Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #194

The Week That Was: August 29, 2015 – Brought to You by www.SEPP.org
THIS WEEK: By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project

Divergence: It is summertime in the US, and temperatures are warmer. Several readers have asked TWTW for comments on the recent claims that July 2015 was the hottest month ever and similar announcements by certain US government entities, including branches of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). These entities are making strong public statements that the globe continues to warm, and the future is dire. A humorist could comment that the closer we are to the 21^st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP-21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to be held in Paris from November 30 to December 11, the hotter the globe becomes.

Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #184

The Week That Was: June 20, 2015 – Brought to You by www.SEPP.org

By Ken Haapala, President, Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP)

The Encyclical: Early in the week, an Italian newspaper leaked a version of the Pope Francis’ highly anticipated encyclical letter on the environment and climate change. After a flurry concerning the unauthorized release, a final document has been released, which is under review. [There is a bit of irony here because Galileo wrote his scientific works in “vulgar” Italian rather than “scientific” Latin.]

The Pope’s encyclical does not advance science. It offers no empirical evidence that 20^th century warming resulted from human carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (and other greenhouse gas emissions). The primary, critical hypothesis needed to be tested is that CO2 emissions are causing dangerous global warming, now called climate change. The pope’s advisors do not advance empirical evidence supporting the hypothesis. The failure of the globe to warm is more than sufficient evidence that there are problems with the hypothesis. Local and regional climate change from land use changes are a secondary issues.