[Professor of computer science: Let's go back to ignoring massive scientific fraud]

Some people have suggested that scientists need to wise up, and learn how to present themselves better on the public stage. Indeed, the Guardian published an editorial calling for the emergence of new leaders from the scientific community who can explain the science. This is naive and irresponsible. It completely ignores the nature of the current wave of attacks on scientists, and what motivates them. No scientist can be an effective communicator in a world where those with vested interests will do everything they can to destroy his or her reputation. The scientific community doesn’t have the resources to defend itself in this situation, and quite frankly it shouldn’t have to. What we really need is for newspaper editors, politicians, and business leaders to start acting responsibly, make the effort to understand what the science is saying, make the effort to understand what really driving these swiftboat-style attacks on scientists, and then shift the discourse from endless dissection of scientists’ emails onto useful, substantive discussions of the policy choices we’re faced with.

EU Referendum: Huge parallels

As we now know, the discrepancy between the estimate of the numbers of people who would die from flu and the reality was dramatic. In the United Kingdom, the Department of Health initially announced that around 65,000 deaths were to be expected.

By the start of 2010, this estimate was downgraded to only 1,000 fatalities. By January 2010, fewer than 5,000 persons had been registered as having caught the disease and about 360 deaths had been noted.

It cannot be stated often enough, or with sufficient emphasis, that we have been there before. This is exactly a parallel with the salmonella and BSE scares – the latter with the 500,000 deaths a year forecast, with senior medical officers and "scientists" solemnly pronouncing that we were all in mortal peril.

And, of course, the media lapped it up, giving short-shrift to the "sceptics" like myself, who said it wasn't happening, wasn't going to happen and that the "experts" were talking out of their backsides.

Here we are again with global warming – the same "consensus", the same certainty from a gang of so-called experts, the strident calls from the politicians and the media, all piling in to pronounce that we are all in mortal peril. But, with the lack of joined-up thinking that so profoundly affects papers like The Guardian, they cannot see the connections.

- Bishop Hill blog - On rainforest sensitivity

A few days reading of the literature is not enough to draw definitive conclusions, but it appears to me that Dr Lewis's position - that there is "ample evidence" that the Amazon will move to a lower rainfall regime is one that is at best debatable and may in fact not be a fair representation of the literature.

London Heathrow Expansion Axed by High Court Because of Climate Change [Fraud] | ecopolitology

Plans for a third runway at London Heathrow Airport have been torn up by the UK High Court because not enough consideration was given to impacts on climate change.