The great global warming debate, Phase 2 - On Line Opinion - 15/5/2009

Hopefully future debate will be informed more by scientific evidence than convenient ideology, and here both scientists and media have a critical role to play as the science needs to be communicated much better.

There are growing signs that scientists are willing to speak out on these issues, which is an important development. In playing their usual limited role - to merely generate the science to inform debate undertaken by others - they just left the field open to the so-called sceptics who managed to convey the impression that the science was much less certain than it is.

Yesterday in parliament | Politics | guardian.co.uk

Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change secretary, was accused of making the "largest financial errors ever made by a minister".

Peter Lilley, the former Tory cabinet minister, said the Climate Change Act would now cost every single household about £20,000 and urged Miliband to make a statement to MPs.

Harman said she would raise the matter with Miliband.

Dispatch from an allegedly overheated world: Recession freezing out cold-weather baseball teams - mlb - SI.com

Even in boon times, weather has been a major problem for programs north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Most cold-weather programs start the first month of the season on costly road trips down South. It's often far from tropical when they return home, making it tough to generate local interest and revenue from fans unwilling to bundle up for spring baseball. All that puts a serious damper on recruiting, making it tough to lure top-notch prospects.

The numbers paint a chilling picture. Nebraska and Wichita State were the only schools in the North or Midwest to crack the top 20 in average home attendance in 2008, and Oregon State's national titles in 2006 and 2007 went against the grain in the College World Series, which has been dominated by warm-weather teams since the 1960s.

And another dispatch from an allegedly overheated world: Mechanical wind ease frost damage - 15/05/2009

He produces 100 tonnes of fruit a year, and hopes the new machine will protect it from frosts, which have destroyed whole crops.

"The damage that a frost does to a stone fruit crop can be devastating, even worse than a hail storm, and that is what has happened the last two years," he says.

"The cost of the machine is $23 000.

"In one morning last year, there was a $100,000 frost. If that happens again, it is paid for four times over."