James Lovelock interview

The Guardian has a feature on Lovelock here. There is also the whole transcript of the interview. He says he believes in AGW but has partial praise for some sceptics who raise important questions. He shows some contempt for (current forms of) renewable energy, and even more for democracy ('I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while'). He does not believe in computer models and calls for more observations. Sometimes he makes just very sweeping statements and seems not too well informed... Still, you will find some interesting thoughts by the wise old man who has seen it all.

Der Spiegel poll

A new poll in Germany conducted by Der Spiegel in Germany shows that one third of the polled citizens does not really trust the results of climate science and one fourth thinks they could even benefit from climate change.

Why are so many climate scientists Neo-Malthusians?

Ever since Ehrlich's Population Bomb and the Club of Rome reports, there is concern about the size of human population on Earth. Following the observation of Malthus that there were more births than funerals in his parish, 20th century thinkers have warned about the limits of the carrying capacity of Nature. More people means more problems. In a climate change context it seems obvious that more people mean more GHG emissions. However, this simple thought neglects the fact that it is relative wealth of a given population which impacts on emissions. 300 million in developing countries are not the same as in the energy hungry North.

China is leader in renewable energy

Remember Copenhagen? China was blamed by many for the failure of the summit. It is also the largest emitter of CO2 (not per capita though). Now it is also the leader in renewable energy investment. This is not a widely known fact, and not publicised widely. The BBC has the story here.

Ed Miliband writes to Pachauri

The UK climate change secretary Ed Miliband has written to the chairman of the IPCC. The nature of the letter signals that the concerns about public trust are taken serioulsy. Have other governments done similar things?

German IPCC nominations for AR5

On Thursday, 25 March 2010, we had a public discussion organized by the KlimaCampus in Hamburg a discussion about IPCC, Climategate and the relationship of climate science, media and politics - see http://www.klimacampus.de/index.php/News/329/0/?&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=245&tx_ttnews[backPid]=328&cHash=7fc18dbda5.

Rob Maris: survey on political position

A guest activity by Rob Maris
See survey in the right column of this webblog.

Which way forward for the IPCC?

Over at Roger Pielke Jr.'s blog Richard Tol has a pretty damning assessment of the last IPCC report. He focuses on WG 3 and the failure of peer review. He says:

In sum, the review process of the IPCC failed miserably. AR4 of WG3 substantially and knowingly misrepresents the state of the art in our understanding of the costs of emission reduction. It leads the reader to the conclusion that emission reduction is much cheaper and easier than it will be in real life.

The Economist gets it wrong, ... and right

As many readers will know, The Economist for quite some time did not embrace environmental concerns, climate policy included. After it decided this was a worthy cause, Climategate and failure in Copenhagen could have suggested that it reverses gear. It did not. Here is the conclusion of an article published in this week's edition:

Richard Tol: The feasibility of two degrees

Guest comment by Richard Tol