Free Republic

Don’t confuse the title with “environmental movement.” Heaven knows Democrats aren’t about to forego those big SUV’s, yachts, jets, and multi- fireplace mansions. Offsetting carbon credits is up to you “little people” purchasing a five dollar light bulb (which is umpteen times more polluting). Actually, it will take quite a few of you “little people” installing green-pocket bulbs to offset the 100 gallons of gasoline per hour Al Goresky’s new houseboat burns...

BERLIN (AFP) - Giving up meat could drastically reduce your carbon footprint, with meat-eaters' diets responsible for almost twice the emissions of those of vegetarians, a German study said on Tuesday. A diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving a mid-sized car 4,758 kilometres (2,956 miles), the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOeW) said.

BERLIN (AFP) - Giving up meat could drastically reduce your carbon footprint, with meat-eaters' diets responsible for almost twice the emissions of those of vegetarians, a German study said on Tuesday. A diet with meat is responsible for producing in a year the same amount of greenhouse gases as driving a mid-sized car 4,758 kilometres (2,956 miles), the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IOeW) said. But the food a vegetarian consumes in 12 months is responsible for generating the same emissions as driving 2,427 kilometres, the IOeW said in a study commissioned by independent consumer protection group Foodwatch. The calculations...

‘Imagine if every child in the country channelled their Pester Power in service of the Glorious Green Future.’ So says James Russell in his recent book How to Turn Your Parents Green. And he’s far from alone in his musings. npower, a large British electriciy supplier, have also been evisaging a world in which kids, renamed Climate Cops, are instructed to ferret out ‘climate crimes’ in their homes, schools and cities and report them to the authorities, that is, in Russell’s words, to ‘nag, pester, bug, torment and punish the people who are merrily wrecking [their] world’, fining ‘transgressors’ for...

The inevitable backlash against the watermelons has begun. “Watermelons” is the word used by Conservative bloggers and writers to describe most environmentalists because they’re green on the outside and red (Marxist) on the inside. Multiple polls taken over the last few months have shown that a large majority of the American people are now willing to support off-shore drilling and will support drilling for oil almost anywhere if it will lower gas prices. It is wonderful and amazing that the American people understand free market solutions better than most of the politicians they have elected. To this day, bubble-headed Democrats...

A new website campaign designed by a British power company recruits children through games, badges and cartoons to enlist as "Climate Cops," actively keeping records on their parents and neighbors for violations of "energy crimes" against the planet. The "Climate Cops" website encourages children to investigate family and friends and "then build your 'Climate Crime Case File' and report back to your family to make sure they don't commit those crimes again (or else)!" The site also warns children that they "may need to keep a watchful eye" to prevent future violations. A link on the site for teachers to...

In 2003, Showtime's Penn & Teller program with a name not appropriate above the fold -- unless, of course, you're a member of the Netroots! -- marvelously exposed what's behind the global warming and environmental hysteria in America today. The videos have just come available on YouTube. In part one (embedded right), the comedy team accurately depicted environmentalists as political and social activists who use green rhetoric to "cloak agendas that actually have more to do with anti-corporatism, anti-globalization, anti-business, and very little to do with science and ecology." Exactly. Parts two and three are embedded below the fold with...

WASHINGTON – A Democratic senator on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee inadvertently explained why her colleagues have no intention of ending the moratorium on offshore oil drilling or increasing the areas open for exploration and production – no matter how popular the idea might be with gas prices soaring. In an interview with Bloomberg TV's "Money and Politics" last night, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., explained Democrats don't want to increase supplies of oil and gasoline because they want to wean Americans off of petroleum products. Asked point-blank if Democrats in the Senate would consider how increasing the supply of...

WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Al Gore said on Thursday that Americans must abandon fossil fuels within a decade and rely on the sun, the winds and other environmentally friendly sources of power, or risk losing their national security as well as their creature comforts. “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Mr. Gore said in a speech to an energy conference here. He called for the kind of concerted national effort that enabled Americans to walk on the moon 39 years ago this month, just eight years after President John F....

Imagine a society where simply speaking out of turn or saying the "wrong thing" was openly discussed as a crime against humanity, and where sceptics or deniers of the truth were publicly labelled "criminals", hauled before the press and accused of endangering humanity with their grotesque untruths. Imagine a society where even some liberals demanded severe restrictions on freedom of movement; where people campaigned for travelling overseas to be made prohibitively expensive in order to force people to stay at home; and where immigration was frowned upon as "toxic" and "destructive".

