Free Republic

Guatemala -- Where is that, you ask? Generally this column comes to you from Washington, D.C. or New York City. Occasionally it comes from London or Paris. Today it carries the dateline of a seaport in Guatemala, and if it were written a day ago or two days hence it would carry the dateline of Belize. It is freezing up north. The inclement weather has driven me to tropical parts. Global warming sounds more and more agreeable to me and, frankly, if you have your wits about you, to you, too. The frozen remains of palm trees have supposedly...

Spiegel has finally gotten around to conceding that global warming has ended, at least for the time being. Yesterday Spiegel science journalist Axel Bojanowski published a piece called: Klimawandel: Forscher rätseln über Stillstand bei Erderwärmung (Climate change: scientists baffled by the stop in global warming). We’ve been waiting for this admission a long time, and watching the media reaction is interesting to say the least. Bojanowski writes that “The word has been out for quite some time now that the climate is developing differently than predicted earlier”. He poses the question: “How many more years of stagnation are needed before...

President Barack Obama in his second inauguration address called for new action to “respond to the threat of climate change.” Taking advantage of the bully pulpit and a huge national audience, Obama mustered his best possible arguments in a brief case for why addressing global warming is supposedly necessary. Unfortunately for global warming alarmists, Obama’s case was exceptionally flimsy. Then again, Obama did not have much to work with, as the overall case for global warming alarmism is exceptionally flimsy.

Are the stars finally aligned for a global climate change treaty? After years of frustration, momentum seemed to change in an instant last Monday. President Obama’s second inaugural address made it clear he was going to lead the world on the issue, his words a “clarion call to action” as one observer put it. Obama’s first term was marked by one failure after another on the climate issue. For instance, his efforts to craft an agreement at Copenhagen in December 2009 were frustrated by developing nations, and subsequent conferences, such as the one last November and December in Doha, have...

Yesterday during his second Inaugural Address Barack Obama promised to blow billions of taxpayer dollars on more global warming junk science projects. After all, his donors have to get paid. Eighty percent of Obama’s green energy “investments” his first term went to committed donors. Much of the money was lost. During his first term over 19 of Obama’s green ventures went belly-up after receiving billions of dollars. But that won’t stop him from committing more of your cash to this failed cause. Yesterday, James Delingpole at The Telegraph tossed cold water on Obama’s reckless statements on climate change.

WASHINGTON - Have you seen the latest development in President Obama's waste-ridden, clean energy program that's now under federal investigation at the U.S. Treasury Department? Three of the country's biggest residential solar panel installers -- SolarCity, SunRun and Sungevity -- have been subpoenaed by Treasury's Office of Inspector General for their financial records to determine if they had inflated the market value of their costs when they applied for federal reimbursement. The firms have reportedly received more than $500 million in federal grants and tax credits. Officials in two of them, Solar-City and SunRun, have been among some of Obama's...

On the surface, green energy sounds like a great idea. Unfortunately, it is extremely costly and requires heavy government subsidies.Last year, the epic downfall of Solyndra — the former solar cell manufacturer backed by the Obama administration — was one of the most notorious blows to the industry.As with most young industries, experts argue that green energy just needs time before it can reach economies of scale and become cost effective.But lately, those time frames have become extended.  Meanwhile, fossil fuels like coal and natural gas continue to be devastatingly cheap.We pulled together key charts from the studies that...

Prince of Wales: It is an 'act of suicide' to ignore green issuesBy Hannah Furness 7:25AM GMT 23 Nov 2012 The Prince of Wales warned the current generation is “heading to the terrifying point of no return” when it comes to green issues, with humanity and the Earth soon to suffer some “very grim consequences”. Saying he had been vindicated by science after being labelled a “crank" for his views years ago, he warned the human race was “pushing nature beyond her limits”. “If we go on as we are the impact of these scarcities and declines on human societies...

The October bankruptcy of solar company Satcon Technology Corp. puts the number of bankrupt or troubled green energy companies as high as 50, according to one estimate. During the first presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said the Obama administration had doled out $90 billion to green energy companies, half of which he said had failed, which sparked a media-wide debate over the accuracy of the claim. The Romney campaign later clarified that he was talking about the DOE’s 1705 loan program which doled out $16.1 billion to green energy companies, according to the Washington Post. Of the 33 companies...

DENVER—Emails between an independent consultant and the Obama administration suggest the consultant felt pressure to help arrange a loan guarantee for a Colorado solar panel manufacturer that later went bankrupt. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce asked the administration this month to explain what the U.S. Department of Energy knew about problems with a $400 million federal loan guarantee awarded to Abound Solar. The Loveland-based company filed for bankruptcy protection this summer and laid off about 125 workers after spending approximately $70 million of its loan guarantees. An Abound spokesman didn't return phone calls seeking comment. Abound has been...

