Free Republic

The western world is in an apparent state of crisis. Each year brings more data on declining soil fertility, loss of fresh water, dangerous swings in global temperature and much else. In light of these truths the conscientious consumer seeks to do good, to participate in saving the planet in the greatest altruistic experiment of them all; to buy green. Unfortunately, our ecological warrior is generally unwilling to do too much. They still commute to work, participate in productive white collar labor, fly on air planes, purchase needless consumer goods, and eat outrageously varied diets (you live in New York,...

Americans are split geographically on the topic of climate change, sometimes by county lines or congressional districts, according to new data released by Yale University's Program on Climate Change Communication. The Climate Opinion Maps give Americans an interactive glimpse into the country's view of threats from global warming. The survey results are sortable on the study's website, allowing users to see the Americans' opinions on climate change at a state, county and even metro level.

More Evidence of a Wet Sahara by Jake Hebert, Ph.D. * Scientists from the University of Arizona recently announced that what is now the Sahara desert was once wet and green and extended as far north as the Mediterranean Sea.1,2 The scientists examined chemical clues found within leaf waxes preserved in four marine sediment cores located off the northwestern African coast. Plants experience subtle changes in the chemical composition of their wax, depending upon the wetness or dryness of the climate. Because leaf wax washes into the oceans, it can be preserved in sediment cores extracted from the ocean floor....

They were duped – and so were we. That was the conclusion of last week’s damning revelation that world leaders signed the Paris Agreement on climate change under the sway of unverified and questionable data. A landmark scientific paper –the one that caused a sensation by claiming there has been NO slowdown in global warming since 2000 – was critically flawed. And thanks to the bravery of a whistleblower, we now know that for a fact. The response has been extraordinary, with The Mail on Sunday’s disclosures reverberating around the world. There have been nearly 150,000 Facebook ‘shares’ since last...

I am sick and tired of the Eco-profiteers using CO2 as the climate boogeyman to fleece our pockets and brainwash our youth. Carbon footprint this and offset credits that, what a bunch of hogwash. Get your facts straight folks and hit back with these figures....

Today is the hottest day in the history of the universe. And so was yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. The hottest day ever. The hottest week ever. The hottest year ever. Ever. Hotter even than the big bang. The picture above is allegedly the latest picture from NASA/NOAA showing the effect of global warming. This is an extraordinary claim. As they say, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. What is one to do so that one wants to make extraordinary claims and the extraordinary proof is how to come by? One gets creative, and that's what those rascals...

@NOAA data demonstrates that 2016 was not the ‘hottest year ever’ in the USA Anthony Watts / 20 hours ago January 19, 2017 Today, there’s all sorts of caterwauling over the NYT headline by Justin Gillis that made it above the fold in all caps, no less: FOR THIRD YEAR, THE EARTH IN 2016 HIT RECORD HEAT.I’m truly surprised they didn’t add an exclamation point too. (h/t to Ken Caldiera for the photo)Much of that “record heat” is based on interpolation of data in the Arctic, such as BEST has done. For example: A different view of the record #Arctic...

One of the world’s largest ocean circulation systems may not be as stable as today’s weather models predict, according to a new study. In fact, changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) — the same deep-water ocean current featured in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” — could occur quite abruptly, in geologic terms, the study says. The research appears in the Jan. 4 online edition of the journal Science Advances.

Scott Adams -- known, among other things, as the cartoonist behind the Dilbert series -- has an excellent blog on which he posts something thoughtful nearly every day. His particular interest is in the arts of persuasion. Recently he has dipped his toe into the subject of "climate science," with a focus on the apparent inability of partisans on either side of the debate ever to convince a single person to come over from the other side. .....How are you to supposed to evaluate the arguments and come to a view? Adams comments: My bottom-line belief about climate science is...

Foreign governments concerned about climate change may soon be spending more time dealing with Sacramento than Washington. President-elect Donald J. Trump has packed his cabinet with nominees who dispute the science of global warming. He has signaled he will withdraw the United States from the Paris climate agreement. He has belittled the notion of global warming and attacked policies intended to combat it. But California — a state that has for 50 years been a leader in environmental advocacy — is about to step unto the breach. In a show of defiance, Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and legislative leaders...

