People in Greenhouses Throwing Stones

We promised to provide a breakdown of the IPCC's WGI as we did for WGII and III. So here goes: As before, we've limited ourselves to those contributors based in the UK or USA. That gives us 303 authors to work with out of a total of 618. That's nearly half the total -...

WGIII – But is it Science?

Following our breakdown of the expertise comprising the IPCC's WGII, we've now done the same for WGIII, “Mitigation of Climate Change”. First, the numbers: Of 270 contributors, 66 were from the USA and UK. We haven’t been able to establish the expertise and discipline...

Physician, Heal Thyself.

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS. 13 December 2008. This post is linked to from other sites more than any other. This has lead to criticism that we have been dishonest in ignoring the scientists in IPCC WGI, which is where the bulk of the scientific analysis is done. It is true...

Save the Planet or the Puppy Gets It

Over at Gristmill, Andrew Dessler complains about the list of 400 sceptical scientists who seem to challenge the "scientific consensus": The question is: does their opinion matter? Should you revise your views about climate change accordingly?  The question is then,...

Climate Change Rhetoric Worse Than Previously Thought

In case you hadn't noticed, the IPCC released its AR4 Synthesis Report, Summary for Policymakers on Saturday. 'Today the world's scientists have spoken clearly and with one voice,' said United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The BBC reported the event on Friday...

Lucas and the Majority of Some Scientists

In a conversation about EU policy on restricting CO2 emissions from aircraft, on BBC Radio 4's Today program, this morning, Caroline Lucas, Green MEP for the Southeast region said Well, when you hear scientists say that we have about eight years left in order to...

Environmental Movement Touches the Cloth

We've pointed out before the compatibility of environmentalism and evangelical Christianity. So no great surprise here. Her conversion to environmentalism is the result of a years-long international campaign by British bishops and leaders of major U.S. environmental...

Scientific Consenseless

Writing in New Scientist this week, James Hansen tells us that the scientific community (you know, those 'thousands' of specialised scientists at the IPCC) are wrong, and have massively underestimated the extent of polar ice melting as a consequence of anthropogenic...

Spaghetti Carbondrama

This post doesn't deserve a title as good as that. And it's not even a very good title. Where does carbon come into it? Maybe we're just hungry.Apologies. We have each been otherwise engaged to the extent that we don't appear to have posted very much. And even now,...

Model Muddle

A new study suggesting that Arctic ice is melting faster than IPCC forecasts has been reported by the BBC as evidence that the IPCC is too conservative.Since 1979, the Arctic has been losing summer ice at about 9% per decade, but models on average produce a melting...