Free Republic

— General Motors could literally turn green as it readies itself for major management and cultural changes that will coincide with its escape from bankruptcy protection. People briefed on its plans say the company is looking into changing the background color of its corporate logo from blue to green in an effort to show consumers that it is leaner and greener...

The master of environmental babble was at it again last week. Yup, Al Gore was out committing Goreisms yet once more. And, as always, he spouted a whole lot of propaganda based on just a slim hair of truth. For instance, Gore starts out saying that, "here in the United States, patriotism doesn't mean keeping quiet. It means speaking out and standing up for a stronger, more secure nation." Anyone following the Clinton-Gore administration those eight long years knows what kind of baloney that is. Not only did both Clinton and Gore ask for and receive illegal campaign funds from...

Ready for EnviroCops? This is the question asked by Ed Morrissey at Hoit Air, who informs us of a London Times article about such a development: Whether the British public is ready or not, here come the EnviroCops. The Times of London reports that simply selling carbon credits hasn’t been enough to keep companies from potentially violating carbon-emissions limits. Now they will send green-jacketed police to monitor their operations. […]Of course, the British authorities do not have a Fourth Amendment to limit them, but even this may be a bit much for Brits to swallow. Green-jacketed inspectors can descend on...

When Democrats pretend something they are doing is in the interest of national security, you know they are trying to put something past you. Tim Ryan, Democratic Representative from Ohio, explains that America needs to pass the Waxman-Marley cap-and-trade bill because without it we will remain energy-dependent on those who want to “fly planes into our buildings.” If we want to prevent another attack, or make our citizens feel safe from terrorism, implementing a bill that will result in a massive government takeover of American businesses is not the answer. It is disgusting that the Democrats are using 9/11 to...

Full Article at: http://www.thedcwriteup.com/2009/07/green-alarm-causes-incalculable-harm/ One of the most annoying assumptions in current politics is that Republicans and conservatives don’t care about the environment. I’ve lived on a river much of my life, so I know from experience that a clean environment is an essential part of a healthy culture. I’ve seen people dump latrines and trash into my front yard, a water-way that thousands of people use every day. The health hazards of pollution and the real world effects of mutilating natural keepsakes are readily apparent for anyone willing to look closely. But looking at the current Waxman-Markey Climate bill,...

One of West Virginia's U.S. senators is opposed to the landmark global warming bill that passed the House Friday, while the other has "serious concerns" about the measure.

Every now and then, even in Oregon, environmental activists and property rights advocates find themselves on the same side of the political fence. One of those politics-makes-strange-bedfellows issues has been brewing in the Oregon Legislature and may still find its way to the governor's desk if Senate strategists can get it to the floor for a vote. House Bill 3058, which passed the House a couple of weeks ago, would allow private companies seeking to construct "linear utility or transportation" facilities to apply for removal and fill permits for wetlands on other people's property. These companies already have the considerable...

Something important is happening in the debate over man-made global warming. Australia is beginning to rethink its government's own cap and trade scheme while an intellectual sea change is occurring that is giving more weight to legitimate scientific criticisms of the evidence for climate change. Robert Tracinski and Tom Minchin writing in RealClear Politics explain that the government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has had a series of "climb downs" on climate change legislation that gives hope that sanity may prevail in at least one westernized industrial democracy. Take Australian Senator Steve Fielding who decided to investigate the evidence himself....

A Senate energy bill was voted out of committee yesterday, but not before losing the support of two Democrats and a dozen leading environmental organizations. The measure would be the third energy bill in four years -- not counting the huge energy provisions in this year's economic stimulus bill. Like the others, it is rife with controversy over new offshore drilling plans near Florida, the sharing of federal offshore oil and gas royalties, and a mandate for renewable energy that alternative-energy executives and environmentalists say is too weak. It would require 15 percent of electricity to come from renewable sources...

There's a lot of talk about creating millions of new jobs via the "green" economy, one that weans reliance from fossil fuels and invests in alterative energies and technology. But such a massive shift in labor -- figures are for some 5 million new "green-collar" jobs to be created -- isn't likely to happy anytime soon, or anytime at all. In short, we shouldn't be betting on job growth from the clean and renewable energy sector, even if it is the fastest-growing segment of the economy right now. That would be a mistake in planning that could stay current policy...

