Free Republic

The sustainability campaigns on American college campuses, which we have covered for about as long as they have existed, may seem more ubiquitous than pledge drives on PBS. Nevertheless, some scholars think they haven’t gone far enough. "We are currently on track to having the hottest year ever, breaking the record established last year," Marcus Peter Ford writes on the Academe blog maintained by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). "We also set records for warmth in 2013 and 2014." "And yet, to date, climate change has had little impact on how we understand the purpose of higher education....

Susan Rice, who serves as National Security Advisor to President Barack Obama, told the Air Force Academy on Thursday that the United States is in a “battle for hearts and minds” against ISIL and that to “defeat ISIL’s ideology for good,” the United States must “offer a more compelling vision.”“Around the world, countries and communities—including the United States—must continue working to offer a better, more compelling vision,” Rice said.  “We must demonstrate, as President Obama has said, that the future belongs to those who build, not those who destroy.  That includes promoting sustainable development and economic opportunities.” Here is an...

Katharina Unger and Julia Kaisinger, 25 and 28, have developed a device to breed in the comfort of your own home the protein-rich grubs of the meal beetle, to then eat. "With this current design you can make 200-500 grams (seven to 18 ounces) of mealworms every week," Unger told AFP at a recent tasting and fundraising event in Vienna. "You freeze them and then you make them like any other type of meat. You can cook them, roast them, make them into burger patties and mix them into sauce for pasta," she said. Into the top of the sleek,...

If you had a time machine and could travel back to 1992 as the UN’s Earth Summit was underway, and you knew what you know now about Agenda 21, imagine the actions you could take to stop it in its tracks. You wouldn’t have to wonder what the NGOs who created it had in mind. You wouldn’t have to trust the news media to tell you the details. You would know, just as the NGO’s, Nancy Pelosi and all the others openly told you, Agenda 21 is a “comprehensive blue print” for the reorganization of human society.

Mayors emboldened by an appeal from Pope Francis are committing themselves to a new set of U.N. goals to end poverty and promote sustainable development over the next 15 years. At the end of a two-day Vatican summit on Wednesday, several dozen mayors from around the world unanimously adopted a declaration pledging to endorse the goals and work to implement them in their home cities. …

'Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee' is the entity responsible for organizing the Gulf state's 2022 World Cup bid and the resulting preparations FIFA itself is also listed as a donor to the foundation, giving up to $100,000 Clinton Foundation website discloses donations from the committee of between $250,001 and $500,000, including a donation in 2014 Qatar itself has donated between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation, and did it before 2014 The tiny Middle Eastern country won the rights to host the 2022 global soccer tournament in December 2010 Clinton Foundation later said Qatar worked toward 'utilizing its research...

It is an obvious truth we too often forget. At the Albert Einstein Memorial, on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., an explanatory sign states a simple fact that refutes the argument President Barack Obama's science adviser once made for redistributing wealth and limiting human population so as to save the human race from a poverty he claimed must inevitably intensify as our numbers increase. "At Einstein's feet lies a circular sky map representing the planets, sun, moon, and stars, positioned as observed by astronomers from the U.S. Naval Observatory at noon on the day...

The problem with global warming is that eventually it must meet reality. Either the globe is warming up at horrific rates as the models have promised, or it isn’t. And if it isn’t, then those still calling themselves “scientists,” and meaning it, must admit failure and move on.

Syracuse University alumni are new additions to the lengthening list of persons who can stop contributing to their alma maters. The university has succumbed — after, one suspects, not much agonizing — to the temptation to indulge in progressive gestures. It will divest all fossil-fuel stocks from its endowment. It thereby trumps Stanford, whose halfhearted exercise in right-mindedness has been to divest only coal stocks. Evidently carbon from coal is more morally disquieting than carbon from petroleum. The effect of these decisions on consumption of fossil fuels will be nil; the effect on the growth of institutions’ endowments will be...

Conventional agriculture is causing enormous environmental damage in Germany, warns a study by the country’s Federal Environment Agency, saying a transition to organic farming and stricter regulation is urgently needed. EurActiv Germany reports. Spanning over 50% of the country, agriculture takes up by far the biggest amount of land in the country, and is one of its most important economic sectors. But intensive farming still harms the environment to an alarming extent, according to a study conducted by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The use of pesticides and fertilizers, as well as intensive animal husbandry, have a negative impact on...

