Climate Change? What Climate Change?

The moment that we are denied the right to question a scientific theory that is held by the majority, we are not far away from Galileo’s predicament in 1615, as he appeared before the papal inquisition. --Clive Stafford Smith, The Guardian, 15 March 2016

Trees can adapt to rising temperatures and limit their natural emissions of greenhouse gases, according to a study published on Wednesday that suggests plants may have a smaller than expected role in stoking man-made global warming. “Plant respiration results in an annual flux of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere that is six times as large as that due to the emissions from fossil fuel burning, so changes in either will impact future climate,” scientists wrote in the journal Nature. “Plants play less of a role than previously thought in speeding up global warming through accelerated respiratory carbon dioxide emissions,” lead author Peter Reich of the University of Minnesota told an online news conference. “Given the number of plants on Earth this is a big deal,” he said of their role in the carbon cycle. --Alister Doyle, Reuters, 16 March 2016

U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s statement on Wednesday that his new budget “puts the next generation first” isn’t enough to protect subsequent generations from the consequences of climate change, critics said. Just three months after the U.K. joined 195 other countries in a climate deal in a bid to restrain rising global temperatures by curbing emissions, Osborne’s budget cut taxes on the oil and gas industry and preserved a freeze on fuel taxes for motorists. He also scrapped a carbon tax for businesses like Tesco Plc and raised a climate change levy that applies to electricity from renewables as well as from fossil fuels. --Alex Morales, Bloomberg, 17 March 2016

Poland adopted a resolution against stepping up European Union climate ambitions, hardening its opposition to stricter emission policies before negotiations about how the bloc’s 28 member states should share the burden of cutting pollution in the next decade. --Ewa Krukowska and Marek Strzelecki, Bloomberg, 15 March 2016

Feminist glacier studies, an expanding field of academic climate-science rigor, sometimes needs an R-rating. Like this new feminist glacier research from a team led by Professor Mark Carey at the University of Oregon. Carey scored a $US413,000 grant in 2013 for his glacier research, with the paper being one output from it. It is titled  “Glaciers, gender, and science: A feminist glaciology framework for global environmental change research.” In passing, the study notes that climate change “can lead to the breakdown of stereotypical gender roles and even ‘gender renegotiation’ (Godden, 2013).” This had me worried as I prefer to stay with my male gender. --Tony Thomas, Quadrant, 15 March 2016

Last month’s major scientific breakthrough was rightly lauded; Einstein’s century-old gravitational wave theories proved correct. How will we view current theoretical climate science in 2100? Will there be global headlines confirming validity or a consigning to history’s dustbin? So far prospects are worrying, with climate computer predictions, on which costly taxpayer-funded policies are based, well wide off measured reality. In terms of temperature increase, ocean acidification, sea levels and polar ice, predictions have massively exaggerated what is happening. Polar ice and bear populations are now larger than when Al Gore made doomsday predictions ten years ago. This is the year Arctic ice vanishes completely, remember? --Keith P Dawson, The Scotsman, 16 March 2016