road safety program - for our State's native wildlife. To reduce the number of animals killed on NSW roads each year, the RTA has installed more than 200 animal crossings on NSW highways. Rather than wait for a break in the constant flow of traffic, native animals are using specifically built tunnels and bridges to cross roads. And some of Australia's favourite native creatures have been smiling for the cameras as they scurry by. A little possum was snapped crossing over a rope bridge that hangs above the... The Daily Telegraph http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2420215/posts#comment Sun, 3 Jan 2010 22:07:46 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419598/posts Science is one of the great achievements of the human mind and the biggest reason why we live not only longer but more vigorously in our old age, in addition to all the ways in which it provides us with things that make life easier and more enjoyable. Like anything valuable, science has been seized upon by politicians and ideologues, and used to forward their own agendas. This started long ago, as far back as the 18th century, when the Marquis de Condorcet coined the term “social science” to describe various theories he favored. In the 19th century, Karl Marx... National Review http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419598/posts#comment Sat, 2 Jan 2010 18:29:41 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419027/posts ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2009) — Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere. Science Daily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419027/posts#comment Fri, 1 Jan 2010 17:44:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419158/posts He said people needed to change how they live their lives and called for "ecological responsibility" to be taught in schools..... U.K. Telegraph http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2419158/posts#comment Fri, 1 Jan 2010 21:45:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2417105/posts 'Million dollar tortoises' shed light on state's environmental laws James Rufus Koren, Staff Writer 12/28/2009 They might be the most expensive tortoises to walk the San Bernardino County desert. A northern California energy company will pay $25 million to relocate and protect 25 threatened desert tortoises before it can start building a massive solar power plant in the northeastern part of the county near the Nevada border. And while calculating the environmental impact is more complicated than saying "$1 million per tortoise," the case illustrates the tremendous complexity - and high cost - of environmental laws that come into play... The San Bernardino Sun http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2417105/posts#comment Tue, 29 Dec 2009 19:18:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2416322/posts Second of two parts. The pending federal effort to lessen carbon emissions, especially from coal-fired power plants – called the “cap-and-trade program” – has one single goal: To improve air quality and slow down global warming – if, that is, global warming actually exists. As environmentalists favor cap-and-trade as an incentive to decrease harmful emissions, while the bill moves from the House of Representatives to the U.S. Senate, opponents say it will cause nothing but an economic disaster, especially for Pennsylvania’s coal industries. And there are two extreme views on global warming. From the National Geographic: “Glaciers are melting. “Sea... The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2416322/posts#comment Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:36:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2416319/posts JOHNSTOWN — First of a two-part series. There are the two extreme views of federal “cap-and-trade” legislation, formally known as the Waxman-Mark energy bill, that aims to reduce global-warming emissions. • Without it, the planet and future generations will warm, wither and eventually die. • With it, utility bills will soar, coal mining will die, food will become scarce and utilities be forced into brownouts. The truth may be somewhere in between. But to Dennis Simmers at the Colver Power Project outside of Ebensburg, cap-and-trade could have dire consequences. “There are power plants that won’t be able to meet the... The Johnstown Tribune-Democrat http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2416319/posts#comment Mon, 28 Dec 2009 16:33:47 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415772/posts The declining flow of oil from Alaska's North Slope is creating anxiety among executives who run the trans-Alaska pipeline. Within a matter of years, they say, they will need to take costly steps to preserve the life of the 800-mile-long line. If they aren't successful, ice and wax could become a serious problem for the pipeline, increasing the risk of corrosion and spills. Alyeska Pipeline Service Co.'s sense of urgency isn't because the North Slope is running out of oil. The Slope's producing oil fields still contain enough oil to supply the pipeline for at least several more decades. Many... Anchorage Daily News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415772/posts#comment Sun, 27 Dec 2009 16:51:09 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415631/posts WATERLOO, Ont. (Monday, Dec. 21, 2009) - Cosmic rays and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), both already implicated in depleting the Earth's ozone layer, are also responsible for changes in the global climate, a University of Waterloo scientist reports in a new peer-reviewed paper. In his paper, Qing-Bin Lu, a professor of physics and astronomy, shows how CFCs - compounds once widely used as refrigerants - and cosmic rays - energy