President Obama has repeatedly blamed global warming for episodes of severe weather, including wildfires and droughts in the Golden State, but Democrats seeking to unseat Republicans in the hard-hit Central Valley region are balking at that argument. When announcing the a $1 billion climate fund meant to aid farmers and communities dealing with drought, Obama’s science adviser John Holdren said to expect more talk “about the connection between increasing frequency in the intensity of drought and climate change” from the president and the White House. Since then, the White House has released a video in which Holdren said the drought and wildfires raging across California and other western states will continue to happen more frequently due to climate change. -- Laura Barron-Lopez,
The Hill 17 August 2014
Two of three scientists at a session on climate change and society at the Indian Science Congress on Tuesday felt fears of man-made global warming were greatly exaggerated. Their presence at the conference was particularly significant in light of the current ‘development-versus-environment’ debates. “Climate change is a natural phenomenon while pollution is caused by man. We are definitely accelerating the process of climate change, but we cannot predict the rate or extent of climate change that can be attributed to man,” said Dhruv Sen Singh, Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, University of Lucknow. According to him, fears of climate change amount to propaganda and “unnecessarily cause panic”. --Anahita Mukherji,
Times of India, 7 January 2015
Reports are showing that the polar ice caps are not melting away. Instead, climate scientists say the ice caps may be much thicker and more stable than previously thought. Canada’s
Sun News TV talks to Dr Benny Peiser about the implications of the new observations. --
Prime Time, Sun News TV, 6 January 2015
Small volcanic eruptions over the past 20 years have been protecting the Earth from global warming, according to a new study. Scientists have confirmed that droplets of sulphur-rich aerosols spewed into the upper atmosphere by volcanoes have been reflecting sunlight away from the Earth. This could have helped decrease the global temperatures by between 0.05°C to 0.12°C over the past 15 years. Professor Ross McKitrick, an environmental economist from the University of Guelph in Canada, said the results could mean that climate models that are used to inform policy decisions are inaccurate. --Richard Gray,
Daily Mail, 12 January 2015
In 2015, I predict, the cause of global warming will continue to lose ground, even if, as expected, Pope Francis outs himself as a convert to the Church of Global Warming. Temperatures will again fail to behave as projected by the computer models, the public will again yawn at the faithful’s threats of the coming apocalypse and politicians will again pay lip service to global warming while kissing renewables subsidies goodbye. --Lawrence Solomon,
National Post, 9 January 2015
The worst paper ever published has competition. I was going to mock this, but it has all rather slipped beyond the Plains of Derision and sunk in a parallel universe. Lewandowsky, Gignac and Oberauer put out a paper in 2013 which was used to generate headlines like
“Climate sceptics more likely to be conspiracy theorists”. The data sample is not large, but despite that, it includes the potential Neanderthal, as well as a precocious five year old and some underage teenagers too. --
Jo Nova, 11 January 2015