The people are finding out- Don't question your government overlords or There WILL be a price to be paid. One unnamed CEO found himself referred for investigation when he tried to go public about the dangers of the cap and trade scheme.

Well-Engineered Ecosystems Bounce Back by Brian Thomas, M.S.* How fast can a disaster zone bounce back? Apparently, faster than previously thought. Yale University ecologists conducted a meta-analysis of 240 studies of devastated ecosystems. They found that ecosystems damaged by pollution can be restored in as few as 10 years. Why then was it believed they would take so much longer to recover?...

HAVE THUNDERSTORMS BEEN MORE ELECTRIFIED THIS YEAR? So far, 2009 has been a deadly year for lightning strikes. Two people were killed last week, and another Monday, bringing the total number of lightning-related deaths to seven, with 50 injuries reported total. A Southwest Airlines plane was struck by lightning in California earlier last week. Is this trend of lightning strikes on people and airplanes abnormal this year? One of the reasons for this could be colder-than-normal weather across the northern tier of the country that has suppressed the number of thunderstorms and has significantly reduced the number of tornadoes this...

The federal kitty used to fix and build highways runs dry in August. It will be the second time in two years that the Highway Trust Fund, which was started in 1956 to build the Interstate system, hasn't collected enough gas-tax revenues to pay for critical needs in transport. The reasons for the money shortfall are simple: With Americans driving less in a recession and also buying more-fuel-efficient vehicles, revenues from the gas tax are down. And it doesn't help that the federal fee of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't been raised since 1993, despite inflation and more transport projects....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently met with Beijing officials to secure international agreement about tighter restrictions on economic activity in order to deal with perceived global warming. Happily, China’s regime over the past three decades has been moving away from its Maoist cult and totalitarian communism and towards more freedom, most notably in its economy. Thus Beijing officials are reluctant to strangle economic freedom and, as a result, slow economic growth with such restrictions. Sadly, it looks like Pelosi has picked up the totalitarian sword and is bringing it back with her to wield against Americans in the name of...

On May 19th MIT released a report that proves something. They proved group think still exists. That's all they proved. How can this be? Their model seems so all encompassing... The key lay in this phrase, "selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge", from MIT's recent publication. Because they are using mathematical equations that have been found to be incorrect, they cannot get repeatable results that can be applied systemically to the entire Earth’s climate that matches the data actually recorded. They can only get a probability. This...

Anti-commerce green do-gooders have struck at the heart of America- NYC isn't for everyone, and Times Square even less so... but few would argue that there is nowhere else in the Western Hemisphere that is as BUSY... until now. The envirowackos have turned Times Square into a pedestrian mall...making EC's commute a living hell

NYC has a bold new plan to help save the world... taxi cab riders will share their taxi with other riders going in the same direction. That's brilliant... only I think maybe someone had that idea already - don't we call that a BUS?

While many companies hire lobbyists to win earmarks, General Electric’s unmatched lobbying force has secured a tax increase — or its equivalent — in President Barack Obama’s budget. Labeled “climate revenues” and totaling $646 billion over eight years, this line item in Obama’s budget has inspired confidence in GE Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt. As Immelt put it in a letter this week, he believes that the Obama administration will be a profitable “financier” and “key partner.” On page 115 of Obama’s fiscal 2010 budget is Table S-2, titled “Effect of Budget Proposals on Projected Deficits.” The chart forecasts the...

GLENN BECK, HOST: President Obama is constantly talking about Spain and their success rate with green jobs. Well, one Spanish professor doesn't agree. He's conducted a green jobs study in Spain showing different results. Here is Professor Gabriel Calzada. Professor, what have you found in your study in Spain? What's the truth of the green jobs? GABRIEL CALZADA, SPANISH PROFESSOR: Well, we found that the jobs that we are creating, since you are taking the resources from other parts of the economy, this is making — well, destroying jobs in other parts of the economy. For every job that you...

The environmentalist movement has been really busy this past week. Helps when you have friends in the U.N., as well as in the White House. First, back in February I wrote about how a decades-long ban on DDT resulted in millions of otherwise preventable malaria deaths in the Third World. A reader subsequently corrected me, explaining that the World Health Organization lifted the ban in 2006. This has, unsurprising to no one, significantly reduced the number of worldwide malaria deaths. Well, dear reader, so much for that. The environmentalist movement has now forced the WHO’s hand to reenact the ban,...

