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"2009 ended with a flurry of important events on the climate-change front. In November, the Climategate scandal broke. An anonymous whistle-blower released over 1,000 e-mails from key scientists (both British and American) in the alarmist climate-change camp. The e-mails revealed a shocking pattern of the abuse of science by both American and British scientists collaborating at the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University the source of various global-warming studies that have formed the alleged scientific justification for capping human CO2 emissions. E. Calvin Beisner wrote that the e-mails showed: serious scientific malfeasance the fabrication, corruption, destruction, hiding, and cherry-picking of data as well as intimidation of dissenting scientists and journal editors and efforts to evade disclosure under Freedom of Information Laws in the United Kingdom and the United States. James Delingpoles blog found Conspiracy, collusion manipulation of data, private admissions of flaws in their public claims and much more. The incriminating e-mails were followed in December by charges from Russia's Institute of Economic Analysis that Britain's Meteorological Office deliberately skewed Russia's temperature data. With the underlying climate-change science so thoroughly compromised, did policymakers pause to reconsider the need for colossally expensive CO2-curbing policies? No. Instead they are locked into automatic-pilot mode. In the United States, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) dismissed Climategates revelations as irrelevant and continued to push her expensive cap-and-trade proposal (potential cost: trillions of dollars; potential climate impact according to its own proponents: a few hundredths of a degree). Internationally, last month's U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen ignored it. The delegates didn't skip a beat in pursuing a multi-trillion-dollar transfer of wealth from developed to undeveloped countries. Could it be that climate-change politics is more a

"Now that Copenhagen is past history, what is the next step in the man-made global warming controversy? Without question, there should be an immediate and thorough investigation of the scientific debauchery revealed by "Climategate." If you have not heard, hackers penetrated the computers of the Climate Research Unit, or CRU, of the United Kingdom's University of East Anglia, exposing thousands of e-mails and other documents. CRU is one of the top climate research centers in the world. Many of the exchanges were between top mainstream climate scientists in Britain and the U.S. who are closely associated with the authoritative (albeit controversial) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Among the more troubling revelations were data adjustments enhancing the perception that man is causing global warming through the release of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other atmospheric greenhouse gases. Particularly disturbing was the way the core IPCC scientists (the believers) marginalized the skeptics of the theory that man-made global warming is large and potentially catastrophic. The e-mails document that the attack on the skeptics was twofold. First, the believers gained control of the main climate-profession journals. This allowed them to block publication of papers written by the skeptics and prohibit unfriendly peer review of their own papers. Second, the skeptics were demonized through false labeling and false accusations. Climate alarmists would like you to believe the science has been settled and all respectable atmospheric scientists support their position. The believers also would like you to believe the skeptics are involved only because of the support of Big Oil and that they are few in number with minimal qualifications."

"Call it the mystery of the missing thermometers. Two months after "climategate" cast doubt on some of the science behind global warming, new questions are being raised about the reliability of a key temperature database, used by the United Nations and climate change scientists as proof of recent planetary warming. Two American researchers allege that U.S. government scientists have skewed global temperature trends by ignoring readings from thousands of local weather stations around the world, particularly those in colder altitudes and more northerly latitudes, such as Canada. In the 1970s, nearly 600 Canadian weather stations fed surface temperature readings into a global database assembled by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, NOAA only collects data from 35 stations across Canada. Worse, only one station -- at Eureka on Ellesmere Island -- is now used by NOAA as a temperature gauge for all Canadian territory above the Arctic Circle. The Canadian government, meanwhile, operates 1,400 surface weather stations across the country, and more than 100 above the Arctic Circle, according to Environment Canada. Yet as American researchers Joseph D'Aleo, a meteorologist, and E. Michael Smith, a computer programmer, point out in a study published on the website of the Science and Public Policy Institute, NOAA uses "just one thermometer [for measuring] everything north of latitude 65 degrees." Both the authors, and the institute, are well-known in climate-change circles for their skepticism about the threat of global warming. Mr. D'Aleo and Mr. Smith say NOAA and another U.S. agency, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have not only reduced the total number of Canadian weather stations in the database, but have "cherry picked" the ones that remain by choosing sites in relatively warmer places, including more southerly locations, or sites closer to airports, cities or the sea -- which has a warming ef

"Living in tree houses and eating from skips, for 4 years activists have occupied Bilston Wood near Edinburgh to stop it being destroyed by a new road."

