Zeeburg Nieuws: Buitenlandse media en klimaatverandering / Climate Change in the Foreign Media

Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers
London, February 8 2010 - An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.
The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.
Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.
> www.independent.co.uk: Think-tanks take oil money and use it to fund climate deniers

Sceptics have their uses
London, 7 February 2010 The climate change sceptics have done us all a favour. This may seem a curious view for a newspaper so committed to the cause of environmental sustainability. But, by challenging the consensus view of global warming, the sceptics have tested the flabbier assumptions of that consensus and forced the proponents of the majority view to sharpen their arguments.
> www.independent.co.uk: Sceptics have their uses

Climate scepticism 'on the rise', BBC poll shows

London, February 7 2010 - The number of British people who are sceptical about climate change is rising, a poll for BBC News suggests.
: news.bbc.co.uk: Climate scepticism 'on the rise', BBC poll shows

Tibet temperature 'highest since records began' say Chinese climatologists
Beijng, February 5 2010 - Average Tibet temperatures in 2009 increased 1.5C, with rises noted in both winter and summer at 29 monitoring sites.
> www.guardian.co.uk: Tibet temperature 'highest since records began' say Chinese climatologists

Indian PM backs UN climate panel
New Delhi, February 5 2010 - Indian Premier Manmohan Singh on Friday lent his support to the beleaguered UN climate change panel, saying a glaring error in the body's key 2007 report did not change the science of global warming.
> www.terradaily.com: Indian PM backs UN climate panel
> news.oneindia.in: Jairam Ramesh says India working with china on climate change
> moef.nic.in: Jairam Ramesh says India working with china on climate change

US 'climategate' scientist all but cleared of misconduct
Michigan, February 3 2010 - A prominent US climate scientist at the centre of the "climategate" leaked email controversy has been virtually cleared of professional misconduct by an internal university enquiry.
Michael Mann, of Penn State University, featured regularly in the more than 1000 emails that were hacked from the University of East Anglia in the UK last November. His emails and comments have since then featured in countless blogs and news articles. Some have claimed the emails reveal that mainstream climate scientists have massaged data in order to demonstrate that climate change is caused by human activities.
> www.newscientist.com: US 'climategate' scientist all but cleared of misconduct

As Climate Talks Stumble, U.N. Process in Question
February 2 2010 - A key deadline for countries to submit emission reduction goals to the United Nations as part of the recently negotiated Copenhagen Accord passed last Sunday. The U.N. received commitments from 55 nations, but 139 countries remain unsupportive of the political statement, leading the international body to push back the commitment deadline indefinitely.
> www.worldwatch.org: As Climate Talks Stumble, U.N. Process in Question
> www.scientificamerican.com: Majority of world's countries miss Copenhagen Accord deadline

IPCC flooded by criticism

London, February 2 2010 - Just over two years after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, the United Nations panel on climate change is undergoing a period of soul-searching.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has always been a target for climate-change sceptics. In recent weeks, however, criticism has mounted and the panel admitted to a glaring error in its last comprehensive report, released in 2007, which says that Himalayan glaciers are likely to melt completely by 2035 (see Nature 463, 276�277; 2010). On top of that, its chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, is under pressure to resign because the institute he directs, the Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi, has ties with companies that could benefit from climate policies.
> www.nature.com: IPCC flooded by criticism

Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics

London, February 1 2010 - The climate secretary, Ed Miliband, last night warned of the danger of a public backlash against the science of global warming in the face of continuing claims that experts have manipulated data.
In an exclusive interview with the Observer, Miliband spoke out for the first time about last month's revelations that climate scientists had withheld and covered up information and the apology made by the influential UN climate body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which admitted it had exaggerated claims about the melting of Himalayan glaciers.
The perceived failure of global talks on combating climate change in Copenhagen last month has also been blamed for undermining public support. But in the government's first high-level recognition of the growing pressure on public opinion, Miliband declared a "battle" against the "siren voices" who denied global warming was real or caused by humans, or that there was a need to cut carbon emissions to tackle it.
> www.guardian.co.uk: Ed Miliband declares war on climate change sceptics
> www.independent.co.uk: Miliband warns against climate change cynicism
> www.telegraph.co.uk: Faulty science risks obscuring 'larger truth' of climate change

How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies
London, February 1 2010 - Claims based on email soundbites are demonstrably false � there is manifestly no evidence of clandestine data manipulation.
Almost all the media and political discussion about the hacked climate emails has been based on brief soundbites publicised by professional sceptics and their blogs. In many cases, these have been taken out of context and twisted to mean something they were never intended to.
Elizabeth May, veteran head of the Canadian Green party claims to have read all the emails and declared: "How dare the world's media fall into the trap set by contrarian propagandists without reading the whole set?"
> www.guardian.co.uk: How the 'climategate' scandal is bogus and based on climate sceptics' lies