This column was co-authored by Congressman J. Randy Forbes.Avid Chipotle customers seeking carnitas burritos for dinner may be disappointed over the coming weeks. The restaurant giant is reportedly no longer serving pork at about a third of its locations after it dropped a pork supplier that failed to live up to the corporation’s standards of humane animal care. Despite the possibility that Chipotle’s decision to pull pork from almost a third of its restaurants will come at a cost, the corporation’s commitment to serving “food with integrity” has outweighed its quest for financial gain. “We would rather not serve pork...

Kathleen Matthews, Marriott International’s executive vice president and chief global communications and public affairs officer, and wife of MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, is planning to run for the seat of Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). Van Hollen announced Wednesday that he’ll seek the seat being vacated by Sen. Barbara Mikulski. ... Matthews, who has long talked about running for office, advocated Marriott’s move toward more progressive policies, including sustainability and LGBT friendliness. ... She’s on the boards of Catholic Charities Foundation, Ford’s Theatre and

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry paid a visit Wednesday to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, where he met the tiny nation’s leaders and commemorated the ferocious World War II battles fought on Guadalcanal. Kerry met with Solomon’s Prime Minister Gordon Lilo and Governor General Frank Kabui to discuss sustainable development, ocean preservation and how the islands’ 600,000 residents are coping with the effects of climate change. …

Center for American Progress wants mileage-based highway fee By Keith Laing - 07/11/14 12:08 PM EDT The Center for American Progress is calling for Congress to ditch the federal gas tax in lieu of a system where drivers pay fees for road construction based on how many miles they travel. The proposed mileage-based system has been controversial in previous transportation funding debates because critics question how government would monitor the traveling habits of drivers without infringing upon their privacy. ADVERTISEMENT But the Center for American Progress said Friday that taxing drivers based on how far they drive is a much...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel called on Chinese youth on Tuesday to help protect the environment and conserve energy, telling a group of elite university students that sustainability does not have to come at the cost of economic growth and can ensure a better world. In a speech at Tsinghua University in Beijing, one of China’s top universities, Merkel said it does not make sense to separate economic performance, environmental protection and social responsibility. “Sustainable development does not sacrifice economic growth. This is a misunderstanding. Sustainable development gives us a new opportunity to create wealth,” Merkel said at the end of...

A coronal mass ejection, or CME, surged off the side of the sun on May 9, 2014, and NASA's newest solar observatory caught it in extraordinary detail. This was the first CME observed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, or IRIS, which launched in June 2013 to peer into the lowest levels of the sun's atmosphere with better resolution than ever before. Watch the movie to see how a curtain of solar material erupts outward at speeds of 1.5 million miles per hour.

The Met Council, as it's known here, was founded in the 1960s to coordinate regional infrastructure—in essence, to make sure that sewers and roads meet up. Over the years, its power to allocate funds and control planning has expanded. Now, under Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton—who appointed all 17 current members—the council intends to play Sim City with residents' lives. Thrive MSP 2040 is part of a nationwide movement called "regionalism." Regional planning of infrastructure is important, of course. But regionalism, as an ideology, is about shifting power away from local elected officials and re-engineering society on behalf of "equity" and...

Wednesday, April 23, 2014 The Environmental Apocalypse Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog Early in the morning, while most are still sleeping, groups of elderly Chinese women spread out across city streets. They tear open trash bags, pick through the litter and sort out bottles and cans that come with a deposit. And then they bring them to the local supermarket to a machine that scans and evaluates each can, accepting and rejecting them one by one, and finally printing out a receipt. The interaction between the elderly immigrant who speaks broken English or the homeless man...

Since he wrote "Fast Food Nation" more than a decade ago, muckraking author Eric Schlosser has noticed a sympathy gap in the food movement that he helped foster. Some foodies seem to care more about the treatment of the animals they eat than the workers who prepare and serve them. "It's not all foodies by any means," Schlosser said. "But the food movement can get sidetracked into wealthy, upper-middle-class people caring about food as status, caring about food as pleasure. I'm a huge supporter of animal welfare, but the compassion for the abuse of animals is so much more excessive,...

Hunting show hostess Melissa Bachman recently shot a lion in Africa, posted the triumphant picture on Facebook and now ABC (among many other enlightened parties) are all over her. An ABC World News segment shows New York-based Lana Zak petting a tame and cuddly cub on location in a South African zoo, while purring that: “lions like these are beloved in Africa.” Maybe by some of Zak’s yuppie counterparts in places like Capetown and Nairobi. But not by Africans who live among wild ones. Lions are certainly beloved in Hollywood, the Upper East Side, Georgetown, etc. It’s a different story...