Josh Oct 19, 2015 Blogs 
There's a new blog in the Climate blogosphere with a contributors list of: Alex Cull, Ian Woolley, Scepticus, dwestonfront, Paul Matthews, Geoff Chambers, Richard Drake, Barry Woods, and John Shade.
Add it to your blog roll - it sounds interesting already!
Check it out here
Bishop Hill Oct 19, 2015 Climate: solar Energy An announcement in Business Green
M and S, why do you do it? Are you believing that you are saving the planet, or merely encouraging your green customers to think how wonderful you are? Why are you involving children? (Don't answer that, I already know the answer).
Bishop Hill Oct 19, 2015 See Mikky 9.39am and TinyCO2 at 10. 18 am on Off
I heard McGlade (Chief Scientist to the United Nations Environment Programme) as well, and was duly appalled, especially when she said that people don't just go for solar or wind subsidies because of the money, but because there is a "sense of pride" that Britain could be at the forefront of renewable energy. What alarmed me was the (?inadvertent ) slip that the intention of the programme was " to transform the whole of society".
Whatever next- taking people to court because they don't agree with the "consensus"- and then re-educating them until they do?
The only bright spot, during the hour before and no doubt with a much smaller audience, but surprising neverthless, was the report of comments by Dominic Lawson, which said that most of the reports on the collapse of the steel industry had omitted to point out part played by increased government green policies leading to distortion of industrial energy prices.
TM
Bishop Hill Bishop Hill Oct 18, 2015 BBC Climate: Sceptics 
The Express has a report on Peter Lilley's letter to Lord Hall, which will no doubt be of interest to readers.
Peter Lilley, a long standing member of the energy and climate select committee, has made a formal complaint to director general Lord Hall after discovering that mandarins had issued an apology following claims he made that the effects of climate change were being exaggerated.
Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s ‘What’s the Point of The Met Office’, Mr Lilley stated that, while he “accepted the thesis that more CO2 in the atmosphere will marginally warm up the earth”, he questioned the assertion that global warming would be as dramatic as is being portrayed in some scientific circles.
You read it here first.
Bishop Hill Oct 18, 2015 Diary dates Sense About Science has an online Q&A on the subject of carbon capture and storage later this week.
The UK is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by 2050. Achieving this target will undoubtedly require a decreased reliance on the burning of fossil fuels. However, another question has been garnering more and more interest: is it possible to make coal and gas cleaner?
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology extracts the waste carbon dioxide from power plants before storing it deep below the earth’s surface. Supporters claim that CCS can capture 90% of the CO2 produced from burning coal and gas, while the IPCC has highlighted the considerable potential of CCS for mitigating greenhouse gas levels over the coming century.
But CCS certainly isn’t the finished article. Only a handful of CCS systems of commercial scale are currently in operation globally, and numerous projects have been scrapped in the last few years. Opponents argue that CCS is too costly, encourages fossil fuel burning, and diverts money away from other avenues of carbon mitigation. Some have also raised concerns over the reliability of the carbon stores: what happens if they leak?
To help make sense of carbon capture technologies we're hosting a live online Q&A on Thursday 22nd October 2015 between midday and 1pm. Our expert panel (Dr Niall MacDowell, Dr Clair Gough and Professor Colin Snape) will answer questions. How does CCS actually work? Will it ever be affordable? Is it safe to keep the captured CO2 underground?
If you want to ask a question then contact us via Twitter, @senseaboutsci using #energypanel, email us at energy@senseaboutscience.org or use our online form.
Bishop Hill Oct 16, 2015 Journals Royal Society 
There is a man that the Royal Society has chosen to honour not once but twice: first with a Wolfson Merit Award, and second with his own volume of their flagship journal. This post is about that man.
The man the Royal Society honoured not once but twice wrote a paper claiming that global warming sceptics believed that the moon landings were a hoax. This was despite the fact that his survey data had been collected at stridently anti-sceptic blogs. Worse, his data showed precisely the opposite of what he claimed (and leaving aside that only ten of his 1145 respondents believed in the moon hoax anyway). Yes really - the man the Royal Society honoured not once but twice wrote a paper the title of which was completely, utterly and obviously refuted by his own data. This is a man who lied about the participants in his survey, the people who had given their time for scientific research.
