President Obama is not alone in wielding governmental power to clamp down on carbon-emitting energy. While he weaponizes the Environmental Protection Agency to take on coal-powered energy, potentially shutting down hundreds of coal-fired power plants, Alberta’s new socialist NDP government is pushing ostensibly environmentally-minded policies against oil on shared premises of combating “climate change.”
Residents of Tianjin, China are reporting on social media the emergence of a strange foam throughout its streets following the first rainfall since a massive chemical explosion destroyed much of the city. Chinese officials are claiming the foam is safe, while announcing that at least ten corporate executives are being “controlled” for an investigation into the blast.
A two-day Vatican workshop on climate change and human trafficking came to a close Wednesday after a like-minded group of some 60 mayors from around the world met with Church officials and United Nations representatives to discuss a coordinated response to environmental challenges.
From his election in April 2013, Pope Francis had steadily gained approval among US citizens, starting at a modest 58 percent and slowly but inexorably climbing to 76 percent in February 2014 and culminating in a high of 78 percent at the end of that year. The moral capital Francis had built up seems to have fallen precipitously in recent months, and his approval rating now languishes at just 59 percent, barely more than what it was just after his election.
California Governor Jerry Brown mounted his bully pulpit at the Vatican Tuesday, citing the Bible and excoriating climate change skeptics as greedy swindlers more interested in profits from oil than the well-being of humanity.
California Governor Jerry Brown will take his utopian foreign policy to the Vatican to participate this week in an environmental summit hosted by Pope Francis. Despite California’s majority Democrats’ intention to banish celebrations of Catholic missionary Father Junipero Serra’s accomplishments, Brown will carry a state resolution supporting Pope Francis’ recent draft “Encyclical on Climate Change.”
The United States will be heavily represented at the workshop, with its eleven politicians making up nearly 20 percent of the total participants. There will be no one participating from some of the countries with the worst record of polluting the environment, including Russia, China and the former Soviet Republics.
The workshop, titled “Modern Slavery and Climate Change: The Commitment of the Cities,” will explore the connection between climate change and new forms of slavery. The official website of the workshop asserts that it is a “fact” that “global warming is one of the causes of poverty and forced migration, which are breeding grounds for human trafficking, forced labour, prostitution and organ trafficking.” Mayor de Blasio will deliver a speech describing his administration’s environmental plan for New York City.
Naomi Klein, a Canadian environmental crusader who describes herself as a “secular Jewish Feminist,” addressed Vatican officials Wednesday, bashing “economic experts” who place “outsized value on protecting corporate profits and economic growth” rather than the poor, who she said will
In a recent interview, Bishop Mario Toso, who co-wrote the first draft of the papal encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’, denied that Pope Francis had any intention of “canonizing” scientific theories regarding climate change, but only wished to assert his authority on the moral level.
Pope Francis’ controversial encyclical letter on the environment may already be having an effect on US politicians, according to Miami Archbishop Thomas Wenski, who said Wednesday that the Pope’s words have softened the climate rhetoric of two Republican presidential hopefuls: Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
In a truly bizarre reversal of roles, in the course of just a week the New York Times has gone from being the Church’s most trenchant detractor to being an ardent enforcer of Catholic doctrine, polling Catholics to find out whether or not their parish priests are preaching about the Pope’s new encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’.
Franco Prodi, a celebrated Italian atmospheric physicist and brother to former Italian Premier Romano Prodi, advises caution and humility when dealing with global warming, since we still know very little about the history of climate change and far less about its future.
Pope Francis tackles more than just dirty air and polluted rivers in his new encyclical on the environment. He also warns that a society dominated by media and Internet can stifle human relationships and dull the mind, a syndrome he refers to as “mental pollution.”
Rarely has the Vatican reacted more swiftly to a journalistic fiasco than it did this week, banning veteran Italian journalist Sandro Magister from the Holy See Press Office and revoking his accreditation just hours after Magister published online a leaked version of the letter.
In no fewer than 17 tweets as of this printing, Pope Francis has begun e-blasting excerpts from his new encyclical letter on environmental stewardship, calling above all for an “honest debate” on the situation of the environment and what society can do about it.
Nothing ever happens in a vacuum. Pope Francis’ ongoing concern for environmental issues, which will attain its fullest expression with the release of his encyclical on human ecology Thursday, has deep roots in his own personal experience, especially as archbishop of Buenos Aires, home to one of the most polluted places on the planet.
There are still many organizations in the world that require employees to take an oath of secrecy regarding the information they are privy to, and the Vatican is one of them. It would seem that oath-taking, however, has come to mean little.
The Pope has insisted that the poor are the ones who suffer most from systematically trashing the environment, and there certainly does seem to be a remarkable correlation between poverty and pollution.
