Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Fueling higher gas prices – Ed Feulner Yemen looks like al Qaeda’s new heartland – James Carafano Left’s Tea Party Invective on Boil – Brian Darling Pity the debt-paying generation – Bill Beach & Dustin Siggins TWO VIEWS: Voter ID is a sensible precaution – Hans von Spakovsky Population and climate change: Bend baby curve like Beckhams – Chuck Donovan Contraception edict tramples conscience – Rebbeca Hagelin Ryan: Deficit committee unlikely … More

A recent study authored by Mark Crowell of the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that in the U.S., climate change will increase the area subject to flooding by 45 percent in 2100. But to get this number, the study used estimates of sea-level rise that were more than 200 percent higher than the estimates of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Even with its questionable temperature projections, the IPCC’s various projections of sea-level rise are between .18 and .59 meters (about 7 to 23 inches) (See chart above.). However, … More

U.S. employers added only 18,000 jobs last month — a remarkably low figure that contributed to the increase in unemployment to 9.2 percent. That’s the bad news. Fortunately for American workers, the future is bright, but only if regulators in Washington, D.C., get out of the way. A new study from the respected IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates and IHS Global Insight reveals that the offshore oil and gas industry on its own could produce more jobs per month next year than the 18,000 that were created by all U.S. … More

On Sunday, the government of Australia announced that it will implement a US$24.74 per-metric-ton tax on carbon emissions. The damage the tax is expected to do to the energy sector there, and to the Australian economy generally, offers insight into what the effects of a carbon tax could look like in the United States. The plan will tax 500 of the nation’s largest polluters, and will redistribute some of the revenue in an effort to offset increased costs to energy producers and consumers – though significant economic damage is expected … More

“People, who do not believe in man-made global warming, are so beyond the pale of reasonable human discourse, that the only just and fair penalty for them is death.” This may seem a bit extreme to you, but as James Delingpole, author of the new book Watermelons: The Green Movement’s True Colors, observed in a recent Heritage event, it is the very tone that many in the green movement set in today’s global warming debate. Delingpole, whose book delves into the background of the organizations and individuals who have sought to push global warming … More

As Congress and the White House continue to quarrel over the debt ceiling, the folks at the U.S. Department of Agriculture are doing their part to reduce federal spending. As announced in today’s Federal Register, the agency is cutting back on its Sheep and Goat Survey. From now on—or for the time being, anyway—the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service will conduct only a January Sheep and Goat Survey; the July edition has been surrendered to “budget constraints.” The Sheep and Goat Survey is only one of hundreds of surveys conducted … More

It is hard to make sense of many grants the U.S. gives to nations from whom it is simultaneously borrowing. The federal government’s profligate spending through grant programs is starting to get some notice—for example, on Fox News as well as The Foundry. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has provided a grant to…

As we mourn the human toll taken by the tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, some are using the disaster as an opportunity to warn about the dangers of climate change. Al Roker recently suggested that climate change is bringing tornadoes from the country to the city. Environmentalist Bill McKibben, the same guy who blamed the…

In November 2009, a dozen protesters triggered a traffic jam in an intersection of Chicago’s financial sector by laying down in a circle in the middle of the road, locking their arms together inside pieces of pipe. They were protesting the city’s climate exchange, part of a scheme to regulate CO2 emissions through permits. Ironically, it…

Realizing the costs and folly of instituting a massive greenhouse gas regulatory regime, Members of Congress stopped cap-and-trade legislation to cut greenhouse gas emissions, most notably carbon dioxide (CO2), from becoming law in the last Congress.  But their job is not complete. Now unelected bureaucrats at the EPA are attempting to bypass the legislative process…