Yvo de Boer's successor has big footprints to fill | John Vidal | Environment | guardian.co.uk

De Boer's successor's first tasks will be to keep the US aboard the negotiations and to clear up the vexed question of the legal status of the Copenhagen accord, the deal struck at Copenhagen by a small group but not endorsed by a majority of countries.

Get it right, and the new head of the UNFCCC will be celebrated as the man or woman who steered the whole world to a historic agreement that could save the planet from calamitous climate change. Get it wrong, and negotiations could be set back a decade.

Can hot water freeze faster than cold water?

The phenomenon that hot water may freeze faster than cold is often called the Mpemba effect. Because, no doubt, most readers are extremely skeptical at this point, we should begin by stating precisely what we mean by the Mpemba effect. We start with two containers of water, which are identical in shape, and which hold identical amounts of water. The only difference between the two is that the water in one is at a higher (uniform) temperature than the water in the other. Now we cool both containers, using the exact same cooling process for each container. Under some conditions the initially warmer water will freeze first. If this occurs, we have seen the Mpemba effect. Of course, the initially warmer water will not freeze before the initially cooler water for all initial conditions.

[While he's not a climatologist, he probably *has* been hit in the head by a lot of hockey pucks]

I think of our discussions at the NHL's Green Panel, and what did not happen in Copenhagen. I don't need Al Gore, the famous hockey stick temperature graph, or the IPCC to tell me what I can already see. The world is different, the climate is warming, and these changes are negatively affecting too many aspects of our lives.
...
• Mike Richter is a National Hockey League Hall of Fame goalie. He is a partner at a New York private equity firm and can be reached at iwantmypondbackgmail.com.

MSPs call for urgent cold weather payments | News | Farmers Guardian

Mr Thompson, Highlands and Islands MSP, said it was becoming increasingly clear many farmers were struggling to meet the unexpected costs of the harsh winter.

“The high levels of snow and ice have seen buildings damaged and roofs collapsed - damage that could not have been predicted and for which many farmers are uninsured.