Penn State President Fired « Climate Audit

It’s hard not to transpose the conclusions of the Penn State Climategate “investigation” into Penn State’s attitude towards misconduct charges in their profitable football program:

...Spanier planned to introduce Michael Mann at an invited lecture next February. I guess that someone else will make the introduction.

Spanier was fired not because of any personal role in the Sandusky football scandal, but because of negligence on his part in ensuring that the allegations were properly investigated. This was not the only case in which Spanier failed to ensure proper investigation of misconduct allegations. As noted above, Spanier had falsely reported to the Penn State trustees and the public that the Penn State Inquiry Committee had properly interviewed critics and had examined the Climategate documents and issues “from all sides”.

Parks Chief Blocked Plan for Grand Canyon Bottle Ban - NYTimes.com

Weary of plastic litter, Grand Canyon National Park officials were in the final stages of imposing a ban on the sale of disposable water bottles in the Grand Canyon late last year when the nation’s parks chief abruptly blocked the plan after conversations with Coca-Cola, a major donor to the National Park Foundation.

seMissourian.com: State News: Climate scientist: Missouri in for another harsh winter (11/10/11)

Lupo said there will be an increase in the little-understood meteorological event known as "atmospheric blocking." Although the science behind blocking is still being research, he said it is known that a decrease in the activity of solar flares does contribute to an increase in blocking events.

Big freeze killed 25,000 older people - Prudential UK

Last year the big freeze killed 25,400 older people across the UK as many struggled to keep warm in the wintry conditions, it has been revealed.