Posted on 7 January 2013 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

Dana's Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive generated the most comments of the articles posted during the past week. Ari Jokimäki's New research from last week 52/2012 was the last post in this series, Here is a big shout-out for Ari! from the SkS author team. The Toon of the Week is a classic that was used to usher in 2012. It is appropriate to repost it in this, the first Weekly Digest of 2013.

Toon of the Week

Quote of the Week

Yet despite the increasing evidence of changing and often extreme weather patterns, scientists say they are increasingly concerned at a lack of urgency among policy makers in tackling the problem. 

“It seems like the policy has been to grin and bear it and suffer the consequences,” Trenberth said. “Certainly there is no planning to mitigate these events and reduce the odds of their happening again in the future.” 

“It is very disappointing and extremely short-sighted,” he said.

Scientists link global warming to England’s rainiest year on record, EurActiv.com, Jan 4, 2013

The Week in Review

• Climate Show New Year podcast special: where it’s at and where it’s going (Gareth)
• Dutch translation of The Debunking Handbook (John CookJ
• 2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #1 (John Hartz)
• Lean Manufacturing: Addressing Climate Change Through Reductions In Waste (Rob Honeycutt)
• Frequently Asked Questions About Ocean Acidification (Rob Paining)
• Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive (Dana)
• The Dirt on Climate (JG)
• 2012 in Review - a Major Year for Climate Change (Dana)
• New research from last week 52/2012 (Ari Jokimäki) 

Coming Soon

• Dark Matter for Greenland melting (Jason Box)
• Temperatures Continue Up the Escalator (Dana)
• Observed Warming of the Ocean and Atmosphere is Incompatible with Natural Variation (Rob Painting)
• Accumulated Cyclone Energy Questions and Answers (Klaus Flemløse)
• 2013 SkS News Roundup #2 (John Hartz)
• Continued Global Warming Over the Past 16 Years (Kevin C)
• Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence (Dana)
• Drost, Karoly, and Braganza Find Human Fingerprints in Global Warming (Dana)
• Grace under Pressure (Doug Bostrom)
• No alternative to atmospheric CO2 draw-down (Andrew Glikson)
• How We Know Cosmic Rays are Not Causing Global Warming, In One Simple Graph (Dana)
• No alternative to atmospheric CO2 draw-down (Andrew Glikson)
• Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama (Dana) 

SkS in the News

Rob Honeycutt's Lean Manufacturing: Addressing Climate Change Through Reductions In Waste was also  published on Climate Progress, and the associated press release has been published by Yahoo Finance, The Sacramento Bee, and The Herald, along with articles in Core77 and VentureBeat.

Dana's Contrary to Contrarian Claims, IPCC Temperature Projections Have Been Exceptionally Accurate was re-posted on Climate Progress.

An article in The Standard references the SkS "it's the sun" rebuttal.

A blog post by Minda Berbeco on climate change denial and human ingenuity references several SkS rebuttals.

Dana's Putting an End to the Myth that Renewable Energy is too Expensive was Tweeted by Dave Roberts and Michael  Mann.

A post on itsnotnova referenced several SkS posts and rebuttals in demolishing a Jo Nova myth.

SkS Spotlights 

The International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) is an international scientific institute that conducts policy-oriented research into problems that are too large or too complex to be solved by a single country. Problems like climate change that have a global reach and can be resolved only by international agreement. Or energy security or population aging, which are national issues with international ramifications for every country. As an independent research body, IIASA examines such issues and devises strategies for cooperative action unconstrained by political and national self-interest. The IIASA is located in Laxenburg, Austria.