- Reporting in Nature, researchers from Canada show that: “… anthropogenic forcing has had a detectable influence on observed changes in average precipitation within latitudinal bands, and that these changes cannot be explained by internal climate variability or natural forcing.” Whilst no-one wants to be quoted on record that the current flooding across Europe and England is related to climate change (although see some media sources), a Reuters article states an inconvenient truth: “floods force many to face climate change reality“.
- Whilst the Prime Minister Gordon Brown is forced to acknowledge that floods in England are related to climate change, his US counterpart President G.W. Bush is rapped for being “ignorant on climate change” by the UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki Moon. At least CNN is slowly coming around. On home soil, Greenpeace have blasted Prime Minister John Howard that the Australian government climate change initiatives are a “PR exercise“, which is a valid point. It has not been adequately explained, for example, why watching forest destruction in Indonesia from satellites is better than saving our own forests here in Australia.
- “Developed economies show greatest indifference to climate change” according to a recent survey by HSBC (link to pdf)- interesting reading (although a shame Australia wasn’t included).
- Xinhua news agency and the Tibet Meteorological Bureau showing that Tibet is warming faster than anywhere else in the world (link). Climate change has already been linked to receding wetlands at the source of China’s two largest rivers, and glaciers are retracting at alarming rates in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Interesting to note that China is committed to investing USD$2.63 billion into eco-protection for the Tibetan Plateau and establishing environmental funds to cope with climate change, although the International Energy Agency predicts that the increase in greenhouse gas emissions from 2000 to 2030 in China alone will nearly equal the increase from the entire industrialised world (link) – food for thought.
- Researchers from China and the UK suggest that “warfare frequency in eastern China (its southern portion in particular) significantly correlated with the Northern Hemisphere temperature oscillations.” (link). The authors conclude that “… ecological stress interacted with population pressure and China’s unique historic and geographic setting to bring about the high frequencies of warfare over the last millennium.” However, for those following the Darfur water crisis in Sudan, where environmental degredation and climate change have exacerbated the ongoing humanitarian crisis within the region, these findings may be relatively obvious.
- After the embarassement of the “Great Global Warming Swindle” and the aftermath on ABC Television, Durkin is still trying to dig himself out of a hole with a recent editorial featured in The Australian. After asking the somewhat rhetorical question “Why are the global warmers so zealous?” Durkin concludes with the fact that “global warming is is first and foremost a political theory… an expression of a whole middle-class political world view” (link). As for his debate on satellite temperatures, medieval warm temperatures, ice core data and the hockey stick, this has been discussed and rebutted both here and elsewhere. Sorry Martin, you really don’t have a leg to stand on.
- Piers Akerman is a long way off the mark in his response to my comment on his blog and continues to show any grip on the climate change debate:
“Real science isn’t based on speculative computer modelling reliant on extreme interpretations of variables”
Again, Piers, you miss the point, but please feel free to enlighten us as to what “Real science” is based upon – right wing spin? Poor journalism?