The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans - and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem, according to an exclusive poll for The Observer.
The results have shocked campaigners who hoped that doubts would have been silenced by a report last year by more than 2,500 scientists for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which found a 90 per cent chance that humans were the main cause of climate change and warned that drastic action was needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
The findings come just before the release of the government's long-awaited renewable energy strategy, which aims to cut the UK's greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next 12 years.
In a conference call with reporters, Karl and the other co-chair, Gerald A. Meehl, senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, said there is no doubt that human-generated heat-trapping gases have helped intensify both the Southwest's current drought and heavy downpours, which have been increasing at a rate three times that of average precipitation over the past century.
As greenhouse-gas emissions rise, North America is likely to experience more droughts and excessive heat in some regions even as intense downpours and hurricanes pound others more often, according to a report issued yesterday by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program.
The 162-page study, which was led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, provides the most comprehensive assessment yet of how global warming has helped to transform the climate of the United States and Canada over the past 50 years --and how it may do so in the future.
'That vast majority of those who dismiss the reality of global warming are simply ignorant' ... Mark Lynas.
"So, are you a scientist then?" It's a very frequent question whenever someone finds out that I write about global warming. No, I reply, though the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change once referred to me - entirely incorrectly - as Dr Lynas. But that's as close as I'm ever going to get. I'm a journalist - or worse - a campaigner. So how can I be trusted to convey meaningful information about a subject as complex and controversial as climate change?
MUCH has been made of my voting with the Government to allow the police to detain terror suspects for 42 days, rather than 28, in special cases. Yet there was a more important vote last week, in which I was one of only three Members of Parliament to vote against the might of all parties and defy the Climate Change Bill which will cost Britain hundreds of billions of pounds, will not mean any other country has to follow suit and, as we are responsible for only two per cent of the world’s carbon emissions, will make no difference to the climate or to global warming.
Climate change has become a religion, with anyone who dares to throw out a question or two instantly accused of heresy. I have had my doubts for some time, and certainly about major nilateral action on the part of the UK, but these have crystalised since reading Nigel Lawson’s book An Appeal To Reason, subtitled A Cool Look At Global Warming.
We were all supposed to be dead now, done in by AIDS, the gift of the gays. After that it was SARS, bequeathed to the world by China. Then it was avian flu, which, to be fair to the alarmists, did in fact result in the deaths of millions.
The millions were all chickens, true, but chickens have feelings, too. You could ask the folks at PETA.
One by one these terrors subsided, done in by reality, which is never as much fun as telling ghost stories around the campfire. (Let's not forget the killer bees.) The hysterics in newsrooms and faculty lounges stumbled on, and finally found something truly hot, hot as in hip, and this one came with a messiah to lead us to heaven on earth. Now those hallelujahs and hosannas are beginning to subside as well. Reality is stripping even Al Gore of his priestly robes (in earth tones).
Climate protesters hijack coal train heading for Britain's biggest power station, Drax, in North Yorkshire
Climate change campaigners have hijacked a train carrying coal to Britain's biggest power station, swarming on to the roof of its 20 huge trucks.
The 40 protesters stopped the regular delivery service to Drax in Yorkshire disguised as railway workers in yellow warning jackets and waving red flags, having read up on standard railway safety rules.
The ambush took place at an iron girder bridge over the river Aire between the villages of Gowdall and Hirst Courteney at 8am BST. One group then used the bridge girders and climbing equipment to scale the 12ft high trucks.
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