UK News
Insights from the UK and beyond
Are you losing faith in climate science?
While attending a meeting of prominent climate sceptics during the U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December (an anti-COP15, if you will), I listened to each of the speakers put forward their theory on why conventional evidence on the primary causes of climate change should be dismissed as, for lack of a better phrase, complete hokum.
Among their denunciations of widely-accepted truths regarding global warming, greenhouse gases, melting glaciers and rising sea levels was the assertion that a change in attitude was afoot; the public may have been duped into believing the mainstream scientific assessment of climate change, but not for long.
There was something in the air, the sceptics said, and soon people would begin to question their trust in the majority view.
I’m no scientist and am in no position to comment on the validity of any of the evidence on show; as journalists we were there to make sure both sides of the argument were being heard. This group of climate outcasts were in every sense on the fringes of COP15, but after a series of controversies in recent weeks it seems they were right about one thing at least — the public conviction about the threat of climate change is slipping.
from The Great Debate UK:
Can emissions be tackled without Copenhagen deal?
Even if a deal is reached among political delegates at the upcoming United Nations Climate Conference in Copenhagen, it is unlikely to set out specific emission targets, says Mike Hulme, author of "Why We Disagree About Climate Change" and a professor at the University of East Anglia in Norwich.
"What we've done with climate change is to attach so many pressing environmental concerns to the climate change agenda that trying to secure a negotiated multilateral agreement between 190 nations is actually beyond the reach of what we can achieve," he argues.
Plane stupid?
Environmental protest group Plane Stupid manage to prevent at least 21 flights taking off when they invaded a runway at Stansted airport for five hours on Monday morning.
The group are protesting over the government’s decision to allow the expansion of Stansted Airport with a second runway. The protest also follows the decision last week by Transport Secretary Geoff Hoon to delay the decision on whether to build a third runway at Heathrow until January.
-
The Wall