UN-HABITAT Grants Cities Lecture Award to IPCC Chair

New York, February 1 2010 - The UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT), through the Global Research Network on Human Settlements, its advisory board for the global report on human settlements, has awarded Rajendra Pachauri the 2010 UN-HABITAT Cities Lecture Award for his contribution and leadership on climate change and cities.
> www.unhabitat.org: UN-HABITAT Grants Cities Lecture Award to IPCC Chair

'Climate emails hacked by spies'
London, February 1 2010 - A highly sophisticated hacking operation that led to the leaking of hundreds of emails from the Climatic Research Unit in East Anglia was probably carried out by a foreign intelligence agency, according to the Government's former chief scientist. Sir David King, who was Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser for seven years until 2007, said that the hacking and selective leaking of the unit's emails, going back 13 years, bore all the hallmarks of a co-ordinated intelligence operation � especially given their release just before the Copenhagen climate conference in December.
> www.independent.co.uk: Climate emails hacked by spies'
> www.independent.co.uk: We should know who leaked the emails on climate change

As the World Burns

Washington , February 1 2010 - This was supposed to be the transformative moment on global warming, the tipping point when America proved to the world that capitalism has a conscience, that we take the fate of the planet seriously. According to the script, Congress would pass a landmark bill committing the U.S. to deep cuts in carbon emissions. President Obama would then arrive in Copenhagen for the international climate summit, armed with the moral and political capital he needed to challenge the rest of the world to do the same. After all, wasn't this the kind of bold move the Norwegians were anticipating when they awarded Obama the Nobel Peace Prize?
> www.rollingstone.com: As the world burns

Global deal on climate change in 2010 'all but impossible'

London, 1 February 2010 - A global deal to tackle climate change is all but impossible in 2010, leaving the scale and pace of action to slow global warming in coming decades uncertain, according to senior figures across the world involved in the negotiations.
"The forces trying to tackle climate change are in disarray, wandering in small groups around the battlefield like a beaten army," said a senior British diplomat.
> www.guardian.co.uk: Global deal on climate change in 2010 'all but impossible'

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change

Cairo, January 30 2010 - Osama bin Laden sought to draw a wider public into his fight against the United States in a new message Friday, dropping his usual talk of religion and holy war and focusing instead on an unexpected topic: global warming.
The al-Qaida leader blamed the United States and other industrialized nations for climate change and said the only way to prevent disaster was to break the American economy, calling on the world to boycott U.S. goods and stop using the dollar.
> ap.com: Bin Laden blasts US for climate change

Water vapour caused one-third of global warming in 1990s, study reveals

London, 29 January 2010 - Experts say their research does not undermine the scientific consensus on man-made climate change, but call for 'closer examination' of the way computer models consider water vapour.
> dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com: On Water Vapor and Warming
> www.guardian.co.uk: Water vapour caused one-third of global warming in 1990s, study reveals
> www.physorg.com: Stratospheric Water Vapor is a Global Warming Wild Card
> www.realclimate.org: The wisdom of Solomon
> www.sciencemag.org: Contributions of Stratospheric Water Vapor to Decadal Changes in the Rate of Global Warming

EU agrees to make lowest climate offer to UN
Brussel, 28 January 2010 - The European Union has decided to stick to its lowest offer for cutting carbon emissions under a UN climate accord, but will maintain a conditional pledge to do more if others follow suit, EU diplomats said on Wednesday (27 January).
> www.euractiv.com: EU agrees to make lowest climate offer to UN

Simulated volcanoes and man-made 'sun blocks' can rescue the planet
London, 28 January 2010 - It would be 100 times cheaper to shield the Earth from sunlight with a man-made "sun block" than to cut emissions of greenhouse gases. This is one of the reasons why the world needs an international project to investigate ways of safely manipulating the global climate in addition to cutting greenhouse gases, scientists have said.
> www.independent.co.uk: Simulated volcanoes and man-made 'sun blocks' can rescue the planet

Can Climate Forecasts Still Be Trusted?

Berlin, January 27 2010 - First, it was a series of e-mails that led many to begin doubting the veracity of climate scientists. Then, the United Nations climate body itself had to reverse dire predictions about the melting of glaciers in the Himalayan Mountains. Other claims have raised doubts as well.
> www.spiegel.de: Can Climate Forecasts Still Be Trusted?
> Mountain glaciers are melting: The real Himalayan scandal (Jan 20)

A Journalist Reflects on the Rising Heat in Climate Debate

New Haven, January 26 2010 - Although he writes one of the most popular blogs on the environment, Dot Earth author Andrew Revkin recognizes both the drawbacks and potential of the Web for exploring complex issues. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Revkin explains why the rhetoric surrounding climate change has gotten so hot.
> www.e360.yale.edu: A Journalist Reflects on the Rising Heat in Climate Debate

