COP17: Durban delusions - On Line Opinion - 12/12/2011

Someone somewhere in the UN is apparently an expert on "stable" climates and knows how to conjure them into existence. Where are you? Is it a state that - like Goldilocks's porridge – is just right for the planet's 7,000 million inhabitants? If so, perhaps you can divulge how you will guarantee rain always will come exactly on time; crops will never fail, and climate change will be forever optimal and beneficial for everyone.

Climate change conference: Durban deal gives the world a chance - Telegraph

The new agreement is to be forged by 2015 and the allies hope that its unprecedented prospect – and provisions, once negotiated – will persuade investors to switch to low-carbon technologies even before it comes into force.

- Bishop Hill blog - Icy news

The loss of a million sqkm of extent seems plausible to me - I look at the Cryosphere Today global sea ice area graph occasionally, and while this is currently at around zero, it has been around the minus 1-2 msqkm mark in recent years (about 4-5%). This seems to me to be a decidedly unscary kind of figure.

Santa Baby, Bring Me Coal - Katie Kieffer - Townhall Conservative

Americans get almost half of their electricity from coal. I think coal is a wonderful source of energy and we need to continue producing it.

Frozen Planet: David Attenborough stumbles on the melting ice - Telegraph

Beyond a vaguely uneasy feeling that climate change around the poles might be important and dangerous, the programme had no message.