Free Republic

Everywhere we turn the Democrats are sounding more like Benito Mussolini every day. They’ve become the fascist party. Fascism is a system of government where the party in power forcibly suppresses opposition and criticism. We’re seeing over the issue of same-sex sexuality, ‘gay rights,’ homosexuality, whatever you want to call it. Any opposition will be shut down, fined, and put out of business. The call for toleration is the foot in the door to political, economic, and social repression, and once the objective has been achieved, toleration discarded. The ideological door is now shut. No more debates, and you will...

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival is happening now in Austin, Texas. Running from March 9 to 22, it’s a massive film, interactive and music festival that is nearly 20 years old. The festival brings together designers, developers, investors, entrepreneurs and politicians for panels and discussions about technology and innovation. For the third time in the last few years, Al Gore, founder and chairman of the Climate Reality Project, spoke at the festival on Friday. Naturally, his interactive discussion focused on addressing the climate crisis. The former vice president focused on the need to “punish climate-change deniers, saying politicians should...

Smoke wafting from wood fires has long provided a familiar winter smell in many parts of the country -- and, in some cases, a foggy haze that has filled people's lungs with fine particles that can cause coughing and wheezing. Citing health concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency now is pressing ahead with regulations to significantly limit the pollution from newly manufactured residential wood heaters. But some of the states with the most wood smoke -- including Minnesota and Wisconsin -- are refusing to go along, claiming that the EPA's new rules could leave low-income residents in the cold. Missouri and...

A double dose of snow makes its way toward NYC Driver miraculously survives pileup between two big rigs Motorists angry over alternative-side parking rules during snowfall New York braced for one of the biggest blizzards in “the city’s history,” with over 24 inches of snow expected to blanket Gotham on Monday and Tuesday, authorities said. “We are facing one of the largest storms in the city’s history,” Mayor de Blasio said. “This could be a storm…the likes of which we have never seen before.” Snow is expected to begin falling just before sunrise on Monday before the serious blizzard kicks...

The U.S. has caused more global warming than any other country. Here’s how the Earth will get its revenge.Last year, we learned what is probably the worst global warming news yet — that we may have irrevocably destabilized the massive ice sheet of West Antarctica, which contains the equivalent of nearly 11 feet of sea level rise. The rate of West Antarctic ice loss has been ominously increasing, and there are fears that if too much goes, the slow and long-term process of ice sheet disintegration could accelerate. Humans have a hard time conceiving of the incredible scale of an...

Al Gore and Pharrell Williams took to the stage at the Davos Economic Forum on Wednesday to announce the second iteration of Live Earth, a series of worldwide concerts to raise awareness of climate change. Gore and Williams were joined by Live Earth co-founder Kevin Wall to announce the concerts, which will take place across all seven continents on June 18, according to the Guardian. The event hopes to capture a global television audience of 2 billion across 193 television networks. Williams, who performed at the first round of Live Earth concerts in Rio de Janeiro in 2007, will reportedly...

Roughly 1,700 private planes will head to Davos, Switzerland for the 2015 World Economic Forum. That doesn’t include commercial air travel or any other method of transit to the conference. Ironically, the top article featured on the “Agenda” section of the World Economic Forum website on Jan. 19, boldly stated that “[d]ecarbonising the global economy in a matter of decades is the number one priority.” According to Newsweek, former vice president Al Gore will be speaking at Davos “to stress the importance of tackling climate change.”

The year 2014 now ranks as the warmest on record since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists. This video shows a time series of five-year global temperature averages, mapped from 1880 to 2014, as estimated by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. While scientists expect temperatures to fluctuate from year to year, the average temperature of the planet as a whole has warmed by about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degrees Celsius) since 1880. This trend is largely driven by increasing human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere....

In a global warming series Eco Eye, experts warned about the catastrophic dangers of climate change, predicting significant coastal damage and the extinction of many plant and animal species. “Climate change is a reality. It’s here. That’s something as a society we haven’t bought into. It will be a very difficult problem for Dublin, Cork, Galway and Belfast,” said Professor Robert Devoy. “What is coming down the tracks is a significant warming of the planet. The last time it warmed of this order, 88 per cent of life on earth disappeared. “I have five grandchildren. Whatever time is left to...

'Mysterious Beasts' Spotted by Arizona Highway Cameras A suspicious pack of what appeared to be a group of large animals has sparked a viral debate about a possible sasquatch sighting in Arizona. The Arizona Department of Transportation was behind the latest announcement -- and conspiracy theories began to grow after they posted a photo from a highway patrol camera. It wasn't Big Foot enthusiasts reading too deeply into a suspicious photo; the government officials were the ones to suggest that something sinister -- and mysterious -- was going on. "We might have spotted a family of sasquatches on SR 260...