Josh Oct 15, 2015 GWPF Josh Patrick Moore
;)
Click image for larger version
Here are last night's cartoon notes from a superb GWPF Annual Lecture by Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace. You can read the lecture here.
The answer is, unequivocally, yes!
Bishop Hill Oct 15, 2015 Climate: Models 
Andrew Gettelmann and colleagues focus on sulfate aerosols and plug revised forcing figures into climate models to see if this can bridge the gap to the temperature records. Unfortunately the answer seems to be a pretty firm "no".
Sulfate aerosol emissions increase globally from 2000 to 2005, and then decrease slightly to 2010. Thus the change in anthropogenic sulfate induced net global radiative forcing is small over the period. Sulfate ACI might be a contributor to the spatial patterns of recent temperature forcing, but not to the global mean ‘hiatus’ itself.
Of course there is always the possibility - or likelihood - that the models just can't simulate the cloud-aerosol interactions properly. Nevertheless, if they do then another explanation for the pause has been ticked off and the mystery deepens.
Bishop Hill Climate change: Climate justice more vital than democracy
Title of new paper published in Nature
I can still remember the days when Nature magazine was about science.
Bishop Hill
Great minds...
Orac takes on @NatureNews for their propagation of quackery. Remeber when @Nature used to be a science magazine http://t.co/Vaq642LcCb
— David Colquhoun (@david_colquhoun) October 15, 2015
He gets all his best stuff from me. ;-)
Bishop Hill Oct 14, 2015 Books Civil liberties Climate: Sceptics ;)
France's top weatherman, Philippe Verdier has been suspended from work for publishing a book about climate change which suggests that the IPCC might be just a tad unreliable and more than a little politicised.
In his book, the author, who rejects the term "climate sceptic", notes "the many happy and positive consequences of global warming." It also highlights scientific uncertainty... [he] speaks of "manipulated science", "blinded media", "mercantile NGOs" and "religions in search of new creeds."
It will be Île du Diable for him then.
Bishop Hill Oct 14, 2015 Energy: gas Greens Labour Utility week is reporting that Joss Garman is going to move from the woolly-left IPPR to become head of policy for Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy and climate minister. Garman has come a long way since he organised mass-trespass and criminal damage at airports.
His stance on energy should provide everyone with plenty of entertainment. He is anti-nuclear, anti-coal and anti-gas, for example, leading one to wonder if Labour's policy on energy security is going to involve a great deal of finger-crossing.
He also has an eyebrow raising attitude to factual accuracy. Take for example this piece, about alleged risks of "explosions" under houses located near unconventional gas wells:
;)
Bishop Hill Oct 14, 2015 Energy: gas Greens 
Shale gas pioneers Cuadrilla have complained to the Charities Commission and the Advertising Standards Authority about the behaviour of Friends of the Earth, whose campaign of lies and disinformation about unconventional gas has been a favourite topic at BH.
The boss of fracking firm Cuadrilla is calling on the Charity Commission to put a stop to the “wilfully misleading” and “scaremongering” claims in fundraising material pumped out by FoE.
The Advertising Standards Authority is also being asked to block the claims.
My money would be on a wholesale rejection of the complaints, no matter how valid they might be. Blind adherence to the green faith is so ingrained in most of our institutions that I don't look to them for the truth or for justice.
Bishop Hill Oct 14, 2015 Royal Society 
In a move no doubt timed to coincide with the Paris climate conference, the Royal Society's Phil Trans A has decided to hand over a full issue to that pillar of scientific integrity Stefan Lewandowsky.
You can imagine the calibre of author that Lew has chosen to enlighten us. There's Naomi Oreskes. There's James Risbey of "let's just's make stuff up about climate sensitivity" fame. There's a guy from the Environmental Defense Fund. Quite the collection of rogues and an astonishing step for an allegedly scientific journal to take.
The willingness of academic institutions to stand behind wrongdoers is always a wonder to behold. Why do they do it?
Bishop Hill 
The BBC is reporting that Tim Yeo is going to sue the Sunday Times over its 2013 allegation that he was influence peddling for green companies.
I can't see this ending well.