"World Health Organization Director-General Margaret Chan says she is disappointed a deal on climate change was not struck in Copenhagen. But she says important steps were taken that, she believes, will ultimately result in an agreement to stop or retard climate change. She says the relationship between climate change and health is obvious. For example, she says millions of people will suffer from either too much water or too little water under climate change. Chan says extensive flooding may lead to loss of life from drowning and disease. She says contaminated floodwaters can cause fatal illnesses, such as diarrhea and cholera. On the other hand, she says some areas will have too little water and prolonged drought will affect the kind of crops people normally grow. "The prediction is that in the next 20 years to 30 years, if the situation continues to get worse, the productivity from the agricultural sector and from subsistence farming in Africa, the production would reduce by as much as 50 percent," she said. "If there is any truth to that, can you imagine the impact on hunger, on acute and chronic malnutrition?" Scientists say the warming of the planet will be gradual, but that extreme weather events will increase in frequency and intensity. They say the effects of more storms, floods, droughts and heat waves will be abrupt and profound. The World Health Organization says the effects of so-called climate-sensitive diseases already are killing millions of people. WHO reports more than three-and-a-half million people die every year from malnutrition-related causes. It says diarrhea-related diseases kill nearly two million people and almost one million die from malaria."

Jan. 2 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. East Coast faces the coldest night of the season as frigid air spills south and threatens agriculture in Georgia, Alabama and the orange crop in Florida. Freeze warnings were posted by the National Weather Service as far south as the Orlando area, which may be as many as 20 degrees below normal tonight, the National Weather Service said. The advisory alerts growers that subfreezing temperatures are imminent and may kill crops or other sensitive vegetation. Tampa and others cities in the central part of the state are under a freeze warning from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. local time tomorrow. Temperatures may fall below 32 degrees Fahrenheit (zero Celsius) for more than three consecutive hours, the National Weather Service in Tampa said on its Web site. "This is a pretty significant cold snap," Matt Keefe, a meteorologist with AccuWeather.com Inc. in State College, Pennsylvania, said in a telephone interview. "This could really put a hurting on the citrus crop." He said the jet stream, which normally keeps the coldest air north of the Hudson Bay in Canada, is centered over parts of Alabama and Mississippi. "The cold temperatures could last for a good part of the week," he said. Jacksonville, Florida, may see a record low tonight, Keefe said. The Miami area will see temperatures 12 degrees to 13 degrees below normal for this time of year, Keefe said. Tonight will be the coldest and offer the greatest danger of crop damage, Keefe said. The next chance for freezing will come next week.

"The world could be in for a spell of cooler temperatures, rather than hotter conditions, as a result of cyclical changes in ocean currents for the next 20 or 30 years, it is predicted. Research by Professor Mojib Latif, one of the world's leading climate modellers, questions the widely held view that global temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years. Pen Hadow climate change trek makes it less than half way to North Pole But Prof Latif, of the Leibniz Institute at Germany's Kiel University and an author for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), believes that the cool spell will only be a temporary interruption to climate change. He told a UN conference in September that changes in ocean currents known as North Atlantic Oscillation could dominate over man-made global warming for the next few decades. Controversially, he also said that the fluctuations could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years. Prof Latif told one newspaper at the weekend: "A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles - perhaps as much as 50 per cent. "

"It has been a bleak winter for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The credibility of the UN body came under attack days before the opening of the Copenhagen climate summit in December, when leaked e-mails from the University of East Anglia appeared to show manipulation of temperature data used by the panel. Rajendra Pachauri, the IPCC chairman, was forced to spend much of his time at the conference defending the integrity of the science contained in the panel's reports. Now it has been forced to apologise for including a highly alarmist claim in its most recent report that Himalayan glaciers were very likely to vanish by 2035. Most glaciologists believe the melting would take hundreds of years and some doubt that it will ever happen, pointing to evidence of glaciers advancing in the neighbouring Karakoram mountain range. The IPCC reports underpin every country's decisions about climate change. If the panel cannot be trusted, it becomes much more difficult to justify the global effort to cut greenhouse gases. That is why it is vital to place the allegations against the IPCC in context. While it is alarming that none of the 2,500 scientists who contributed to its 2007 report spotted the error, this is explained partly by it appearing in a single sentence on page 493. Climate sceptics around the world have spent two years scrutinising every claim made by the panel. So far they have identified one serious error; it seems unlikely that they will find many more. The IPCC should now re-check all the sources of statements in its report, but this process will not alter its conclusion that man-made emissions are very likely to be the main cause of global warming. "

