Free Republic

One of the hottest areas of climate research these days is on the potential connections between human emissions, global warming, and extreme weather. Will global warming make extreme weather more common or less common? More severe or less severe? New research, just published today in Nature Climate Change helps to answer that question by approaching the problem in a novel way. In short yes, human emissions of greenhouse gases have made certain particular weather events more severe. In summary, human warming affects weather in two ways. It changes the odds that any given extreme event will occur. But more importantly...

The Cardinal couldn't have been more polite, but it didn't take much reading between the lines to get what he was asserting: that when it comes to the encyclical on the environment, Rush Limbaugh doesn't understand what the Pope was saying. On today's Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace played a clip of Rush saying that the encyclical "is suggesting is that everyone should vote for the Democrat party. How in the hell else do you interpret it when the Pope sounds like Al Gore on global warming and climate change?" Responded Cardinal Donald Wuerl: "one of the great blessings of...

A quasi-religious movement now has a genuinely religious leader. The pope’s encyclical on the environment is being hailed for its embrace of science, although it is about as scientific as the Catholic hymnal. Pope Francis writes that Sister Earth “now cries out because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.” Really? Is that what the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says? I’m not Catholic, but I respect the pope’s humility and am moved by his love for the handicapped and his concern...

Before 1878, in a period with increased rate of ablation, a supraglacial lake formed in the centre of the glacier, this lake subsequently became covered by ice and snow. The collapse of the glacier tongue in 1892 finally released the accumulated water, a large cavity 40m in diameter and 20m high containing estimated 20.000 cubic meters water at the glacier terminus remained as testimony. From this lower cavity, an 85m long intraglacial conduit led to the upper cavity (the former lake) with an additional volume of 80.000 cubic meters. [History of Geology: Outburst flood from Glacier de Tete Rousse: A...

For millennia the Catholic Church has consistently opposed unnatural vice. Here is a brief sampling of useful quotes from Saints, Doctors of the Church, Church Fathers and Ecclesiastical Writers who condemn homosexual vice in their writings. Please share this post with all your Catholic friends. 1. Athenagoras of Athens (2nd Century) Athenagoras of Athens was a philosopher who converted to Christianity in the second century. He shows that the pagans, who were totally immoral, did not even refrain from sins against nature: "But though such is our character (Oh! why should I speak of things unfit to be uttered?), the...

Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iniguez, the retired archbishop of Guadalajara, has been made the subject of multiple criminal complaints by homosexual activists following a televised speech in which he denounced the Mexican Supreme Court’s recent declaration nullifying state laws restricting marriage to a man and a woman, according to Mexican media sources. “Anything outside of this divine institution [of marriage] is an attack against it and is an aberration, and cannot be acceptable to a Catholic,” said Sandoval. In response, a coalition of at least twelve homosexual organizations has filed criminal complaints with two government agencies claiming that the cardinal’s words...

You may have heard about the highly offensive move of the Milwaukee Art Museum.  They displayed a “portrait” of Benedict XVI made from colored condoms.  That’s just plain nasty.The Vicar General of the Diocese of Madison, Msgr. James Bartylla, wrote a letter to the Museum.  He shared it with me.  I have his permission to share it with you.  He also wrote: [F]eel free to tell you readers that I encourage them to write to the Milwaukee Art Museum (mam@mam.org) to communicate their displeasure, with civility and respect (and with appropriate vigor and articulation), at this “artistic” display of such...

Breitbart reports that, according to a new NBC/WSJ poll released yesterday, Jeb Bush is the current leader in the crowded field of Republican presidential candidates. According to the poll, Bush is supported by 22% of primary voters. Scott Walker is second with 17%, and Marco Rubio is third with 14%. Everybody else comes behind (this includes Ben Carson and Ted Cruz). Although I saw many conservatives on Facebook explode at this news, I’m not worried at all. You see, Bush has only two strengths: 1. He’s a Bush. This is a strength because it means instant name recognition. Additionally, although...

Sweeping pollution limits at the center of President Barack Obama’s climate change plan are facing increased scrutiny in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling that showed that the justices aren’t afraid to thwart perceived overreach by Obama or his Environmental Protection Agency. The high court’s ruling undermined Obama administration regulations targeting mercury and other hazardous air pollutants—a different set of regulations from the greenhouse gas limits that Obama is counting on to slow the effects of global warming. Still, the court’s willingness to rein in the EPA emboldened opponents of Obama’s climate change agenda, who said the court had...

