Who Are the Real Climate Criminals?

If there's one thing that's supposed to annoy us British about Americans, it's their environmentally unfriendly ways. And not just George Bush and his Exxon-funded cronies. It's the whole lot of them – as highlighted by the recent ABC News poll where "global warming"...

Slaves to Bad Analogies

Given the occasional inability of environmentalists to resist the temptation of equating those who challenge the political orthodoxy on climate change with those who opposed the end of slavery, it was only a matter of time before someone would liken the reduction of...

No Mercy on Earth Day for Eco-Sinner

A BBC article coincides fittingly with Earth Day...A father-of-four has been left with a criminal record for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches. Gareth Corkhill, 26, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, received a £110 fixed penalty notice after Copeland Council staff...

The Black and White Aerosols Show

A paper published in Nature Geoscience last month received a lot of media attention. And rightly so. It showed that the Black Carbon (BC) component of soot is responsible for up to 60% as much warming as CO2. That is significant for many reasons, only some of which...

"NO TO DEBATE! NO TO DEMOCRACY!"

On Friday, we wrote about the US 'Friends of the Earth', who have enlisted James Hansen in their campaign to censor a book on American politics because it might give the impression that there's something to discuss. Somehow we managed to miss this gem of a page on the...

A Textbook Case of Politics

You can say whatever you like about climate change, just as long as it doesn't appear to undermine political action to 'save the planet'. You can, for example, be the billionaire founder of the world's first international, 24-hour TV news channel, and claim that in...

Experts Predict…

Those experts are at it again: Climate experts are forecasting a drop in global temperatures this year. Which is not entirely unlike looking out of your window at 4pm, and predicting that the sun will have risen this morning.

The Return of the Precautionary Principle

Last Friday, we asked 'what happened to the precautionary principle'. Recent arguments dominating the public discussion on climate change seem to have been about the 'scientific consensus' achieving certainty, rather than advising caution in the face of doubt. Yet on...

Oh, to be in England…

...now that April's there. And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England - now! - Robert Browning Oh, to be...