Anyone watching a compass needle point steadily north might suppose that Earth’s magnetic field is a constant. It’s not. Researchers have long known that changes are afoot. The north magnetic pole routinely moves, as much as 40 km/yr, causing compass needles to drift over time. Moreover, the global magnetic field has weakened 10% since the 19th century. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from solar storms and cosmic rays. Less magnetism means more radiation can penetrate our planet’s atmosphere. Indeed, high altitude balloons launched by Spaceweather.com routinely detect increasing levels of cosmic rays over California. Perhaps the ebbing magnetic field over...

Mauna Kea, Hawaii (HawaiiNewsNow) - The snowfall has eased up slightly on the summits of Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the Big Island, but another foot of snow is still possible Sunday. A Winter Storm Watch is in effect through through Sunday night for elevations above 8,000 feet. The watch replaces the Winter Storm Warning, which was cancelled Saturday morning. Deep tropical moisture which brought heavy snow to the summits and torrential downpours at lower elevations on the island is moving to the north. However, a light dusting of snow is possible Saturday before another storm system moves in...

Outgoing United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon says the Paris climate deal is unstoppable. That's nothing more than what he wants the world to think. It can be stopped in the U.S., and if that happens, it will be shut down. And who needs it anyway? The Earth is cooling. Moon and French President Francois Hollande, both horrified that American voters would choose a candidate who isn't squeezing political mileage out of the man-made global warming hysteria, announced a week after Donald Trump was elected that the 2015 Paris Agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions will not be rescinded....

PROTECTION ISLAND — Jim Hayward slips on a hard hat and pops open an umbrella before stepping into a storm of angry gulls. Hayward, a seabird biologist based on Protection Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, is making his evening rounds through the largest gull nesting colony in the Puget Sound region. He's been monitoring this site since 1987, so he's used to the shrieking, the divebombing, the frequent splatterings of gull poop, and the pecking at his head, hands and feet. What he's not accustomed to is the cannibalism.

GENEVA (Reuters) - The earth is on track for its hottest year on record and warming at a faster rate than expected, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday. Temperatures recorded mainly in the northern hemisphere in the first six months of the year, coupled with an early and fast Arctic sea ice melt and "new highs" in heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels, point to quickening climate change, it said. June marked the 14th straight month of record heat, the United Nations agency said. It called for speedy implementation of a global pact reached in Paris last December to limit...

Full Title: What planet are you on, Leo? DiCaprio flies his LA friends 6,000 miles around the world so they can listen to his speech on GLOBAL WARMING But instead of holding the event in Los Angeles, where most of his guests are based, they will fly halfway around the world to the glitzy French resort of St Tropez – at enormous cost to the environment.

Had you searched the sky with a telescope just a few hundred thousand years ago, you would have struggled to find a red planet. Instead, you would have seen a gleaming-white ice ball where Mars should be. A team of astronomers led by Isaac Smith, an astrophysicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, has collected the first concrete evidence that Mars has just exited an extreme ice age, one so intense it would have put Earth's recent frosty foray to shame. Using cameras and a radar-pinging device on board NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Smith's team deduced this history...

"The apparent warming of the American Crossroads super PAC and its sister groups to Trump has become evident in its recent communications with donors, including a Tuesday afternoon “investor conference call,” according to multiple sources familiar with the outreach. The phone call — which featured Rove, Crossroads officials and a pollster — laid out swing state polling and electoral map analysis done by the group showing circumstances in which Trump could beat Clinton..."

OUR NATION’S Founders elected not to restrict the Constitution’s fundamental guarantees to just one generation. Instead, they aimed to “establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” They took account of future generations by establishing an enduring guide to those principles most relevant to our nation’s fundamental challenges, including those arising centuries after the Constitution’s signing. Our nation’s outsized role in causing dangerous climate change presents such a fundamental problem.

“It has been claimed that the early-2000s global warming slowdown or hiatus, characterized by a reduced rate of global surface warming, has been overstated, lacks sound scientific basis, or is unsupported by observations. The evidence presented here contradicts these claims.”