Human beings urgently need to wipe themselves out to avoid ecological catastrophe, the leader of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement has claimed. In an interview with the Big Issue magazine, Les U Knight (pseudonym assumed) said that the extinction of
President Obama used a commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy Wednesday afternoon to make clear that his administration views climate change as the most severe threat to national security.
In the United States, and most of the western world, there is an ideological war with dire physical consequences. It is the war on fossil fuels. But, even if you understand that energy is central to everything in modern society, the war is much bigger than energy. It is about freedom. It is about control. It is about global governance.
Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga lambasted “movements in the United States” that have expressed criticism of the Pope’s upcoming encyclical letter on the environment, calling it “absurd” to disparage a document that has not yet been released.
Sooner or later, like Chelsea meeting Manchester City, there had to be a Papal Encylical on Global Warming. After all, ecology and Rome are the two main religions of the Western World. We already know the main thrust of what
The state Senator has faced unsubstantiated accusations of belief in the “chemtrails” theory solely on the basis of a constituent-requested public forum on environmental quality she held back in June of 2014.
The BBC’s Daily Politics has just staged a party political debate on energy and climate change. It was every bit as awful as you would have expected: four politicians (Labour; Conservative; Green; Lib Dems) spouting pure, unadulterated drivel; one talking
WASHINGTON (AP)—The board of the Clinton Foundation said Wednesday night that it will continue accepting donations from foreign governments, but only from six nations, a move that appears aimed at insulating Hillary Rodham Clinton from controversies over the charity’s reliance on millions of dollars from abroad as she ramps up her presidential campaign.
I never thought I would be writing this. However, having consulted both manifestos, it is only fair to admit that the Greens have spelled out a more detailed and reasonable energy policy than Labour. Labour’s stated energy policy is extremely
Parents across America who struggle to keep their young rambunctious kids clean now have a new obstacle: the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
As part of its effort to help save the planet from the dangers of taking too many baths, EPA’s WaterSense program is trying to convince kids they should avoid bathtubs in favor of showers, which it says is a far more efficient use of water.
During CPAC, Spyridon Mitsotakis of Breitbart News caught up with Katie Kieffer, author of “Let Me Be Clear.” The title turns Barack Obama’s famous catchphrase against him.
I’d been meaning to write today about why Oxford University should divest itself of one of its zoology graduates. But I’m afraid that will have to wait because I’ve just read today’s Guardian cover story and have realised that the
Posters mocking Ed Begley Jr. and Robert Kennedy Jr. have popped up in Hermosa Beach, California and other nearby neighborhoods ahead of the pair’s appearance at an environmental event Thursday.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken yet another regulatory action to interfere with oil and gas production – long considered an activity with de minimus impact on air quality. The Agency now sets its sights on methane, which is the primary component of natural gas. Methane emissions from natural gas systems have fallen by 14.3% from 2008-2012. Any leaks from hydraulically fractured natural gas wells have fallen by 73% from 2011-2013. In this same time frame, the U.S. has become the world’s leading producer of natural gas, nearly quadrupling production rates from those in 2008, as well as increasing natural gas pipelines by 30%. In spite of the steep decline of methane emissions and steady economic growth, the White House recently moved forward with the Climate Action Plan, directing the EPA to propose expansive rules by the summer of 2015. The new regulations aim to reduce methane emissions by 40-45% from 2012 levels by 2025 through a series of actions targeting the oil and gas industry.
The Pope gave further indications as to the content of his upcoming letter on the environment Saturday, as he addressed a group from the Italian National Farmers Confederation. Francis told his hearers that in their work of cultivating the land, they were responding to God’s commission “to till and keep” the earth.
British historian William Oddie has called Barack Obama “the most anti-Catholic American president in living memory” because “across the whole spectrum of contemporary moral issues, he is passionately committed to a series of views which run directly contrary to those of the Church.”
On Sunday, the Center for Biological Diversity held a public forum at the San Jose City Hall to educate residents about what they believe are the dangers of so called oil-trains. According to the Center, tar sands oil and heavy crudes that will be brought in from Canada are most toxic, carbon intensive and dirtiest fuels on the planet.
On Sunday, President Barack Obama released an anti-oil drilling environmental video shot aboard Air Force One–an aircraft that has a 53,611 gallon fuel capacity.
According to the ACS-LA Gray Whale Census and Behavior Project, which for 31 years has monitored the number of whales passing by the Palos Verdes Peninsula, a record number of whales are migrating south past Southern California from the Arctic this year, reports Pete Thomas Outdoors.
Christmas has come a couple of days early for climate sceptics, in what may well prove to be one of the biggest blows to the Global Warming religion since Climategate. This time the pillar of green faith which has been
Billionaire oil-trader-turned-green-evangelist Tom Steyer has made a very expensive discovery: at the cost of $4.5 million from his own pockets, he has learned that the Koch Brothers just aren’t evil enough, even for progressives, any more. Traditionally, the Koch Brothers