Hillary Clinton argued for forceful action to fight climate change in an environmental speech on Monday night, but did not mention the controversial Keystone pipeline. [Snip] “The science of climate change is unforgiving, no matter what the deniers may say, sea levels are rising, ice caps are melting, storms, droughts and wildfires are wreaking havoc,” Clinton said, according to ABC News. “The political challenges are also unforgiving, there is no getting around the fact the kind of ambitious response required to effectively combat climate change is going to be a tough sell at home and around the world at a...

The seas have stored most of the excess heat generated by greenhouse gases since 2000, but they are due to send it back skyward December 30, 2014 |By John Upton and Climate Central A Weddell seal with a conductivity-temperature-depth tag on its head. Credit: Dan Costa, University of California at Santa Cruz Probing a blue abyss can be an abysmal recipe for the blues. For every 10 joules of energy that our greenhouse gas pollution traps here on Earth, about 9 of them end up in an ocean. There, the effects of global warming bite into fisheries, ecosystems and ice....

Try to avoid making this face when dealing with a climate change skeptic this holiday. bark/flickr, CC BY By Will J Grant, Australian National University and Rod Lamberts, Australian National University The end of the year is nigh and it’s a time for Christmas and New Year parties and gatherings. In the southern hemisphere that means barbecues and beaches. In the northern hemisphere it’s mulled wine and cozy fireplaces. But for all of us, it probably means we’ll be subjected to at least one ranting, fact-free sermon by a Typical Climate Change Denier (TCCD). You know the drill. Make an...

".....Yuma,Colorado, a farming town of 3,500 people near the Kansas border, celebrated last month as homegrown Republican Cory Gardner was elected to the U.S. Senate. Gardner, a high school football player and the son of a farm equipment dealer, defeated incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Udall to help the GOP gain control of the Senate in the second-most expensive congressional race of all time.Gardner represented Colorado’s 4th Congressional District for four years, an expansive territory that covers the mostly flat and rural eastern third of the state. Farmers there mostly grow corn to feed cattle, and water comes from the quickly...

Changing Weather and Climate in the Great Lakes Region: A University of Wisconsin-Madison MOOC UW-Madison's Margaret Mooney and Steve Ackerman teach this MOOC. She is Director of Education and Public Outreach at the Cooperative Institute for Meteorological Satellite Studies; he is Professor of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences. Click the image to watch their overview of the class. The University of Wisconsin-Madison invites you to join us February 23, 2015 for a unique, free online learning experience: our Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) Changing Weather and Climate in the Great Lakes Region. The 4-week MOOC will feature a new season each...

The hunt for Manbearpig continues. Amusing Alarmist predictions have ranged from the apocalyptic to the bizarre, but the latest is downright idiotic. According to a couple of scientists from Columbia University, air travel might be relegated to the trash bin of history in the future because of the supposed global warming that is occurring today. According to Breitbart.com:The two scientists, Coffel and Horton, looked at a phenomenon known amongst pilots as ‘density altitude’, which affects a plane’s ability to take off. Essentially, on hotter days the air is less dense, making it harder to get a plane airborne.Okay… So warm air...

NOAA says that the first 10 months of the calendar have been the warmest in more than 130 years. The weather outside has been frightful, but not because it’s cold. According to a new report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year is shaping up to be the hottest since scientists began keeping record more than 130 years ago. The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature from January to October was 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average of 57.4 degrees Fahrenheit. “Record warmth for the year-to-date was particularly notable across much of northern...

Uh oh… The evil, hate filled, GOP now has control of the US Senate. Clearly the world will soon end. (Lucky for me, I have stocked up on guns and ammo… So I’m feeling better prepared than my Diana DeGette-loving neighbor.) Ben Adler, the former Newsweek.com editor, was among the more frantic examples of post-election meltdown. Appearing somewhat like Chris Matthews during a Republican victory, Ben scrambled to express his frustration at conservative gains with over-the-top rhetoric. He even went so far as to say that conservatives should not be mistaken for “rational human beings” or “patriotic Americans”.Super classy. Adler insisted...

Density altitude is the biggest factor in aircraft take off on a given runway length, temperature, and altitude. I know this from firsthand experience as I used to be a private pilot – until my hearing got so bad that I decided I was a danger to myself and others. This study published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society claims the number of days with a density altitude issue at some airports will increase per RCP model scenarios in 2050-2070. Of course they are assuming that the RCP models produce an accurate output, and that airplanes of the...

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, locked a final tow on the Upper Mississippi River Thursday, shutting the navigation channel down for the season because ice conditions on the river are becoming difficult for vessels to navigate. Traditionally, the last tow heading south of Lock and Dam 2 has marked the unofficial end of the navigation season for the Twin Cities portion of the St. Paul District, the Corps said. The navigation season started April 16. The spring start was the second-latest start to navigation in the district's history, the Corps said, as ice thicknesses in Lake...