Free Republic

Eco-warriors and media hype aside, the fact is, as we head into 2009, that the world's ice mass has been expanding not contracting. Which will surprise evening news junkies fed a diet of polar bears floating about on ice floes and snow shelves falling into the oceans. But if a whole series of reports on ice growth in the Arctic, the Antarctic and among glaciers are right, then it is truth in the mainstream media (MSM) that's in meltdown not the polar ice caps. The problem for the MSM is that it long ago nailed its colors to the climate...

It's hard to imagine a rationale that would have the government declare each and every person in America a danger to the environment, but that's exactly what Obama's new Global Warming Czar, Carol Browner, just did...

A Catholic charity has launched a scathing attack on the Green movement, describing the excesses of environmentalism as an ideology every bit as dangerous as Communism. While global warming should be a "crucial issue" for the Church, worshippers must be deeply sceptical about many of the claims made by the environmentalist lobby, a new booklet published by the bishops of England and Wales has said. Written by Russell Sparkes, an expert in ethical investments, it argues that there is a proven tendency among some "Deep Green" activists to exaggerate the threat of global warming to vindicate their calls for government...

Actress Ashley Judd says a wolf management program backed by Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is "incredibly savage ... it's not right, it's not appropriate, it makes no sense on any level." Appearing on CNN's "Larry King Live," Judd repeated her criticism of a program that allows hunters firing from aircraft to shoot wolves to thin the numbers of the animals. Judd recently appeared in a video for the Washington-based Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund, which also opposes the Palin-backed aerial hunting program. Referring to the former Republican vice presidential candidate by name in the video, Judd says that Palin is...

WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Inaugural revelers are lucky they didn't get fined for littering. As crowds cleared the city Tuesday, their trash covered the National Mall and Washington Monument grounds after President Barack Obama's inauguration. They left behind plastic bottles, newspapers, food wrappers, gloves and even American flags they had been waving. Trash bins overflowed with items people tossed. Twenty-one-year-old Laura Wiesner of Youngstown, Ohio, was on the cluttered Mall near the Smithsonian's American History Museum. She says people's quick exit - and failure to pick up after themselves - was a stark contrast to how grand the event had...

The following petition has 2,200 signatures. Also please file any complaints with the FDA (Medwatch Reporting Form). Here is the link. https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm Find the blue Begin button to the right to start. Text of petition: The FDA, in compliance with the Montreal Protocol, has banned the use of life-saving CFC propellant albuterol asthma rescue inhalers in order to help restore the ozone layer, even though it has been widely acknowledged that these CFC inhaler emissions are too trivial to harm the ozone layer: Leslie Hendeles, University of Florida Professor of Pharmacy and Pediatrics, has noted that CFC inhalers release negligible...

(Dry Desert, California) The unexpected discovery of a nest of red-cheeked squirrels amidst the huge, partially constructed MegaPyre Solar Power plant has halted construction, casting doubt on the viability of what has been considered to be the environmentalist's crown jewel of renewable power facilities. The 20 gigawatt plant was expected to provide electricity to much of southern California, and was only 6 months away from completion when the nest of squirrels, which are on the endangered species list, was found. Due to federal regulations regarding endangered species, moving the nest to another location is not permitted. The situation has confounded...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices dropped to their lowest in more than four years on Wednesday after OPEC announced a record supply cut that dealers said may fail to fully offset slumping world energy demand. U.S. crude oil prices fell $3.54 to settle at $40.06 a barrel after dipping below $40 for first time since July 2004. London Brent fell $1.12 to $45.53. Oil prices have fallen more than $100 since July as a global financial crisis cuts into consumer and industrial fuel demand, and top forecasters are now predicting the first decline in world energy use since 1983....

(excerpted from one section) Greenhouse Effect ... Can We Change the Climate? It may seem hard to believe that people can actually change the Earth’s climate. But scientists think that the things people do that send greenhouse gases into the air are making our planet warmer. All use energy. But we need to use energy wisely if we want to slow global warming. Once, all climate changes occurred naturally. However, during the Industrial Revolution, we began altering our climate and environment through agricultural and industrial practices. The Industrial Revolution was a time when people began using machines to make life...

People affected by worsening storms, heatwaves and floods could soon be able to sue the oil and power companies they blame for global warming, a leading climate expert has said. Myles Allen, a physicist at Oxford University, said a breakthrough that allows scientists to judge the role man-made climate change played in extreme weather events could see a rush to the courts over the next decade. He said: "We are starting to get to the point that when an adverse weather event occurs we can quantify how much more likely it was made by human activity. And people adversely affected...