WASHINGTON, July 14 (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, on Monday rejected a call by U.S. President George W. Bush to lift a moratorium on offshore oil drilling. Bush announced on Monday that he lifted the executive branch's restriction on offshore exploration, saying only Congress stood in the way of opening up America's untapped oil riches.

Environmentalist despotism is on a roll. From every corner of the globe, the Green movement has unceasingly inundated world citizens with a deluge of documentaries, articles, “hard facts,” “reliable models,” and “common sense” in an attempt to rally eco-warriors and build their cause. Having used nearly every method at their disposal, the movement has now turned to the merciless and unrelenting strategy of shame tactics. According to an article published yesterday at GreenBiz.com, the state of California has issued a mandate that all 2009 model cars be stamped with a “Global Warming Score” label. The label would display the carbon...

COLLEGE STATION -- A cold slice of watermelon has long been a Fourth of July holiday staple. But according to recent studies, the juicy fruit may be better suited for Valentine’s Day. That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido. “The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in providing natural enhancers to the human body,” said Dr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center in College Station. “We’ve always known that watermelon is good...

The Weather Channel, at the noted link, has established a contest for high school students where they can submit the great things they are doing to fight AGW. This is the first time I've seen any Watermelons make the huge mistake of enabling AGW skeptics to comment on their destructive activities and show what a crock AGW is. It would be real fun to overload their server with bogus entries showing what fools Watermelons are. FREEP ON!!!

June 26, 2008, 0:00 a.m. The Can't-Do SocietyWe have become a nation of second-guessing Hamlets. By Victor Davis Hanson Shakespeare warned us about the dangers of “thinking too precisely.� His poor Danish prince lost “the name of action,� as he dithered and sighed that “conscience does make cowards of us all.� With gas over $4 a gallon, the public is finally waking up to the fact that for decades the United States has not been developing known petroleum reserves in Alaska, in our coastal waters, or off the continental shelf. Jittery Hamlets apparently forgot that gas comes from oil...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Could "green" become a new watchword in TV programming? While the media companies have long been touting everything they're doing behind the scenes to become more environment-friendly, the message increasingly is seeping into their programming. On Wednesday, Discovery Communications launches the first 24/7 eco-friendly network, Planet Green, which will take over the space occupied by Discovery Home Channel. That follows NBC Universal's second companywide "Green Week" in April -- featuring 100 hours of green-themed content airing across 42 NBC Universal brands and 28 Web sites -- with two more already planned for November and April....

Remember the campaign against smokers? It started quietly and grew to hysteria. From bans to added taxes, smokers were left to wonder what hit them. Tobacco was (and continues to be) a legal substance. Now, following the same pattern, a push has started against red meat.

For a century, an ambitious, arrogant, unscrupulous knowledge class -- social planners, scientists, intellectuals, experts and their left-wing political allies -- arrogated to themselves the right to rule either in the name of the oppressed working class (communism) or, in its more benign form, by virtue of their superior expertise in achieving the highest social progress by means of state planning (socialism). Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted...

A scheme recently proposed by British MP Tim Yeo shows what would happen to individual freedom if the environmentalist agenda on CO2 ever got enacted into law. This bill establishes a state-run British Carbon Cartel via the mechanism described below.Every adult in the UK would be given an annual carbon dioxide allowance in kgs and a special carbon card. The scheme would cover road fuel, flights and energy bills. Every time someone paid for road fuel, flights or energy, their carbon account would be docked. A litre of petrol would use up 2.3kg in carbon, while every 1.3 miles of...

Iadmit it: I'm no environmentalist. But I like to think I'm something of a conservationist. No doubt for millions of Americans this is a distinction without a difference, as the two words are usually used interchangeably. But they're different things, and the country would be better off if we sharpened the distinctions between both word and concept. At its core, environmentalism is a kind of nature worship. It's a holistic ideology, shot through with religious sentiment. "If you look carefully," author Michael Crichton famously observed, "you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian...

WASHINGTON - The Senate has rejected a Republican energy plan that calls for opening an Alaska wildlife refuge and some offshore waters to oil development. Supporters of the measure couldn't get the needed 60 votes to overcome a Democratic-led filibuster threat. Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said more domestic oil production is needed to keep prices in check and to reduce U.S. dependence on oil imports. Opponents said areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and coastal waters that have been off limits to drilling for 25 years ought to remain that out of bounds to oil companies....