With television hosts unwilling to joke about President Barack Obama as those comedians regularly ridicule conservatives, there’s a bright spot coming up this week in a new TV show set to debut on ABC which will mock leftist environmentalism. The Wall Street Journal reported Friday: The new animated television series ‘The Goode Family’ is a send-up of a clan of environmentalists who live by the words ‘What would Al Gore do?’ Gerald and Helen Goode want nothing more than to minimize their carbon footprint. They feed their dog, Che, only veggies (much to the pet's dismay) and Mr. Goode...

Despite the Massachusetts Senate's passage of a tax package last week, it's clear that funds allocated for transportation - principally from the sales tax - are simply not enough. Moreover, with the rejection of 19- and 11-cent gas tax increase options, what seems to be absent from the debate is the compelling environmental argument for a hike in the gas tax. Looking at the evidence for climate change - and its dire consequences - it's clear that we need to get serious about weaning ourselves from our CO2-emitting, petroleum-based economy. Already in evidence is faster-than-expected melting of the polar ice...

In 2006, after 25 years and 50 million preventable deaths, the World Health Organization reversed course and endorsed widespread use of the insecticide DDT to combat malaria. So much for that. Earlier this month, the U.N. agency quietly reverted to promoting less effective methods for attacking the disease. The result is a victory for politics over public health, and millions of the world's poor will suffer as a result. The U.N. now plans to advocate for drastic reductions in the use of DDT, which kills or repels the mosquitoes that spread malaria. The aim "is to achieve a 30% cut...

Who Gets the Blame for This Oil Spill? May 22, 2009 — Who could forget the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, that leaked 10.8 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s pristine coastal waters? That mistake cost Exxon a billion dollars in damages for the ecological disaster it caused and sparked one of the biggest cleanup operations in history. Imagine 80 times as much. That’s how much oil scientists at UC Santa Barbara and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute say is being leaked...

The Green Left must be thrilled with the new Obama/Pelosi/Reid (OPR) troika in charge of the federal government. Three times already, the troika has blocked the development of domestic oil resources. During his first week in office, President Obama rescinded his predecessor's executive order permitting drilling on the continental shelf and in the Green River Formation. Both areas contain abundant oil-especially Green River (under Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah), which has recoverable shale-oil reserves three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Several weeks later, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar unilaterally canceled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah, on...

Hailed as a completely self-sustaining building, the solar house at the Troy Community Center in Troy, Michigan was set to open for tours and community use this Summer. Unfortunately, the systems failed to work over the winter, pipes froze, and water burst through the uninhabited structure causing the floors to collapse. As a result, the building sits unused after the hundreds of thousands of dollars wasted on it by government. This is government waste and folly at it worst, but it is typical of the best government can do. Oh, it's not the best because anything worked, it's the best...

Date: Thursday-May 21 Time: 3:00 P.M. Room: HR C Public Hearing HB 2186 A Authorizes Environmental Quality Commission to adopt rules to help state reduce greenhouse gas emissions . Staff respectfully requests that you submit 25 collated copies of written materials at the time of your testimony. Persons making presentations including the use of video, DVD, PowerPoint or overhead projection equipment are asked to contact committee staff 24 hours prior to the meeting. Any item on this agenda may be carried over to the next meeting at the discretion of the Chair.

The “greens” must be thrilled with the new Obama/Pelosi/Reid (OPR) troika in charge of the federal government. Three times already, the troika has blocked the development of domestic oil resources. During his first week in office, President Obama rescinded his predecessor’s executive order permitting drilling on the continental shelf and in the Green River Formation. Both areas contain abundant oil—especially Green River (under Wyoming, Colorado, and Utah), which has recoverable shale-oil reserves three times the oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Several weeks later, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar unilaterally canceled 77 oil and gas leases in Utah, on the...