Icy hunt for old air

Wais Divide Camp, Antarctica, January 25 2010 - "We're checking out history books made of ice," says Kendrick Taylor. A palaeoclimatologist at the Desert Research Institute in Reno, Nevada, Taylor is the chief scientist of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide drilling project, which is now three-quarters of the way towards pulling up the most temporally precise record of carbon dioxide for the past 100,000 years. The highly anticipated ice core promises to improve climatologists' understanding of the dynamic global climate system, and has already begun to illuminate how humans can affect it.
> www.nature.com: Icy hunt for old air

The real holes in climate science

London, January 20 2010 - Like any other field, research on climate change has some fundamental gaps, although not the ones typically claimed by sceptics. Nature takes a hard look at some of the biggest problem areas.
The e-mails leaked from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) in November presented an early Christmas present to climate-change denialists. Amid the more than 1,000 messages were several controversial comments that � taken out of context � seemingly indicate that climate scientists have been hiding a mound of dirty laundry from the public.
A fuller reading of the e-mails from CRU in Norwich, UK, does show a sobering amount of rude behaviour and verbal faux pas, but nothing that challenges the scientific consensus of climate change. Still, the incident provides a good opportunity to point out that � as in any active field of inquiry � there are some major gaps in the understanding of climate science. In its most recent report in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted 54 'key uncertainties' that complicate climate science.
> www.nature.com: The real holes in climate science
> www.nature.com: Enduring climate myths

If It�s That Warm, How Come It�s So Damned Cold?

Figure 1. (a) GISS analysis of global surface temperature change. Green vertical bar is estimated 95 percent confidence range (two standard deviations) for annual temperature change. (b) Hemispheric temperature change in GISS analysis. (Base period is 1951-1980.)

New York, January 18 / 28 2010 - The past year, 2009, tied as the second warmest year in the 130 years of global instrumental temperature records, in the surface temperature analysis of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). The Southern Hemisphere set a record as the warmest year for that half of the world. Global mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1a, was 0.57�C (1.0�F) warmer than climatology (the 1951-1980 base period). Southern Hemisphere mean temperature, as shown in Figure 1b, was 0.49�C (0.88�F) warmer than in the period of climatology.
> www.columbia.edu / Jim Hansen et al: If It�s That Warm, How Come It�s So Damned Cold? (Revised Version Jan 28 2010)
> www.realclimate.org: If It�s That Warm, How Come It�s So Damned Cold? (Jan 18)
> data.giss.nasa.gov: Data 2009

Hedegaard eyes tougher emission cuts from transport

Brussels, January 18 2010 - Connie Hedegaard, the EU's incoming climate policy chief, pledged to tackle transport emissions during a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament on Friday (15 January), saying she would table an integrated legislative package on climate and transport during her mandate.
> www.euractiv.com: Hedegaard eyes tougher emission cuts from transport

Climate Conditions in 2050 Crucial to Avoid Harmful Impacts in 2100
ScienceDaily, January 14, 2010 � While governments around the world continue to explore strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, a new study suggests policymakers should focus on what needs to be achieved in the next 40 years in order to keep long-term options viable for avoiding dangerous levels of warming.
> www.sciencedaily.com: Climate Conditions in 2050 Crucial to Avoid Harmful Impacts in 2100

Paleontologist Peter Ward's "Medea hypothesis": Life is out to get you

Scientific American, January 14, 2010 � At a lecture at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, paleontologist Peter D. Ward laid out the argument that life as we know it serves to make Earth less habitable � a downward spiral that might spell the eventual end of life on the planet.
Ward, a professor at the University of Washington, calls this the Medea hypothesis, named for the murderous mother of Greek mythology.
It is a direct challenge to scientist and futurist James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis, which asserts that life constantly tweaks the dials on Earth's control systems to keep the planet in a nice, habitable homeostasis.
> www.scientificamerican.com: The Medea Hypothesis
See also:
> 'The Revenge of Gaia' Books & Debate (2006)
> Lovelock: "Enjoy life while you can" (March 1 2008)

Leading climate scientist challenges Mail on Sunday's use of his research
London, January 11 2010 - A leading scientist has hit out at misleading newspaper reports that linked his research to claims that the current cold weather undermines the scientific case for manmade global warming.
Mojib Latif, a climate expert at the Leibniz Institute at Kiel University in Germany, said he "cannot understand" reports that used his research to question the scientific consensus on climate change.
> www.guardian.co.uk: Leading climate scientist challenges Mail on Sunday's use of his research
> www.columbia.edu / Jim Hansen et al: If It�s That Warm, How Come It�s So Damned Cold?
> www.newscientist.com: Errors and lies thrive in cold weather

