Posted on 15 February 2015 by John Hartz

SkS Highlights

Dana's Fiddling with global warming conspiracy theories while Rome burns garnered the most comments of the articles posted on SkS during the past week. Tied for second place were Why the Miocene Matters (and doesn’t) Today by howardlee and A 23-year experiment finds surprising global warming impacts already underway by Dana.

Blog Posts We Like

Here’s one of the better produced videos you’ll see on climate change, not so much because of the flashy b-roll but because the scientist cuts right to the chase. It’s part of a series called Climate Change Elevator Pitch and comes courtesy of Climate Denial Crock of the Week. The host of the series is John Cook. He’s the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia. He’s one of many people behind Skeptical Science, a fantastic resource to learn about climate change. You can spend hours there and barely touch the surface.

Climate Change Made Easy to Understand by Dan Bewley, Science is OK, Feb 2015

Toon of the Week

Hat tip to I Heart Climate Scientists. 

Quotes of the Week

In what amounts to a call to arms, Leshner* urged scientists to make a priority of explaining their work to the public, so that discussions around modern research and its implications for society were not misinformed.

“Anything that diminishes the public trust or confidence in science gets in the way of science doing its job, and that is the betterment of humankind. Ultimately, that is what it’s all about,” he said.

*Alan Leshner, chief executive of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society.

'Public alienation undermines scientific efforts to improve human lives' by Ian Sample, The Guardian, Feb 12, 2015 

Jean-Pascal Van Ypersal, the Belgian deputy vice president of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told AFP: "I am optimistic. We will have an accord in Paris."

But the goal of limiting the global temperature increase to just two degrees Celsius remains elusive, and Van Ypersal said it appeared the world is not ready to do what is needed to deliver that essential target.

"A deal in Paris will at least allow us to continue the work, but I fear time is passing and we have to make decisions by consensus," he said.

"I do not think today that we have the consensus to aim higher."

Limited climate change accord likely in Paris: IPCC expert by John Spillmann, Phys.org, Feb 15, 2015 

SkS in the News

Dana's Guardian article, Fiddling with global warming conspiracy theories while Rome burns, is referenced and linked to by Graham Readfearn in his Planet Oz/Guardian post, Climate science denialists in tailspin over hottest years. 

In his Bad Astronmy/Slate post, No, Adjusting Temperature Measurements Is Not a Scandal, Phil Plait links to Kevin Cowtan Debunks Christopher Booker's Temperature Conspiracy Theory. 

Coming Soon on SkS

• NASA climate study warns of unprecedented North American drought (Dana)
• Do we have your attention yet? (Glenn Tamblyn)
• 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8A (John Hartz)
• Stanford professors urge withdrawal from fossil fuel investments (Suzanne Goldenberg)
• President Obama's Keystone Decision (John Abraham)
• Scientists discuss how strongly a warming Arctic is implicated in extreme weather (Robert McSweeney)
• 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #8B (John Hartz)
• 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #8 John Hartz)

Poster of the Week

SkS Week in Review

• 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7B by John Hartz
• Marotzke & Forster Respond to Nic Lewis by Ed Hawkins
• Why the Miocene Matters (and doesn’t) Today by howardlee
• Fiddling with global warming conspiracy theories while Rome burns by Dana
• 2015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #7A by John Hartz
• Global warming is causing more extreme storms by John Abraham
• A 23-year experiment finds surprising global warming impacts already underway by Dana
• 2015 SkS Weekly Digest #6  by Joh Hartz 

97 Hours of Consensus: Timothy Naish

Timothy Naish's bio page

Media Matters Posts about Environment & Science

• Fox News' Special Report Advances Debunked Claim That Climate Change Data Is "Cooked", Media Matters, Feb 10, 2015
• Climate Denial Food Chain: Conservative Media Run With Baseless Climate Science Conspiracy Theory, Research by Denise Robbins, Media Matters, Feb 10, 2015