Who pays the piper?

The scientists behind the CLOUD experiment have been in a battle for over a decade to continue and publish the results of the project due to their state-funded position. Jasper Kirby, a CERN scientist, postulated back in 1998 that the cosmic ray theory would "probably be able to account for somewhere between a half and the whole of the increase in the Earth’s temperature that we have seen in the last century." This admittance of a hypothetical alternative to anthropogenic theories was apparently a step too far for global warming activists who pressured the Western governments that control CERN's funding to suspend the project. It is only after a decade of negotiation that the project was allowed to continue, and even now it's results are being stifled by a need to placate political influences. As a result last week's CLOUD paper perhaps reveals more about the distortion of science by government intervention than it highlights any real scientific breakthrough.

Natural disasters (again) : Stoat

So the "not including earthquake" losses for 2011 are "only" ~$40B.

Early cold, snow drives out shepherds from mountains - The Times of India

MANALI: Inclement weather conditions on mountains have made the shepherds gather their flock and herd it towards the plains. Extreme cold and snowfall is driving them out of the higher reaches at this time of the year.

It’s already over for Global Warming | ScottishSceptic

For the last five years I’ve felt very isolated in my circle of friends. Global warming was not an easy subject and led to many arguments; it was best avoided. This weekend I was sitting with a group of (unrelated) people I’d known since a child, and the subject of wheat farming and weather forecasts came up and almost without prompting someone else mentioned their dislike of the politicisation at the Met Office, the way the forecasts were always wrong and their suspicion about what we are being told about global warming. And, then the rest of the company agreed with them.

None of these people had any financial interest in the subject, they were all educated in science at leading Universities, but they are not only questioning the assertions of global warming, they were actively sceptical.

To say I was shocked was an understatement. In many other ways this is a very pro-environment group.