Climate Change

Biting winters driven by global warming: scientists
Stumble This! PARIS — Counter-intuitive but true, say scientists: a string of freezing European winters scattered over the last decade has been driven in large part by Global Warming. The culprit, according to a new study, is the Arctic's receding surface ice, which at current rates of decline could to disappear entirely during summer months by century's end. The mechanism uncovered triples the chances that future winters in Europe and north Asia will be similarly inclement, the study rep...

Chilly outlook?
December 2010 is every bit as cold and snowy as the worst December of the 20th Century - 1981 - and it could well turn out to be the Coldest December since 1890. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Transport Secretary Philip Hammond has asked the government's chief scientific adviser whether we might expect more severe winters in the coming decades, and whether we ought to invest in more equipment to keep our infrastructure moving during months such as this one. The first thing to sa...

Teaching Sponges to Dance
Bless George Monbiot for attempting to explain science to righties. It’s futile, but I admire him for trying. He provides a fairly readable explanation based on scientific evidence of why the process of global “warming” is causing some parts of the world to be colder. I’ll let you read this for yourselves. This is not a new phenomenon, of course; scientists have been noting that global Climate Change is causing some areas to cool for a while now. Then Monbiot says, I c...

Big Sis also beating the climate change drum?
In the wake of the East Anglia revelations earlier this year, as well as some regions suffering the Coldest early winter in 50 years, how can these pinheads continue the public hand wringing about Global Warming Climate Change with a straight face? At an all-day White House conference on “environmental justice,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that her department is creating a new Task Force to battle the effects of Climate Change on domestic security...

Is Al Gore in Britain?
Swathes of Britain skidded to a halt today as the big freeze returned - grounding flights, closing rail links and leaving traffic at a standstill. And tonight the nation was braced for another 10in of snow and yet more sub-zero temperatures - with no let-up in the bitterly cold weather for at least a month, forecasters have warned. The Arctic conditions are set to last through the Christmas and New Year bank holidays and beyond and as temperatures plummeted to -10c (14f) the Met Office said this...

Mummified Arctic forest could yield clues to global warming
A mummified ancient forest unearthed north of the Arctic Circle may give researchers clues about what to expect as Climate Change again affects the polar region. Joel Barker, a researcher at The Ohio State University, stumbled on the forest's remnants while camping last year on Canada's Ellesmere Island, just 500 miles from the North Pole. The forest stood more than 1,000 miles north of the northernmost trees of today. See a map of the Arctic. The trees and their branches, leaves, nee...

Brrr COLD SPELL Causes Record Deaths in London
The cold weather is causing record deaths in London this year putting a strain on mortuaries. Overall the government says that 15 percent of the deaths in London are related to the record cold this year. The mortuaries can’t keep up. Fatal accidents, flu and the cold weather have put mortuaries in the capital under “severe pressure” following research carried out by the London Daily News. With local authorities sharing mortuary services in London like Enfield, Barnet and Haring...

Ice set to bring more chaos to Britain
By Avril Ormsby LONDON | Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:04pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Britons Sunday faced little respite from the Arctic conditions that have disrupted travel and shopping plans on the last weekend before Christmas, normally one of the busiest times of the year. Treacherous icy conditions were forecast to replace the blizzards which forced many airports to close, trains to be delayed and motorists to become stranded in their vehicles. Britain's busiest airport London Heathrow, which was cl...

Snow, ice ground flights in Europe
A woman bundled in a coat with a hood walks past a snow-covered VW Beetle on a frigid day on December 19, 2010 in Berlin, Germany. Heavy snowfalls across Europe are grounding hundreds of airline flights in winter weather unusually bitter for this time of year. Avril Ormsby, Reuters · Sunday, Dec. 19, 2010 LONDON - Europe saw little respite on Sunday from the Arctic conditions that have closed airports and disrupted travel on the weekend before Christmas, traditionally one of the busiest tim...

Ice set to bring more chaos to Britain
LONDON (Reuters) - Britons Sunday faced little respite from the Arctic conditions that have disrupted travel and shopping plans on the last weekend before Christmas, normally one of the busiest times of the year. Treacherous icy conditions were forecast to replace the blizzards which forced many airports to close, trains to be delayed and motorists to become stranded in their vehicles. Britain's busiest airport London Heathrow, which was closed Saturday, may re-open Sunday, but operator BAA did...

Ice set to bring more chaos to Britain
By Avril Ormsby LONDON | Sat Dec 18, 2010 8:04pm EST LONDON (Reuters) - Britons Sunday faced little respite from the Arctic conditions that have disrupted travel and shopping plans on the last weekend before Christmas, normally one of the busiest times of the year. Treacherous icy conditions were forecast to replace the blizzards which forced many airports to close, trains to be delayed and motorists to become stranded in their vehicles. Britain's busiest airport London Heathrow, which was cl...

England 'had enough salt to cope'
The government and local councils in England did stockpile enough salt to cope with the first severe bout of snow this winter, a Whitehall-commissioned report has said. But the report found it "may be challenging" to meet road salt requirements for the entire winter. The report, by transport expert David Quarmby, also called for better rail information to be given to passengers. Labour has accused the government of being ill-prepared for Bad Weather. In his report, Mr Quarmby looked at...