Did you hear that Obama criticized us for driving big SUVs and eating our foods? I heard it on Fox News' 'Special Report' a few minutes ago. Mr. Barak Hussein Osama Bin-Laudin Obama, I do not want my GOVERNMENT to tell me either: a)What kind of car I can drive or b)What food I can eat. I live in a FREE COUNTRY -- so I don't need a NANNY STATE to tell me what to do. That is SOCIALISM you JACK@SS!!

"We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times ... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama said. From this story: WASHINGTON (AFP) — Barack Obama set his sights on November's general election Saturday as he campaigned in Oregon, where he hopes to declare victory in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.Obama has said Tuesday's primaries in Oregon and Kentucky could mark the end of his drawn-out battle with rival Hillary Clinton, and his campaign pressed home that message by...

ENVIROMENTAL - RADICAL GREENS HARM THE EARTH MORE THAN THEY HELP By MAX SCHULZ nypost.com April 20, 2008 -- Tuesday is Earth Day, the calendar's High Holy Day of Green theology. With each passing year, environmentalism more clearly assumes the trappings of a secular religion. Now, along comes Iain Murray to assert that the Green God is dead. Murray's new book, "The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don't Want You to Know About - Because They Helped Cause Them," clarifies...

(TomDispatch) -- Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live -- trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global...

WASHINGTON - Ralph Nader could be poised for another third party presidential campaign. The consumer advocate will appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. Nader launched his 2004 presidential run on the show. A spokesman for Nader did not immediately return a call seeking comment. Kevin Zeese, who was Nader's spokesman during the 2004 presidential race, but is no longer working for him, said Friday that Nader has been actively talking to "lots of people on all sorts of levels" about the possibility of making another run. Zeese said he could only guess what Nader might do, but added:...

BY now you'll be in a panic, wondering how to save yourself from the apocalypse to come. After all, when the Profit of Doom, Al Gore, says global warming risks "ending all human civilisation" you'll have figured it will take more than a few low-energy light bulbs to save us. Too right, so I've collected the best and most original tips of many experts on how to slash the gases they say are killing the planet. Follow this advice and we'll be, um . . . safe? 1. Get rid of humans. Greenpeace co-founder Paul Watson insists we "reduce human...

Critics have long believed environmentalists were planning global domination. The problem with making a credible case against such an ambitious plan was simple: no environmental leader had published one. Yet conflicts over global warming, world trade, multinational corporations, population control, sustainable futures, and transnational government left little doubt that environmentalists in fact shared the unspoken aim of wielding supreme power over a green future. But there was no proof. For years, critics, lacking hard evidence, were reduced to piecing together a jigsaw puzzle of suspicious environmentalist actions - funding from huge charitable trusts, ties to the broader "progressive" community, and...

A fair and global effort to tackle climate change needs wealthy states to take the lead in CO2 cuts The Bali summit on climate change, which starts next week, will seek to lay the foundations for a new global agreement on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions that cause rising temperatures and climate change. Ambitious targets for emission reduction must be at the heart of that agreement, together with effective market mechanisms that encourage emission trading between countries, rich and poor. The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally...

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 31 — Federal fisheries officials in Seattle on Wednesday endorsed, with minor modifications, a plan for the government’s continued operation of the hydroelectric dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. They said it did not jeopardize the survival of 13 stocks of salmon and steelhead that the government must protect under the Endangered Species Act. The endorsement, a draft analysis from the National Marine Fisheries Service, agreed with dozens of proposed protective actions that would provide enhanced measures to get juvenile fish past the dams as they swim seaward, improve habitat in the river and discourage predators...

The United Nations has just issued yet another scaremongering assessment of the world’s environment. It was put together by the UN’s principal environmental agency, known as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The best way to engineer transformation of the current legal system to global governance of the environment, under the auspices of the UN, is for its “experts” to first create the mass perception of an imminent cosmic cataclysm if humanity continues on its present course.[1] The UNEP report, known as “Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development (GEO-4)”, covers not just global warming. It covers all dimensions of environmental deterioration...

For all the money spent, nobody can say if the offsets have done much to alleviate global warming.... Without government regulation and mandatory caps on emissions, all that is left to drive offset sales is guilt and marketing. Offset companies charge what the market will bear. "How much are you willing to spend to feel good or to impress your neighbors?" asked Marland, of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. For Katy Hansen, a 29-year-old law school student, the answer was $429.99. She wanted to offset the travel of the guests to her May wedding in Madison, Wis., and paid San Francisco-based...

