The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, aka Lord Chris Monckton, never had much credibility. He is not a scientist, even less a climatologist, in fact he has no science background to speak of. He has not ever published any research paper in a journal, even less any on climatology. He is also a hate-monger who calls climate science supporters “Hitler Youths”. Nonetheless he goes around the world leveraging his “Lordship” and his excellent oratorial skills...
If a hurricane encounters the oil slick now covering parts of the Gulf of Mexico, the result could be devastating, scientists say. Not only could any hurricane increase the damage that oil does to coastal wetlands, but the presence of oil could lead to a more powerful hurricane, they say. Nobody knows for sure, though, because there's no record of a hurricane ever crossing paths with a large oil spill. Trouble Brewing The Atlantic...
How child mortality has changed since 1990 May 25th 2010 | From The Economist online SOME 7.7m children under the age of five will die in 2010, down from 11.9m in 1990, according to a new study published online by the Lancet from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. This is 800,000 fewer deaths than was estimated by UNICEF in 2009, a difference the authors attribute to a...
Greenland rising faster as ice loss acceleratesWe have several independent lines of evidence that Greenland is losing ice at an accelerating rate. Satellite altimetry find glaciers are sliding faster downhill and dumping more ice into the ocean. Altimetry data also find the ice sheet is thinning. An overall picture is obtained by satellites measuring the gravity around the ice sheet. Another line of evidence has now been added to this picture with GPS measurements...
While the anti-science crowd scours the globe desperately looking for any indication of their imaginary cooling, reality has intruded again.Because they and the media — and even some scientists who don’t follow the subject closely — tend to take a two-dimensional view of the Arctic, they along with much of the public have been fooled into thinking the Arctic “recovered” in the past two years because sea ice extent appeared to recover. Heck, some...
Nearly 150 of the 882 land bird species in North America are in sharp decline, especially in Mexico, Greg LawatayA resplendent quetzalaccording to a new report. The report, issued by Partners in Flight — a consortium of academics,conservationists, government agencies, and philanthropists — said that 124 of the 148 imperiled bird species spend much of their time in Mexico, where habitat destruction is occurring more rapidly than in the U.S. and Canada. The threatened...
WASHINGTON – Bad wiring and a leak in what's supposed to be a “blowout preventer.” Sealing problems that may have allowed a methane eruption. Even a dead battery, of all things. New disclosures Wednesday revealed a complex cascade of deep-sea equipment failures and procedural problems in the oil rig explosion and massive spill that is still fouling the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and threatening industries and wildlife near the coast and on...
255 members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel laureates, have penned a letter in Science slamming the disinformation campaign orchestrated by a small network of climate deniers that has confused the public about the real danger of climate disruption. The scientists’ letter, published in the May 7th issue of the journal Science (subscription req’d), says: “We are deeply disturbed by the recent escalation of political assaults on scientists in general...
Is this going to be the demise of BP? NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, May 8, 2010 (ENS) – The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is keeping lawyers busy. At least half a dozen class action lawsuits have been filed on behalf of fishermen, shrimpers, restaurant owners, real estate brokers, property owners, and other Gulf coast residents affected by the oil a day flowing for the past two weeks from the wellhead left uncapped by the explosion...
Gulf Coast marine scientists agree that the unfolding oil disaster could mean devastation beyond human comprehension. Wonk Room’s Brad Johnson has the story in this repost. In an exclusive interview with the Wonk Room, a team of scientists from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, MS, discussed the ecological impacts of a three-month blowout from the BP-Halliburton Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig, described as the expected timeline for “ultimate...