When is a short term trend not a short term trend? When it's an upward anomaly. James Randerson in the Guardian tells us that, This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released...
Eco-Prophets or Eco-Profiteers?
Ben has another article about the Climate Change Committee on The Register today. There's no doubt there's money to be made from this new legislation, which was passed last week. A recent conference, given the title 'Cashing in on Carbon' was, in its own words,...
Coincidence?
Last week, the UK’s Climate Change Bill was passed, and became the Climate Change Act. Today, the Climate Change Committee published it’s report, Building a low-carbon economy - the UK's contribution to tackling climate change. The committee were asked to give their...
The Far-Right Deep-Green Hoo-Ha
The British National Party (BNP) causes much anxiety to today’s mainstream politicians. Almost entirely unable to take the immigration debate head on, Britain’s parties have, for the last few years been wholly mealy-mouthed about their policies. The juggling act...
Hansen’s Glacial Recession
A CNN article at the end of last week said that A team of international scientists led by Dr James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, say that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are already in the danger zone. The ‘danger zone’? Is that...
Let Them Eat Shrubbery
Science is often at its most newsworthy when it proves the blatantly obvious: getting drunk makes you more likely to fall over; sunbathing is a risk factor for sunburn, etc. But science that 'proves' something that journalists, commentators and policy bods like to...
Who Do You Love?
The BBC report on a paper published in the current issue of Nature that poses a bit of a moral conundrum for environmentalists: A new model of the Earth's climate suggests that human-made carbon dioxide emissions may prevent the onset of the next ice age. Based on...
Painting Pictures of Poverty
It’s Oxfam. Again. Some people have been a little confused about our ‘attacks’ on Oxfam. Why would we want to criticise nice people who are trying to do good? We are interested in the ideas which Oxfam use to understand and explain the problems they hope to answer....
“Environmental Justice” – a Fiction
Oxfam, with the Climate Justice Program and Advocates for International Development are running a competition. We are calling on lawyers, academics and law students worldwide to put forward the strongest legal case possible to demonstrate that rich countries’...
The Greens and the Bell-Curve
A little article on the Times website caught our eye. Cleverer children are more likely to vote for the Green Party or the Liberal Democrats in a general election than other parties when they become adults, research suggests. The study, by the University of Edinburgh...