Editor’s note: This was originally given in Rome May 8, 2015 during the Rome Life Forum.ROME, June 24, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- In this presentation I intend to give a brief overview of events before and during the Extraordinary Synod held in October 2014. On March 17 2013, four days after his election as Pope and during his first Angelus address in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father drew attention to a recently published book by Walter Cardinal Kasper and strongly praised it. He said: In these days I have been able to read a book by a Cardinal – Cardinal...

Just days after announcing her second pregnancy out of wedlock, mama bear Bristol Palin was back on the defensive, addressing the wave of critics who have called the former abstinence advocate a hypocrite in a blistering blog post. “I have never been paid as an ‘abstinence spokesperson,'” she said, although RadarOnline.com has learned she earned more than $300,000 spreading that very message. ...

While a symbol of anti-Christian hate and repression — the rainbow-colored gay “pride” flag — flew everywhere, Father Jonathan Morris, a Catholic priest frequently seen on Fox News, reported via Twitter Sunday that during a pro-gay marriage parade in New York, “two men walked by and spat on me.”

Pope Francis is scheduled to visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay in July A Bolivian government official has claimed that Pope Francis has said he would like to chew coca leaves when he visits the country next month.According to Reuters, Culture Minister Marko Machicao, speaking on state television and radio on Sunday, said that the Pontiff asked to be provided with coca leaves upon his arrival in Bolivia in July in order to help combat altitude sickness.“We offered (the Pope) coca tea or something for the altitude,” said Machicao. “He has specifically requested that he wants to chew coca, so we...

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - Robert Redford told the United Nations on Monday that negotiations on a global deal to tackle climate change could be the world's "last chance" to save the planet. "This December, the world must unite behind a common goal," said the American actor and producer. "Because look, this is it. This is our only planet, our only life source. "This may be our last chance." World governments will try to forge a new global accord to address climate change at a UN climate conference in Paris in December, with both developed and developing countries committing...

Bill Nye, the liberal establishment’s cartoonish Pseudoscience Guy, packages progressive ideology in childish goofiness so as to render it less menacing as he preaches disproven global warming theory to kids young enough to take it at face value. Although his attempts to implant fear of “climate change” are laughable, his underlying message should make your hair stand on end: “Climate change is a real deal everybody…“Now back in 1750 there were about one-and-a-half billion people in the world. Well today there is 7.2 going on 7.3 billion people. Well that’s the problem. There’s billions of people breathing and burning the...

Joseph Edward StricklandBy the Grace of God and the Apostolic SeeBishop of TylerTO THE PRIESTS, DEACONS, CONSECRATED RELIGIOUS AND CATHOLIC FAITHFUL OF THE DIOCESE OF TYLER, OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF OTHER FAITH TRADITIONS, AND ALL PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL IN THE THIRTY-THREE COUNTIES OF NORTHEAST TEXAS THAT MAKE UP THE DIOCESE OF TYLER:On the morning of June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States handed down a 5-4 decision establishing the legal right of two individuals of the same sex to legally marry in all 50 states. By doing so, the Court has acted in contradiction to...

Continuing to make sure that female employees and students have access to birth control, but that religious non-profit organizations where those women work or study do not have to provide it, the Supreme Court took action Monday on a case that is developing for next Term. In a two-page order, the Court turned aside requests by Roman Catholic colleges, charities, and other non-profits in Pennsylvania to keep on hold a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, rejecting those groups’ challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate.   Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., had temporarily put that...

<p>New York has formalized its ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas after a seven-year environmental and health review.</p> <p>Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens announced the decision Monday, saying a ban was the "only reasonable alternative" after "years of exhaustive research and examination of the science and facts."</p>

The Supreme Court overturned the Obama administration’s landmark air quality rule on Monday, ruling the Environmental Protection Agency did not properly consider the costs of the regulation. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices ruled that the EPA should have taken into account the costs to utilities and others in the power sector before even deciding whether to set limits for the toxic air pollutants it regulated in 2011. The case, Michigan v. EPA, centers on the EPA’s first limits on mercury, arsenic and acid gases emitted by coal-fired power plants, known as mercury and air toxics (MATS). Opponents, including the...

1-2-3-4-5. Five leftist lawyers, currently abusing their authority as Supreme Court Justices, unleashed their activism upon the U.S. Constitution Friday and created a non-existent right to same-sex marriage. The Fourteenth Amendment may provide equal protection under the law, but by applying it to expand the definition of marriage the Court has created a constitutional crisis in America. The First and Tenth Amendments, which respectively promise freedom of individual religion and award jurisdiction to the States of all powers not enumerated in the Constitution, have now been placed in direct conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. “Love Wins”? Not here it doesn’t,...