Boosting Biodiversity Can Boost Global Economy

Berlin, 11 January 2010 - 2010 is Litmus Test of International Community's Resolve to Conserve and Enhance Planet's Natural Assets.
UN's International Year of Biodiversity Kicks Off in Berlin Hosted by Chancellor Merkel and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon .
> www.unep.org: Boosting Biodiversity Can Boost Global Economy
> www.guardian.co.uk: Biodiversity is not just about saving exotic species from extinction
> More about the International Biodiversity Year

The end of consumerism: Our way of life is 'not viable'

London, 10 January 2010 - Ditch the dog; throw away (sorry, recycle) those takeaway menus; bin bottled water; get rid of that gas-guzzling car and forget flying to far-flung places. These are just some of the sacrifices we in the West will need to make if we are to survive climate change.
The stark warning comes from the renowned Worldwatch Institute, a Washington-based organisation regarded as the world's pre-eminent environmental think tank.
> www.independent.co.uk: The end of consumerism: Our way of life is 'not viable'
> http://www.worldwatch.org: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability

Paul Watson: Sea Shepherd's stern 'warrior' defies Japanese whalers
Londom, January 10 2010 - Environmental campaigner Paul Watson has lost one of his boats in a confrontation but is determined to save the oceans from 'the greed of man'.
> www.guardian.co.uk / Paul Watson: Sea Shepherd's stern 'warrior' defies Japanese whalers

The carbon dioxide theory of Gilbert Plass

New York, 4 January 2010 - Gilbert Plass was one of the pioneers of the calculation of how solar and infrared radiation affects climate and climate change. In 1956 he published a series of papers on radiative transfer and the role of CO2, including a relatively �pop� piece in American Scientist. This has just been reprinted (as an abridged version) along with commentaries from James Fleming, a historian of science, and me. Some of the intriguing things about this article is that Plass (writing in 1956 remember) estimates that a doubling of CO2 would cause the planet to warm 3.6�C, that CO2 levels would rise 30% over the 20th Century and it would warm by about 1�C over the same period. The relevant numbers from the IPCC AR4 are a climate sensitivity of 2 to 4.5�C, a CO2 rise of 37% since the pre-industrial and a 1900-2000 trend of around 0.7�C. He makes a lot of other predictions (about the decrease in CO2 during ice ages, the limits of nuclear power and the like), but it�s worth examining his apparent prescience on these three quantitative issues. Was he prophetic, or lucky, or both?
> www.realclimate.org: 'The carbon dioxide theory of Gilbert Plass'
> www.americanscientist.org: Carbon Dioxide and the Climate (Introduction)
> www.americanscientist.org: Carbon Dioxide and the Climate (Article)
> www.eoearth.org: Encyclopedia of Earth / Gilbert N. Plass
See also:
> www.scientificamerican.com: Carbon Dioxide and Climate (July 1959)
> History of the Greenhouse effect

Climate change scepticism will increase hardship for world's poor: IPCC chief
London / Delhi, January 4 2010 - Climate change scepticism is likely to surge in 2010 and could exacerbate "hardship" for the planet's poorest people, one of the world's leading authorities on climate change has told the Guardian.
> www.guardian.co.uk: Climate change scepticism will increase hardship for world's poor: IPCC chief

UN opens Biodiversity Year with plea to save world's life-supporting ecosystems

New York, 1 January 2010 � In a bid to curb the unprecedented loss of the world's species due to human activity � at a rate some experts put at 1,000 times the natural progression � the United Nations is marking 2010 as the International Year of Biodiversity, with a slew of events highlighting the vital role the phenomenon plays in maintaining the life support system on Planet Earth.
> www.unep.org: UN opens Biodiversity Year with plea to save world's life-supporting ecosystems
> www.unep.org: Boosting Biodiversity Can Boost Global Economy

Pope Benedict XVI: we must all go green to save the planet

Rome, January 1 2010 - Pope Benedict XVI used his traditional New Year address to call for a revolution in personal lifestyles in order to safeguard the future of the planet.
> www.telegraph.co.uk / Pope Benedict XVI: we must all go green to save the planet

10:10 - The time for action

London, Januari 01 2010 - The politicians failed in Copenhagen. Now we must take up the fight. But what has the campaign has achieved to date?
10:10 - The time for action

Top Ten Green Building Trends for 2010
(ENN) Januari 1, 2010 - Green building is one of the keys to economic recovery. Not only is it a better way to do business, it drives innovation, improves efficiency standards, makes for happier and healthier people and creates new "green collar" jobs.
The trend topics on this list will be no surprise to others who are experts in this area; they are products, systems and concepts that have been quietly percolating. The purpose of this list is to identify those "big picture" trends that we see becoming more mainstream in 2010.
> www.enn.com: Top Ten Green Building Trends for 2010