For the Kennedys, it was easy being green. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his late wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, didn’t pay a penny for the high-end kitchen appliances, dual-flush toilets, solid brass and zinc faucets, hardwood flooring and hypoallergenic rugs when they created their eco-friendly Westchester mansion. Even the bamboo hangers and the cleaning products were free — a $1.3 million bonanza of swag. Now five months after Mary Richardson Kennedy’s suicide at the sprawling estate in Bedford, her husband is set to make a windfall.

...CompleteColorado.com has obtained emails that seem to directly contradict Plouffe’s answer, and also challenge the President’s notion that the DOE’s loan decisions were universally autonomous within the agency. The emails also lend even more credence to the theory that the loan to Abound Solar was political payback to Colorado’s wealthy Democratic benefactor and Gang-of-Four member, Pat Stryker.

Barack Obama denied politics had anything to do with his administration's green-energy loans to companies like Solyndra and Abound, both of which have gone bankrupt. The President even chuckled when asked if those loans were a waste of taxpayer dollars. Denver's News9 reporter Kyle Clark said in a Friday interview that Obama touted the "stimulus money going to Abound Solar" in a national address, but Abound Solar is "out of business and under criminal investigation" while the "jobs are gone and taxpayers are out about 60 million dollars."

Pretending to be green is expensive. Californians have set the pace for adopting the trendy lifestyle choice but recently have cried out for relief when confronted with the true cost of saving the planet from “global warming.” As new evidence emerges about extraterrestrial forces that shape Earth’s climate, Americans from coast to coast may come to a similar realization of the futility of trying to bring down temperatures before their bank balances dry up. Golden State residents bear some of the nation’s highest energy prices, and for a simple reason. Sacramento bureaucrats force refiners to produce gasoline according to a...

I missed this last week, but hey, who doesn't love being regaled with yet another example of the many ways in which the government's unceasing market interference continually goes awry? The federal government never seems to tire of fancying itself a venture capitalist with our tax dollars, no matter how many instances of hilarious ineptitude are thrown back in their face. (As ever, I only laugh to keep from weeping.)On Friday, Reuters reported that a foreign wind manufacturer with plants in the United States has decided to lay off upwards of 800 workers, due largely to uncertainty over the looming...

In Thursday night’s Vice Presidential debate, the Administration’s green agenda was, once again, part of the verbal sparring. The exchange ended with Congressman Ryan’s unanswered question: “Where are the 5 million green jobs…?” Moderator Martha Raddatz cut him off mid-question, steering the conversation elsewhere: “I want to move on here to Medicare and entitlements. I think we've gone over this quite enough.” Ryan didn’t finish his question. Vice President Biden wasn’t pressed into an uncomfortable answer that would have wiped the smile off his face. Had Ryan not been interrupted and been allowed to finished the question, he likely would...

A congressional oversight panel wants to know when the Obama administration became aware of significant technological issues at a renewable energy company it helped fund, including the propensity of its solar panels to burst into flames when exposed to the sun. Abound Solar Manufacturing was awarded a $400 million line-of-credit in taxpayer-backed loans from the Energy Department (DOE), and is the third company funded by President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan to go bankrupt, along with Solyndra and Beacon Power. Republican Reps. Fred Upton of Michigan, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Cliff Stearns of Florida and...

The EU has launched a campaign aimed at showing how low-carbon solutions can improve quality of life. The European Commission believes that policies to cut greenhouse gases will only work if individuals share the vision of a low-carbon society. "It's perhaps been a bit too much doom and gloom in the past on climate," one official told the BBC at the launch in London. "We are now emphasising the need to inspire people." The EU-wide campaign runs until 2014. The campaign title "Worldulike" will doubtless raise eyebrows. The name is uncomfortably reminiscent of the British baked potato restaurant chain Spudulike....

Does Obama have radical “green” roots? Bret Baier travels across America, revealing rogue regulators, tracing the truth about the president’s environmental agenda and exposing programs that could devastate our economy! Check out a sneak peek of the special below, and tune in on Sunday at 9p ET to watch the full ‘Fox News Reporting: Behind Obama’s Green Agenda’ on Fox News.

Electric cars might cause as much or more pollution than conventional gas vehicles, according to researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. According to a study published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, “the production phase of electric vehicles proved substantially more environmentally intensive” than the production process for traditional gas-powered cars. Specifically, the study found that electric car factories can emit more toxic waste than gas-burning car factories. And greenhouse gas emissions rise exponentially if coal is used to produce the electricity necessary to charge “green” vehicles, according to the study. The researchers compared the overall life-cycle...