"BRUSSELS - Stunned by having been sidelined in the endgame of the Copenhagen world climate summit meeting, the European Union is debating how to regain influence in the fight against global warming. Should the E.U., the world's largest trading bloc and economic area, respond to the policy setback and the diplomatic humiliation of the bare-minimum Copenhagen accord by playing Mr. Nice, Mr. Nasty, Mr. Persistent or Mr. Pragmatic? The first two options - setting a more ambitious example to others, or threatening climate laggards with carbon tariffs - are tempting gestures, and each has its supporters. But when the dust settles, the 27 E.U. governments are likely to stick to their carbon-emissions reduction strategy while becoming more pragmatic about working outside the United Nations framework to achieve progress, experts say. The E.U. went to the U.N. negotiations in Copenhagen last month seeking a legally binding agreement to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, which are blamed for increasingly warming the planet, with precise reduction targets that would have been subject to international monitoring and enforcement. Despite warning signs that their goals were unrealistic, the Europeans hoped to convert the rest of the world to their own model of supranational governance."

"A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it. Two years ago the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a benchmark report that was claimed to incorporate the latest and most detailed research into the impact of global warming. A central claim was the world's glaciers were melting so fast that those in the Himalayas could vanish by 2035. In the past few days the scientists behind the warning have admitted that it was based on a news story in the New Scientist, a popular science journal, published eight years before the IPCC's 2007 report. It has also emerged that the New Scientist report was itself based on a short telephone interview with Syed Hasnain, a little-known Indian scientist then based at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. Related Internet Links * Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on Himalayan glaciers * How New Scientist reported the row Related Links * Global warming blamed for rise in malaria * Experts clash over sea-rise 'apocalypse' Hasnain has since admitted that the claim was "speculation" and was not supported by any formal research. If confirmed it would be one of the most serious failures yet seen in climate research. The IPCC was set up precisely to ensure that world leaders had the best possible scientific advice on climate change. "

"California's only remaining A-level credit grade from a major rating firm is in greater danger as the state's budget woes deepen yet again. Standard & Poor's on Wednesday cut its rating on California's $64 billion in general-obligation debt to A-minus from A and warned that the outlook was "negative," meaning another reduction could loom. S&P cited new concerns about the state's finances, including a possible cash shortage "if the state's revenue and spending trajectories continue." Scrambling to close a $20-billion budget gap, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed a number of one-time fixes - including having the federal government contribute nearly $7 billion in new aid. Yet the state's chief budget analyst believes the odds of getting that much help from the U.S. are "almost nonexistent.""

"PARIS (Reuters) - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday proposed setting up a group of 28 countries to guide global negotiations on climate change and avoid a repetition of last year's chaotic talks in Copenhagen. In a New Year address to the diplomatic community, Sarkozy said United Nations climate negotiations in Copenhagen in December had failed because of the huge number of countries involved in preparing the accord. "The main lesson from Copenhagen is that you can't negotiate in a round of 192," Sarkozy said, arguing that national leaders had arrived in the Danish capital to sign the accord only to find an illegible text full of disputed clauses. He proposed forming a "balanced, representative" group of 28 countries that would provide ideas and prepare for the next round of negotiations in Cancun. He did not name any of the proposed participants. "The wisest option would be to pursue a twin strategy -- talks among the 192, as that involves the whole international community, and among ministers and sherpas from the Group of 28," he said. Sarkozy said he wanted the Group of 28 to hold monthly meetings, starting in March, in New York or Bonn. Last month's Copenhagen talks ended with a bare-minimum agreement when delegates "noted" a deal struck by the United States, China and other emerging powers that fell short of the conference's original goals. Mexico will host the next talks in Cancun in November/December, building on the Copenhagen deal which seeks to limit the rise in temperature to 2 Celsius above the average recorded in pre-industrial times. The Copenhagen accord did not spell out how to achieve that goal."