global warming

Getting out of the Paris Agreement was just the first step on the road to a realist global energy policy.

The Prince of Wales did not mince words in warning about the ravages of global warming. No piddling nonsense about a few inches of sea-rise; nothing so trivial as coastal erosion; no focus on the plight of the polar bear. No, the prince had a louder alarm he was sounding, one about the Future of…

The Prince of Wales did not mince words in warning about the ravages of global warming. No piddling nonsense about a few inches of sea-rise; nothing so trivial as coastal erosion; no focus on the plight of the polar bear. No, the prince had a louder alarm he was sounding, one about the Future of…

Reports spread over the weekend that the Svalbard Global Seed Vault had "flooded," succumbing to the same force it was designed to protect the world's food supply from: global warming.

President Obama will tolerate a lot for an opportunity to push his climate-change agenda. At this weekend's G20 summit meeting of the world's developed (aka "rich") nations, which account for 85 percent of the world's economy, his Chinese hosts really poured on the humiliation.

Just three years ago, the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that, by the end of this century, sea-levels will rise somewhere between 1.7 and 3.22 feet. A new report has found, however, that prediction may be off by some 3 feet. "Study jolts sea-rise predictions" the…

President Obama once "ruefully" admitted to staff that he personally is the planet's largest source of carbon emissions, according to an anecdote published in The Atlantic.

The science of climate change may or may not be the certain thing that the president claims it is, but surely certain is the fact that he can push the Constitution only so far before the Supreme Court pushes back. Which is what it has done by granting the request of 29 states and several business…

President Obama is in Paris for a conference on climate change. Today he met with the leader of China, President Xi Jinping, and discussed the importance of the U.S.-China relationship in regards to fighting climate change.

President Obama may be walking into a trap of his own side's devising as he departs for the latest climate action summit in Paris. If Republicans can suppress their innate ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, the summit’s outcome could hand the GOP an incredibly potent election-year…

The Associated Press is running with a rather tendentious headline at the moment, "AP FACT CHECK: On climate science, most GOP candidates fail." For their fact check, the AP asked a group of Ph.D. scientists to grade presidential candidates based on their statements about global warming. To keep…

At the end of this month representatives of some 200 nations will gather in Paris for the opening of a United Nations-sponsored conclave to prevent the cataclysm that President Barack Obama, backed by the moral authority of Pope Francis, believes will befall the world if we do not slow the pace of…

In a recent interview with Politico, Al Gore made a pretty remarkable claim about climate change: “All the predictions of the scientists have come true in spades, except it’s now abundantly obvious that they erred on the conservative side.” Whatever side you come down on in the climate change…

The answer is climate change—at least if the question is “why should we keep a costly and ineffective government agency." The Obama Administration’s recent repurposing of a heretofore moribund government agency as a tool to soften the impact of climate change—a move heralded in a recent Washington…

The late great comedian Milton Berle, when introduced to an enthusiastically applauding audience, would hold up his left hand in a modest gesture as if to say thank you but that’s enough, and with his right hand held at waist level encouraged the audience to even wilder applause. President Obama…

Hillary Clinton was spotted getting on a private jet after she delivered her global warming speech yesterday in Iowa. Fox News played the video this morning:

Pope, President, Prices and Paris. That covers just about everything you need to know about the next step in the battle to prevent what has come to be called climate change, the title now preferred to “global warming” by those who worry that CO2 emissions are causing, er, global warming. The Pope…

Oklahoma senator James Inhofe did the world no favors earlier this year when he brought a snowball onto the Senate floor in order to “disprove” global warming. For one, a blizzard hitting Washington, D.C. tells us absolutely nothing about whether man-made climate change is indeed occurring. His…

Ever since the environmental movement began it has had a religious fervor: Like God, Earth is always capitalized, and there is an annual celebration, Earth Day, rather like holidays celebrated by other religions. Of course, the dogmas of green religionists have changed over time: Prophecies of a…

It makes no more sense to be certain that the globe is definitely not warming than to be certain that it definitely is. It makes no more sense to be certain that if the globe is warming it is not due to carbon emissions than to be certain that it definitely is. It makes no more sense to be certain…

Writing in the Washington Post, Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic Senator from Rhode Island, offered a curious suggestion for dealing with global warming skeptics:

The ice is finally melting. Not the Arctic ice, although that might be melting too. I mean the frozen position critics of the global warming hysterics have been taking. They disagree with Obama’s contention that the science of climate change is settled, and prefer reading actual temperatures…

The president is taking Air Force One to Florida this week. He is going there, unsurprisingly, to make a speech. On Earth Day, about climate change. He could make the speech in Washington, of course, but he needs a prop—in this case, will be the Everglades, which he describes as “one of the most…

At an event today at Howard University in Washington, D.C., President Obama warned of the public health risks assocaited with global warming. 

Last week, I noted that Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee were suddenly demanding extensive information from seven prominent climate scientists, all of whom to varying degrees were not sufficiently toeing the line on climate change alarmism. Now, National Journal reports that…

THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Mark Hemingway on Obama's Keystone veto, and the attack of the environmentalists on sensible energy policies.