ECR is now on nightly, M-Th, at 10 PM EST on the flagship station for Liberty Works Radio Network, The Eagle 104.3FM in Tampa/Ocala. Tonight, we riffed on Michael Steele vs. Mitt Romney... or is it Michael Steel vs. Michael Steele? Obama vs. healthy breakfasts, the Saudi agenda of our foreign policy, and how if liberals were consistent, NYC wouldn't be charging the homeless rent in shelters like they plan to do... they would hail the homeless as the Green visionaries they are.

irst, a little bit about National Geographic and its friends. National Geographic, whose “Green” building was awarded in 2004 by Gorbachev’s Green Cross International Environmental foundation, has funded and supported men like Jacques Yves Cousteau, worshipper of the sea and preacher to mankind who once said: “In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 per day.” Charming. He also proclaimed that “The real cure for our environmental problems is to understand that our job is to salvage Mother Nature. We are facing a formidable enemy in this field. It is the hunters... and to convince them to leave...

(Vaclav Klaus is President of The Czech Republic, and author of "Blue Planet in Green Shackles – What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom?")PRAGUE – I am surprised at how so many people nowadays in Europe, the United States, and elsewhere have come to support policies underpinned by hysteria over global warming, particularly cap-and-trade legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and subsidies for “green” energy sources. I am convinced that this is a misguided strategy – not only because of the uncertainty about the dangers that global warming might pose, but also because of the certainty of the damage that these...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twd59PrqCNg

HB 2186 A has been passed, 32 yea, to 28 Nay. Say goodbye to the possibility of economic prosperity in the State of Oregon. Among HB 2186 provisions are sections that will impact Oregonians for decades to come, regardless of the fact that it sunsets in 2020.

Today’s Americans inherited the wealthiest nation in history — but only because earlier generations learned how to feed, fuel, finance, and defend themselves in ways unrivaled elsewhere. Lately we have forgotten that and instead seem to expect others to do for us what we used to do ourselves. Take our plentiful, cheap, and safe food supply. Long ago, Americans struggled to create farmland out of swamps, forests, and deserts, and built dams and canals for irrigation to make possible the world’s most diverse and inexpensive agriculture. Now in California — the nation’s richest farm state — the population is skyrocketing...

“Charles Darwin and his followers have shown how all life on the planet evolved from a single source. The mechanism they call evolution by natural selection means competition, extinction and the emergence of new life forms without the need for a director or conductor. The Creator shimmers and vanishes like a mirage.” So says political pundit Andrew Marr, one of the BBC’s most senior journalists, in the first of his three BBC2 programmes celebrating evolution and its legacy during the last century and a half. While there was much to agree with in this thought-provoking series, Marr is careful to...

Green Schools, Greener Students by: Malcolm A. Kline, May 05, 2009 There’s been a rush to make public schools environmentally friendly lately, so much so that polls show that students are afraid that the earth is going to melt before they make it to the prom. “Green schools reduce toxins while increasing attendance, lowering illness rates and raising test scores,” said Sean Miller, Director of Education at Earth Day Network. “Students fare much better with green schools and so does the planet.” Meanwhile, actual knowledge of how the world works continues to disappear among public school students, so much so...

Have you mowed your lawn lately? If so, you may have committed a grave ‘plants rights’ crime, according to the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Biotechnology. In what reads like a clever parody, their twenty-four page report argues that plants may well be deserving of nearly the same reverence a human life is due (of course, in practice, these hypocrites would treat plants with greater reverence than human lives, see below). --snip-- Ironically, the great apologist G.K. Chesterton predicted a century ago the move toward plant rights when he discussed animal rights (although he can hardly have been serious when...

A few months ago, my school deemed April 2009 “Ohio Earth Month” (because, obviously, Earth Day just isn’t enough). Ever since, I’ve been waiting for the sociology department to speak up about how Western environmentalists oppress Third World people in the interest of Saving The Planet.

Forget courage, thrift, fidelity or industry. Generosity? Humility? Fortitude? Honesty? Those are so 19th Century. According to Master Card, today’s virtue resides in being eco-conscious. The latest in MasterCard’s successful “priceless” series of ads features a young boy shadowing his father, saving the lout from committing a series of environmental atrocities – a smug little moralist saving the sinner from himself. When Dad leaves the water running as he brushes his teeth, Junior is on hand. “Water glass,” says the (child’s) voice over, “five dollars.” Cut to a hardware store where Dopey Dad is looking for light bulbs. Luckily, his...