Back in 2004, Lancaster University's Professor Roger Kemp, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Engineering, produced a report for the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, on the environmental impact of high-speed rail versus air and car travel. He used the example of the London to Edinburgh route to illustrate his findings. The conclusions were startling and rather annoying for the car hating Green fundamentalists.

VENEZUELA: Chavez calls for global offensive for socialism 31 August 2005 "I believe it is time that we take up with courage and clarity a political, social, collective and ideological offensive across the world — a real offensive that permits us to move progressively, over the next years, the next decades, leaving behind the perverse, destructive, destroyer, capitalist model and go forward in constructing the socialist model to avoid barbarism and beyond that the annihilation of life on this planet. I believe this idea has a strong connection with reality. I don't think we have much time. Fidel Castro said...

The new head of the Science Museum has an uncompromising view about how global warming should be dealt with: get rid of a few billion people. Chris Rapley, who takes up his post on September 1, is not afraid of offending. 'I am not advocating genocide,' said Rapley. 'What I am saying is that if we invest in ways to reduce the birthrate - by improving contraception, education and healthcare - we will stop the world's population reaching its current estimated limit of between eight and 10 billion. That in turn will mean less carbon dioxide is being pumped into...

When Gareth Groves brought home his massive new Hummer, he knew his environmentally friendly neighbors disapproved. But he didn't expect what happened next. The sport utility vehicle was parked for five days on the street before two masked men smashed the windows, slashed the tires and scratched into the body: "FOR THE ENVIRON." "The thought of somebody vandalizing it never crossed my mind," said Gareth Groves, who lives near American University in Northwest Washington. "I've kind of been in shock." Police said they see small acts of vandalism in the area from time to time, but they have not seen...

But not of global warming — the Greens are out to get us Commentary | Archives March 28th, 2007 President Václav Klaus startled world audiences March 19 with his letter to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce in the U.S. Congress. The statement attacks global warming as a myth and calls environmentalism more dangerous than communism. Although scientists and policymakers at home and abroad have pointed out his arguments lack any reference to research studies, Klaus reiterated his long-held position in answers to Congress’ questions, an abridged version of which follows. The complete text is available in Czech...

Climate response has barely scratched the surface on social inequity, according to James Norman. THE new millennium has seen unprecedented shifts in world politics and economics, and increasingly climate change is taking centre stage. Yet there are many aspects of global warming that we have barely begun to understand — such as its potential to exacerbate already existing social inequity on both the local and international level. The Equity in Response to Climate Change Roundtable has brought about a unique partnership between Australia's peak environment and welfare groups — the Brotherhood of St Laurence, Australian Conservation Foundation, National Welfare Rights...

            A man who ceases to believe in God does not believe in nothing; he believes in anything.     - G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy The apocalyptic vision of global warming serves a deep need of the environmentalist credo, the dominant pseudo-religious tendency of our age in the prosperous West. For good or ill, human beings are constructed to believe, and faith has its demands.. Along with the concrete elements that demand belief (that fire burns and that it's not wise to walk off cliffs, for example) there exists an apparent necessity for a belief in "the rock higher than I" - a belief...

This book comes out later this month, but it looks great: "An outrageous, alarming look at how the environmental movement, with its radical, short-sighted eco-activists, has actually helped amplify the dangers of natural disasters..." - American Compass The author debunks myths and libels about: global warming and climate change, the dangers of pesticides like DDT, trees and pollution, fuel economy and the auto industry, the threat posed by asbestos, the lifesaving role of dams and levees and plans to "rewild" America. If you want to know the difference between radical enviros and rational enviros, this looks like the book to...

Creating 'human-animals' for research Ethics report endorses mingling human cells with lesser beings Sunday, May 1, 2005 Posted: 0316 GMT (1116 HKT) RENO, Nevada (AP) -- On a farm about six miles outside this gambling town, Jason Chamberlain looks over a flock of about 50 smelly sheep, many of them possessing partially human livers, hearts, brains and other organs. The University of Nevada-Reno researcher talks matter-of-factly about his plans to euthanize one of the pregnant sheep in a nearby lab. He can't wait to examine the effects of the human cells he had injected into the fetus' brain about two...