George Monbiot and the evolving Global Warming Narrative
By Sam Foster Let's look at our timeline shall we? 2008 - Record heat weather patterns equals "Oh my, the world's on fire!" 2009 - Record cold weather patterns "no individual episode of severe weather can be attributed to global climate trends" 2010 - Record cold weather patterns "Oh my, the world's on fire!" You will notice that the 2009 winter brought out a very different narrative than the other two periods, thus leading one to ask, "why the difference Sam?" To which I re...

Napolitano Makes Global Warming a Homeland Security Priority
There she goes again. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano just can’t speak in public without destroying any remaining confidence Americans have left in her agency. CNS News reports that at a conference devoted to “environmental justice”, Secretary Napolitano announced that the Department of Homeland Security would be creating the “Climate Change and Adaptation Task Force” to mitigate the affects of Global Warming on security and response operations. No…really. According to C

Welcome to journalology
From the Times of London: “The heaviest Snowfall in 20 years has closed thousands of schools and caused transport chaos up the eastern side of Britain, with London and the surrounding areas the hardest hit. Six million bus passengers were left in the lurch as all London’s bus services were halted because of dangerous driving conditions, and every Tube line except the Victoria line was at least partially suspended.” Whoops, that was two winters ago on February 2, 2009. Let me ...

Arnold Schwarzenegger For Climate Change Czar?
**Written by Doug Powers Admittedly, it would be a perfect fit: Who’s more qualified to peddle the Most Expensive myth in history than a guy who made a fortune in fiction? Is Arnold Schwarzenegger angling for a job in the Obama Administration? In an interview with editors at the Los Angeles Times, the outgoing California Governor said he was in “no rush” to find a new job when his term ends next month. But asked specifically whether he’d consider a post working for Pres...

Europe shuts down after being blanketed by global warming
Lady GaGa's gig got canceled too because of heavy Snowfall Global Warming. That's a shame: From the AP via The Detroit News: Europe's snow cancels flights, Lady Gaga show Stranded travelers slept on makeshift beds at European airports Sunday as wintry weather caused travel havoc, dashing the hopes of those attempting to head away for the holidays by road, rail and air. ...Heathrow Airport, Europe's busiest hub for air passengers, stopped accepting arrivals Sunday at the start o...

Ad Hoc Theorizing
Every machine has a “red flag” — an event that, when it occurs, indicates something is seriously broken.  When your car begins to emit plumes of oily smoke, that’s a “red flag”.  When your Windows computer shows a “Blue Screen of Death”, that’s a “red flag”.  And when a Nuclear Power plant starts emitting huge plumes of steam and the sound of a klaxon…well, you get the idea. Scientific theories are the intellectual equiv

Evangelicals are greener than you think
A Veteran climate warrior told me recently that he doesn't believe we'll ever win the "climate fight" because "climate" itself has become too loaded, a cultural Rorschach, and the battles over it have become proxies for too many other things. We're bogged down in the quagmire of an intractable left-right Civil War, and climate action is a casualty. Like many who've contributed here at Grist, he wants to reframe the whole challenge. When he said that about proxies, I couldn't help thinking of las...

EIA Projects Climate Catastrophe
EIA Projects Climate Catastrophe The U.S. Energy Information Administration has projected that the United States will lead the world into catastrophic Global Warming over the next twenty five years. In its 2011 Annual Energy Outlook, the EIA predicts that energy-related CO2 emissions will “grow by 16 percent from 2009 to 2035,” reaching 6.3 billion metric tons of Carbon Dioxide equivalent (or 1.7 GtC): The fuel mix the EIA projects remains predominantly coal and oil, with a modera...

InshaGore! All That Snow Is What Global Warming Looks Like
And some alarmists actually scoff when we realists term globull warming a cult like religion. George Monbiot is apparently a High Priest to The Goracle: That snow outside is what Global Warming looks like There were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my Voicemail. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. “You are a liar, Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen and all your lying colleagues. I’m going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It̵...

Insha’Gore! All That Snow Is What Global Warming Looks Like
And some alarmists actually scoff when we realists term globull warming a cult like religion. George Monbiot is apparently a High Priest to The Goracle: That snow outside is what Global Warming looks likeThere were two silent calls, followed by a message left on my Voicemail. She had a soft, gentle voice and a mid-Wales accent. "You are a liar, Mr Monbiot. You and James Hansen and all your lying colleagues. I'm going to make you pay back the money my son gave to your causes. It's minus 18C and m...

Thousands still stranded after snow
Stranded air travellers wait for flights at Heathrow. Thousands are still stuck across Britain after chaos caused by snow and ice. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA Heathrow Airport opened both runways tonight after five days of disruption, bringing some respite to frustrated travellers after another day of travel misery which left 130,000 airline passengers stranded while severe problems blighted the road and rail networks. David Cameron expressed frustration at the Heathrow chaos as it emerged tha...

So What Happened to Global Warming?
Tonight Britain braces itself for a further 10 inches of snow and more sub-zero temperatures to come- with no let-up, top forecasters have warned. These unusual Arctic conditions are set to last through the Christmas and New Year bank holidays and beyond and as temperatures plummeted to -10c (14f), prompting the UK’s Met Office to state that this December 2010 was ‘almost certain’ to become the Coldest since records began in 191...

'Mini ice age coming'...
Well, folks, it's tea-time on Sunday and for anyone involved in keeping people moving it has been a hell of a weekend. Thousands have had their journeys wrecked, tens of thousands have been delayed getting away for Christmas; and for those Londoners who feel aggrieved by the performance of any part of our transport services, I can only say that we are doing our level best. Almost the entire Tube system was running on Sunday and we would have done even better if it had not been for a Suicide on ...