The IPCC – over salting the dish, in parts

The Inter Academy Council (IAC) has published its review of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s work. The review has found that most of the IPCC’s work is of a very high standard (although this has somehow translated into “Climate Fraud” headlines by a news hungry August press) but that more rigorous review is required [...]

The sun has got his hat on

The activity of the sun, after a long period of low activity, is getting higher. This means that the planet upon which we leave is subjected to more solar irradiance than normal. Solar irradiance is changing both as an overall amount and of ultraviolet irradiance. Our planet will receive more solar energetic particles and fewer [...]

Will Clarence House feed the grid?

The British Royal family will be installing photovoltaic panels at Clarence House, in London. Clarence House is one of the many large palaces maintained for the Royal family and its size and nature means that its maintenance must require a great deal of energy. The Prince of Wales lives there with his wife, in the [...]

Brazil’s proposed dam at Belo Monte

Brazil has been thinking of building a dam across a northern tributary of the Amazon on the Xingu River, close to a place called Belo Monte and also close to where the Jurinia people of Paquicamba live. There has been a tortuous legal process which has been followed in Brazil but now the appeals have [...]

Taking the wrong path

Whichever way you look at the problem of global warming you have to conclude that the human influence is significant and substantial. It is perfectly possible that there are many influences that are making the climate warmer – I have written about virtually all of them on these pages and the list has ranged from [...]

A modern mask of anarchy

I like poetry, but I am not particularly fond of the Romantic Poets or of one of their most famous people Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelly lived for only thirty years, dying fashionably young. He wrote one poem called the Mask of Anarchy about the Peterloo Massacre, in Manchester. The poem speaks against those that Shelly [...]

Summer has almost gone

It is late August and this is usually a quiet time for people in Europe. This is the season for holidays, including public holidays. Most politicians are on holiday and those left behind to mind the shop are enjoying a quiet life. The newspapers seem weary and even the radio and television journalists have lost [...]

Changes to Energy Performance Certificates

If you wish to sell your home in the European Union you must first commission an Energy Performance Report. Home Information Packs were one of the first things that the coalition government abolished when they came to power in may, but Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) still remain. There are now going to be new regulations [...]

Kicking the environment in the teeth

Andrew Warren, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, has discovered, using the Freedom of Information Act, a scandal of an arbitrary decision by then Housing Minister John Healy, concerning parts F and L of the Building Regulations. It is a complicated scandal so bear with me while I explain.

Global warming weather

In China after weeks of heavy rain, exceptionally heavy rain, the River Yalu, close to the Korean border, has burst its banks. Half a million people have so far been moved from their homes and already 1500 souls have perished in the flooding. The levels of rainfall are unprecedented.