Dennis Prager has often noted that liberals have very little sense of self-awareness. That astute observation entered my mind when I read this AP article: Gore pleads for unity on climate, despite divideBy DINA CAPPIELLO and H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writers – Fri Apr 24, 4:43 pm ETOK, first things first. Gore is calling for unity? This is what liberals mean by unity, folks: My position is right and warrants no debate. And if you dare not agree with me, prepare to be (1) silenced or censured, (2) slandered or libeled, or (3) accused of being stupid, ultra-religious, or...

There's nothing quite as damaging to Al Gore and his fantasies of global climate catastrophe as simple facts. There are some people who realize that Al Gore's strategy of creating and perpetuating a global financial disaster while destroying much of the industry in the world in an effort to prevent something that probably isn't happening in any case may not be prudent. Apparently Newt Gingrich is one of those people. Here he shreds Gore's hyperbolic hysteria with some facts.

I love this clip. Al Gore does a great Al Gore impersonation, as he gets all huffy when asked by Congresswoman Blackburn about how much he expects to make off the cap-and-trade global warming scheme that Obama's busy pushing through. I particularly like how he huffs and puffs into the microphone so we all know just how offended he is by the fact that ANYONE would dare question his motives in supporting regulation that essentially pays off all of his investments in one big swoop. "It's not about greed," Al Gore says. And we can tell by how outraged he...

The city of Los Angeles will be instituting harsh new rules for individual water usage due to the state’s current shortage. The LA City Council approved new water conservation measures regarding sprinkler systems in particular. Automatic sprinkler systems may only be used on Mondays and Thursdays. A water conservation force will wander the neighborhoods of LA looking for violators to cite – if you happen to run the sprinklers on a Sunday, you’ll get a warning; a second time, and you’ll get a fine that can run up to $600. The price of water will also be rising. Read more...

--snip-- Global Warming One of the most common refrains about the environment from the news media goes something like this: [insert disaster here] is coming if we don’t stop [insert bad thing some scientists claim we’re doing to destroy the earth]. Recently, most of these reports are somehow tied into global warming. While some of the evidence suggests that the earth has warmed recently (see sidebar for information), many scientists build their conclusions upon a faulty view of earth’s history. If we start with the Bible, we know how old the earth truly is, what happened in history (e.g., the...

Now that his administration has liberated trillions of dollars from their rightful owners and distributed those dollars to the super-wealthy and mega-corporations, Obama and his team aren't resting on their laurels. Here he is pushing his insane cap and trade scheme. In a nutshell, this "plan" is to make conventional sources of energy so expensive that alternative energy will begin looking cheap by comparison. This is because conventional energy is so much cheaper than their government-sponsored varieties.... and we can't have that, can we?

Just in time for Earth Day. An example of the most annoying aspects of environmentalism I experience in my daily life; flawed products. In the name of feel-good, arbitrary symbolism we are stuck with poor quality, ineffective junk like this paper coffee cup that leaked on my desk this morning.

The chief sponsor of a bill that would limit greenhouse gases says his proposal to tackle climate change would spur clean energy development and won't be a drag on the economy. Waxman, opening a hearing on climate legislation, said critics argue that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and clean energy. But he said "that is a false choice" and that the nation's economic future and clean energy -- in his words -- "are inextricably intertwined." Waxman's bill would cut emissions by 80 percent.

President Obama has proposed combining stimuli to promote employment with the fight against alleged man-made global warming, which supposedly results mainly from the burning of fossil fuels. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of new “green” jobs will supposedly be created by replacing power from fossil fuels with power from windmills and solar panels. They will be created in the construction of windmills, the production and installation of solar panels, and also in the construction of a new power grid meant to carry all the electricity that is supposed to result. A rather serious problem, which seems largely to have...

As I sit here in my idling SUV (just kidding), I’d like to mark this day by honoring those individuals who have made actual positive differences in the world. These people have made indelible marks on human life. Yet, due to the new world radical religion of “environmentalism” which has infiltrated our schools, stores, media, and government, their contributions have been minimized, ignored, condemned, or denounced. First and foremost, I’d like to recognize is a brave Polish Catholic woman named Irena Sendler. A nurse in Nazi-occupied Poland, Ms. Sendler rescued 2,500 Jewish children from the Nazi death camps by smuggling...