Los Angeles -- A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order Monday barring the Navy from using a particular kind of sonar allegedly harmful to marine mammals during a Pacific warfare exercise scheduled to begin this week. The order comes three days after the Navy obtained a six-month national defense exemption from the Defense Department allowing it to use "mid-frequency active sonar." Environmental groups had sued to stop the Navy's use of the sonar in the Rim of the Pacific 2006 exercise off Hawaii. The use of sonar in the war games was set to start Thursday. U.S. District Judge...

Judy Ettenhofer: Gore's 'Truth' needs to be acted upon now By Judy Ettenhofer, June 21, 2006 When "Fahrenheit 9/11," the Michael Moore screen diatribe against our current president, arrived in Madison theaters shortly before the 2004 presidential election, people sympathetic to its message couldn't get enough of it. They flocked to screenings and breathlessly implored their friends to see the movie that bolstered all their reasons for hating George W. Bush. It is my profound hope that the same kind of passionate evangelism occurs as a result of a much, much more crucial film that arrived at Westgate and Eastgate...

ALGOMA, Wis.The blue-green waters of Lake Michigan stretching to the horizon. "I'll fight this every way I can," said Algoma alderman Ken Taylor, chairman of the city's marina committee. "The beautiful view we have would be destroyed" The turbines would be huge, towering as high as 400 feet with blade spans wider than a football field The payoff would come in increased energy production, Mr. Musial said. Winds over water are generally stronger, less turbulent and more consistent than on land. "Offshore machines can make about twice as much as onshore," Mr. Musial said. "It's a potentially big resource for...

Nomenclature and in particular, catchy phrases and slogans, are integral to the institution and leadership of political action and violence as well as simplifying or condensing the rational for such action into neat and all encompassing phraseology. Take for example, "from each according to ability, to each according to need." This trite phrase uttered by Bolsheviks encapsulated the raison d'être and legitimized the terror inflicted by their foot soldiers against "bloodsuckers" and "enemies of the state" who were murdered and relieved of their property. Who was a bloodsucker or enemy of the state was decided upon by Bolshevik leadership. In...

Dutch told to return land they won from the sea By David Rennie in Zaamslag (Filed: 27/05/2006) A photograph of a grinning boy, riding a toy tractor, has pride of place in the kitchen of Aarnout and Magda de Feijter, the owners of a 148-acre farm in the Dutch province of Zeeland. The picture is of their first grandson, Louis, and the de Feijters have always dreamed that he will one day take over the expanse of wind-rippled flax fields that has been in their family since 1835. The de Feijters on the dyke protecting their farm But there are...

Reporting Iran to UN 'grave mistake,' warns Greenpeace London, Feb 2, IRNA Iran Nuclear-Greenpeace Greenpeace International Thursday warned IAEA board member meeting in Vienna not to report Iran to the UN Security Council, saying it was "not the right body" to resolve whether a country has the right to a nuclear programme. "This is a grave mistake. It's the triumph of hawkish sabre- rattling over diplomacy. It's the beginning of a slide toward war," the environmentalist organization said. It said it was opposed to any nation acquiring nuclear technology and nuclear weapons, but believed "the best way to ensure that...

Seattle -- A federal judge who struck down a Bush administration decision to ease logging restrictions last summer issued an injunction Monday blocking as many as 144 timber sales in three states. The sales in Washington, Oregon and northern California had been approved under the administration's decision to stop requiring that the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management look for and protect rare plants and animals before logging on 5.5 million acres covered by the 1994 Northwest Forest Plan. The Bush administration eliminated the so-called "survey and manage" rule in spring 2004 as part of a legal settlement with...

WASHINGTON – In 1986, Gale Norton was 32 and working for the secretary of the interior on matters pertaining to the proposal to open a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge – area 1002 – to drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that then had already been a bone of contention for several years. Today Norton is the secretary of the interior and is working on opening ANWR. But this interminable argument actually could end soon with Congress authorizing drilling. That would be good for energy policy and excellent for the nation's governance. Area 1002 is...

WASHINGTON — In 1986, Gale Norton was 32 and working for the secretary of the interior on matters pertaining to the proposal to open a small portion of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge — area 1002 — to drilling for oil and natural gas, a proposal that then had already been a bone of contention for several years. Today Norton is the secretary of the interior and is working on opening ANWR. But this interminable argument actually could end soon with Congress authorizing drilling. That would be good for energy policy and excellent for the nation's governance. Area 1002 is...