Flights at Stansted were today grounded after at least 50 climate change protesters broke into the airport and occupied a runway.Activists cut through fencing and once on the landing strip chained themselves together and surrounded themselves with their security fencing to create a ‘fort’.Members of the Plane Stupid organisation, who are protesting against the proposed second runway, grounded flights after achieving their aim of closing the airstrip. The occupied runway had been due to reopen at 5am. Airlines were told to divert their planes in the skies and, although the airport terminal has been opened to passengers, no aircraft...

When it comes to environmental wackiness, how far gone is the New York Times? Perhaps all we need to know is that in its editorial of today the Times calls the Kyoto Protocol: a modest first effort to control global greenhouse gas emissions. Modest? In terms of benefits, yes. According to Junk Science, it's widely acknowledged that the complete implementation of Kyoto would lead to a temperature saving of 0.07 °C by the year 2050. But there's nothing modest about Kyoto's cost. Junk Science estimates that to lower global temperatures by 1 °C would set the world economy back ....

Tamsin Omond: Retiring from the 'frontline' I'm too terrified of jail to carry on, says eco-warriorBenedict Moore-Bridger 15.10.08     CAMBRIDGE graduate and "face" of the climate change campaign Tamsin Omond today revealed she was withdrawing from frontline action, admitting the thought of prison "terrifies" her.The 23-year-old told the Standard that her first full night behind bars had given her a "reality check", and how her parents are now concerned for her future.Ms Omond became one of the leading names in climate change campaigning after joining the so-called "Commons Five" who scaled Parliament in February to protest over plans...

A self-confessed hostility toward people who drive Hummers, along with worries about family and finances, prompted a 72-year-old Southlake man to scratch paint on five of the sports utility vehicles, police said.... The vehicles, he complained, "have a big carbon footprint and they use four times as much gas as the rest of us," according to the affidavit. Detective K. Fulgium, who wrote the affidavit, also said Jeppe complained that Hummer drivers take two parking spaces and "park wherever they want." Jeppe told Fulgium that he is a member of two well-known environmental groups....Police subsequently learned that the man was...

It took 4.2 million gallons of oil spewing from a blowout at a rig in the Santa Barbara Channel 40 years ago to ignite the modern conservation movement, trigger new environmental protections and lead to a moratorium on new offshore oil drilling. But the high price of a gallon of gasoline is fueling a change in attitude. Recent national polls indicate that seven out of 10 people support new drilling offshore along the federal outer continental shelf, which extends from three to 200 miles beyond the shore. If costly new exploration in those areas is allowed, oil from those fields...

Environmentalism Is the Threat—Part III Time to Start Taking Names [Articles in this series: 1. Evil Incarnate | 2. Green Hegemony | 3. Environmentalism Is the Threat—Part I, Part II, Part III] Things like weather, climate, animal populations, extinctions, long-term ecological relationships, and the behavior of the seas are impossible to predict because, as we've seen: 1. there are too many causative variables bearing on all these kinds of things and they can never all be known, 2. life itself is always unpredictable, and 3. because all these kinds of things are determine by chaos-theory type cycles, usually many of...

California's two energy agencies Friday endorsed a plan that would require utilities to obtain a third of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. The California Energy Commission, a policy-and-planning agency, and the California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates utilities, issued the joint recommendation that, if implemented, would be the most ambitious renewable-energy plan in the U.S. But the target raises questions about how much the goal could cost consumers. The plan's price tag is "the question of the hour," says Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, an economist who chairs the California Energy Commission. She endorses the goal but said it could be...

* * * * *The spectators shown in the photo above are watching four tree-sitters come down from a 90-foot redwood at UC Berkeley, ending a 21-month sit-in. The protesters had been trying to block the razing of a forest to make way for development. What else is there to say?

You MUST see this video. It is hilarious. The people in it are actually serious. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ed0_1220618296

** EXCERPT ** WASHINGTON – At the National Governors Association conference where she first met John McCain, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had other business: making her case to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne against classifying the polar bear as a threatened species. Months later she sued Kempthorne, arguing that the Bush administration didn't use the best science in concluding that without further protection, the polar bear faces eventual extinction because of disappearing sea ice as the result of global warming. Palin, McCain's vice presidential running mate, has had frequent run-ins with environmentalists. In her 20 months as governor, Palin has questioned...