particles originating in outer space - are mostly to blame for climate change, rather than carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. His paper, derived from observations of satellite, ground-based and balloon measurements as well... University of Waterloo http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2415631/posts#comment Sun, 27 Dec 2009 06:11:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414489/posts Extremely high, potentially unhealthy levels of lead dust have been found in the Allegheny County Health Department's dilapidated office building in Lawrenceville that houses the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. The highest test reading of 337,000 micrograms per square foot was taken in August... Results of tests done Dec. 2 and 3 in Building One found lead dust levels of 32,800 micrograms per square foot on a windowsill in Room 305 and 10,900 micrograms per square foot on a windowsill in Room 309 -- both food safety division offices. The tests found 8,400 micrograms per square foot on a windowsill... Pittsburgh Post-Gazette http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2414489/posts#comment Thu, 24 Dec 2009 15:31:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2413656/posts “Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilization collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” ---Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environmental Program - Opening speech, Rio Earth Summit, 1992 From a certain perspective, some things don’t make sense. Change the perspective and they make perfect sense. Most people value their lives very highly. Why would you strap a bomb onto your body and walk into a restaurant and blow yourself up? From a conventional perspective it makes no sense. But from the perspective of a person who believes that by doing so he enters... The Virginian http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2413656/posts#comment Wed, 23 Dec 2009 13:18:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2413329/posts When can a Christmas gift be something extra special to a conservative and more like a lump of coal to a liberal? When it comes in the form of a book, "TIME TO EAT THE DOG? the real guide to sustainable living," by Brenda and Robert Vale. Bob McCarty Writes http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2413329/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 22:32:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412918/posts Nevada's stimulus-funded weatherization programs are living down to expectations of inefficiency and incompetence. What a surprise. Of all the debt-growing, make-work boondoggles crafted by Congress this year, the "green jobs" grants set aside to make low-income homes more energy-efficient left elected Democrats especially excited: "We're handing out welfare, creating jobs and saving the planet!" The state got $18.6 million in weatherization funds, with the condition that all the money be spent by June 30. About 1,850 homes with incomes at or below 200 percent of the poverty level were supposed to get new insulation, new caulking and the minor repairs... Las Vegas Review-Journal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412918/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:10:55 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412807/posts Beekeepers have to scratch this season to find much to be thankful for. Too-cool, too-rainy weather almost everywhere gave American farmers great soybean and field corn crops this season, but kept summer blossoms from producing much nectar and kept bees from gathering what little there was. In lots of places (the Dakotas and Midwest and much of the east) the bees were barely able to keep up with feeding themselves and their young this summer. Everything they gathered they turned into more bees ... and, unfortunately, more mites. Excess honey just wasn't in the equation, leading to the worst honey... The Daily Green http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2412807/posts#comment Tue, 22 Dec 2009 08:16:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2411844/posts THE BOOB TUBE: .....Sharp introduced the first AQUOS liquid crystal television in 2001 (it came to Canada in 2002). I don’t know this offhand, by the way — I learned it in an information session I attended on Sharp’s new AQUOS LE700 series of LED backlit flatscreen televisions a few months ago...... National Post http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2411844/posts#comment Sun, 20 Dec 2009 21:34:54 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2410957/posts An Irish company, Steorn, today began public demonstrations of an ‘over-unity’ device powered by rotating magnets. Developed over a six year period, the Orbo technology provides a new energy source to power electrical devices and cars. It is claimed to produce more energy than it consumes at a ratio of 3:1, which has led to considerable skepticism from the scientific community. In a Press Release, Steorn announced a six week period for public examination and evaluation in Dublin Ireland from December 15 to January 31, 2010. Plans exist to develop the Orbo technology for commercial production and distribution. If the... The Examiner http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2410957/posts#comment Sat, 19 Dec 2009 04:26:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410835/posts Global Warming: Russian analysts accuse Britain's Meteorological Office of cherry-picking Russian temperature data to "hide the decline" in global temperatures. Is Copenhagen rooted in a single tree in Siberia? Michael Mann, a Penn State meteorologist, wrote in Friday's Washington Post that "stolen" e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit still don't