On his blog this morning, Roger Pielke Jr. at the University of Colorado, a respected climate scientist, reveals that he was one of seven academics being being investigated by Rep. Raul Grijalva, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Natural Resources. Grijalva wants to know all university…

The warmongers are at it again. In case you haven’t heard, the Pentagon has declared a global war on global warming. It’s our armed forces vs. the forces of nature, and we are the enemy. Those entrusted with protecting us from suicide bombers are now trying to protect the environment from us.

In a few minutes, Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes of Kentucky will meet with the editorial board of the Courier-Journal in Louisville. Campaign memos recently obtained by THE WEEKLY STANDARD show how Grimes and her staff prepare for these meetings, requiring the red-state…

A graphic that is ricocheting around the liberal blogosphere this week is purported to demonstrate–what else?–how stupid and ignorant Americans are. (Well, non-Democrat Americans presumably.)

The Senate remained in session through Monday night and into this morning. The yield of this all-nighter was … nothing. Which was predictable. There never was any legislative point to the exercise.  It was for show.  The kindest possible description would be that the senators wanted to raise…

A group of Democratic senators, as Niels Lesniewski of Roll Call reports, are planning to keep the Senate in session all night tonight.  This, in order:

Even as the situation in Ukraine has some talking about the possibility of a new cold war with Russia, Secretary of State John Kerry issued his first Policy Guidance since assuming his position a little over a year ago. The subject: Climate change.  In a blog post entitled "We Need To Elevate the…

The political debate over what to do about global warming rages on, largely because liberals refuse to have an honest discussion about their plans to deal with it. The heart of their every proposed “solution” to climate change is a radical economic program that would threaten the livelihood and…

When you first meet Richard Lindzen, the Alfred P. Sloan professor of meteorology at MIT, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, leading climate “skeptic,” and all-around scourge of James Hansen, Bill McKibben, Al Gore, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and sundry other climate…

The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with assistant editor Ethan Epstein on his recent cover story on MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen.

President Barack Obama’s climate agenda announced last week represents the latest of many Democratic party efforts to address climate change. Although it includes no new legislation, the president’s plan makes unprecedented use of executive branch powers and offers a great many things that appeal…

In a statement marking Earth Day, Secretary of State John Kerry pledges to deal "responsibly with the clear and present danger of climate change." The former presidential candidate also notes the "fragile planet we share with the rest of humanity and which we must protect for future generations."

President Barack Obama talked about "climate change" with the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, today at the White House. Via the pool report:

Bjorn Lomborg claimed on John Stossel's television show last night that money isn't being spent well to combat "global warming":

At the Presidential Palace in Paris, France this afternoon, Vice President Joe Biden complimented the French president, Francois Hollande, for sounding exactly like President Barack Obama on "climate change." The only difference, according to Biden? Hollande speaks French, and Obama speaks English.

This last year, 2012, was the warmest year on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was also "a historic year for extreme weather that included drought, wildfires, hurricanes and storms; however, tornado activity was below average."

The biggest newspaper in the Washington, D.C. area asks, "Did global warming intensify the derecho in Washington, D.C.?" It's the same question the Washington Post brought up directly after the derecho thunderstorm struck the Washington area last Friday.

The Associated Press reports that this summer is an example of "some of the worst of global warming":

At a posh fundraiser in Atlanta, where 40 guests each paid $35,800 to attend, President Obama talked about . . . the weather. As today's White House pool reporter notes: 

The forlorn and increasingly desperate climate campaign achieved a new level of ineptitude last week when what had looked like a minor embarrassment for one of its critics​—​the Chicago-based Heartland Institute​—​turned out to be a full-fledged catastrophe for itself. A moment’s reflection on the…

Courtesy of a terrifying report in the New York Times, we now have yet another side effect to worry about as a result of our current period of catastrophic anthropogenic climate change:

Buzzfeed: "Romney, Eyeing Blowout, Keeps Foot To Newt's Neck"

Financial Times: "The eurozone really has only days to avoid collapse"

In retrospect, we probably should have paid more attention when, around 2005, activists shifted their primary vocabulary from global warming to climate change to describe the impact of human beings on this biosphere we call the Earth. Both phrases had been around for a while, of course. Global…

John Merline: "The Austerity Myth: Federal Spending Up 5% This Year"

The Hill: "Obama wants $35 billion for teachers, first-responders first"

Philip Klein: "Reid rewrites Senate rules with shocking move"

Navy Times: "Petraeus shedding military uniform to head CIA"

George Will: "The debt deal and Obama’s 2012 problem"

Associated Press: "A federal wildlife biologist whose observation that polar bears likely drowned in the Arctic helped galvanize the global warming movement during the last decade was placed on administrative leave while officials investigate scientific misconduct allegations."

Bloomberg: "Obama Aide, Boehner Say No Debt-Limit Deal as Deadline Looms"

"Afghan officials at loggerheads as U.S. withdrawal looms"

William McGurn on Notre Dame's new ties to Emily's List.

Meredith Whitnety: Yup, muni bonds are still boned.

Over at The New Republic, Bradford Plummer has an article about the near total political failure of the environmental movement in the last few years:

"Mean streak: Obama is not as nice as he looks"

EPA administrator Lisa Jackson was interviewed for a Time magazine piece, "The Republican War on EPA Begins--But Will They Overreach?"   Earlier in the week, I ran my own piece on this topic, "EPA's War on American Industry."  War analogies are common in political discourse, but I would argue that…