alter the evidence for climate change. Mann, a creator of the discredited hockey-stick graph used in reports from the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to show man-made warming, attacks climate skeptics, including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying they "confuse the public." Chutzpah has been... Investors Business Daily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410835/posts#comment Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:32:00 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410486/posts "Climate change," the scam formerly known as "global warming," has been exposed as the crypto-Marxist hoax many of us suspected for years that it was. In Copenhagen, at the ridiculous charade of a "summit" on the dangers of carbon emissions producing record carbon emissions, the lofty rhetoric about saving the planet and the long-suffering polar bears has been ripped down like a sheet covering an unfinished masterpiece. Underneath, the masterpiece turns out to be an ugly reality as old as human history, a good old fashioned shakedown, in which the greediest of the greedy, those assert the right confiscate the... American Thinker http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410486/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:44:34 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2410427/posts Read the rest. True/Slant http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2410427/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:40:48 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410051/posts Leadership: Alaska's ex-governor asks a question we'd like answered: Why is California's current governor pushing the same policies in Copenhagen that helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment? The movie series that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a household name involved cyborgs traveling through time to alternately try to destroy or save one John Connor, who would grow up to be the leader of the resistance against a race of machines that ruled the planet. Prominent in the series was his tough cookie of a mom, Sarah Connor. Another Sarah has taken the lead in another resistance against another group... Investors.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410051/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:37:51 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409445/posts Hybrid gasoline-electric and all-electric cars will continue to cost more than vehicles with a conventional internal combustion engine for the foreseeable future, putting the new technology beyond the reach of many car buyers. Sales of hybrid and all-electric cars therefore may be limited to affluent buyers who can afford to make an environmental statement and the vast majority of vehicles will continue to be powered by gasoline or diesel engines. While promising, the new lithium-ion battery technology won’t significantly reduce pollution or dependence on foreign oil by 2030. Minyanville http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409445/posts#comment Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:09:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409199/posts Regulations: The Clean Water Act is being rewritten to give a government bureaucracy the power to regulate every body of water from the Mississippi River to a rain-flooded field. The first casualty may be American coal. With all the concern for the harm that cap-and-trade and regulating carbon dioxide as a pollutant might do to the American economy and free markets, the Environmental Protection Agency is doing quite enough damage with an existing law on the books — the Clean Water Act. Congress plans to revise it to make it an even more powerful bludgeon against industry, energy producers and... Investors.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2409199/posts#comment Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:10:36 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408759/posts Ecological disaster has long been a hallmark motif in many science fiction stories and movies, from "The Day of the Triffids," where alien plants take over earth to "Them," the classic science-fiction movie about ants transformed into giant arthropods by the atomic bomb. In the Hugo-winning science fiction novel "The Sheep Look Up" by John Brunner, (perhaps the ultimate environmental disaster novel), the final solution to stopping the environment from being destroyed by man is to kill off the most "wasteful" nation on earth, the American people! James Cameron's new sci-fi extravaganza, "Avatar," set to open Friday, says virtually the... World Net daily http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408759/posts#comment Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:58:57 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408643/posts <p>"Why is Governor Schwarzenegger pushing for the same sorts of policies in Copenhagen that have helped drive his state into record deficits and unemployment?" Palin wrote on her Facebook page. "Perhaps he will recall that I live in our nation's only Arctic state and that I was among the first governors to create a sub-cabinet to deal specifically with climate change."</p> CNN http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2408643/posts#comment Wed, 16 Dec 2009 13:38:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2408238/posts What's going on at the Copenhagen Conference? Here's one of the days activities from week one. LECTURE ON SAFE PRACTICE FOR RESCUING POLAR BEARS: WHAT NOT TO DO! (This is important, pay attention!) The Edisto Joe Outlook http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2408238/posts#comment Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:13:55 GMT