Leading climate change scientists have been caught out again – first, it was revealed that their claims that catastrophic melting of some glaciers would see them disappear by 2010 were based on speculation not fact; Now it has been revealed that their claim that rising temperatures has been causing an increased number of natural disasters is also not hard science.

The IPCC made a statement in 2007 claiming that rising temperatures were causing a larger number of natural disasters – such as hurricanes and floods. It has now emerged that the unpublished report on which they based their statement had not actually been peer-reviewed.  Read more... (149 words, estimated 36 secs reading time)

Claims by the world’s leading climate scientists that most of the Himalayan glaciers will vanish within 25 years have been exposed as total nonsense.

The alarming warning was issued two years ago in a highly influential report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). At the time the IPCC claimed that the report contained the latest and most detailed evidence yet of the risks of man-made climate change to the planet.

However the experts behind the claim have now admitted that their warning was not actually based on hard science and was in fact based on a telephone chat with another scientist who has since admitted that it was pure speculation.  Read more... (223 words, 1 image, estimated 54 secs reading time)

The Copenhagen climate change talks are hailed as the summit that will help save the earth however researchers have estimated that the bill for the 12 day talks will be over £130 million and will produce more greenhouse gasses that a whole African country.

Over 15,000 delegates and 45,000 green activists are expected to visit Copenhagen for the climate change talks along with 100 world leaders and over 5,000 journalists. The UN has confirmed that the travel arrangements (including flights, rail and bus travel) couple with the meals served will generate over 41,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide over the meetings. This figure is more than Afghanistan, Malawi or Sierra Leone will produce over the same time period.  Read more... (235 words, 1 image, estimated 56 secs reading time)

When it comes to green and environmental issues, airports and aeroplanes are usually seen as the villain of the piece. However new research shows that in terms of carbon emissions, the sector may not be so bad after all.

American researchers have found that the US health sector is responsible for nearly a tenth of the country’s carbon emissions – almost three times the amount of carbon that the airline industry pumps out. Despite this disparity, the health care sector hardly ever gets flack for it’s less-than-green credentials whilst the airline industry seems to have more than it’s fair share of criticism.  Read more... (220 words, 1 image, estimated 53 secs reading time)

Climate change has had the finger pointed at it for shrinking sheep.

Soay sheep live on the island of Hirta, in the St Kilda archipelago, roaming free without any human interference. For the past five decades, they have been studied closely. One of the most puzzling aspects of the study is the fact that the average sheep size has shrunk in the past 20 years. Usually natural selection would look for larger sheep as smaller sheep may not survive hard winters and therefore not be able to reproduce, so the fact that the sheeps’ size has actually reduced has puzzled scientists.  Read more... (250 words, estimated 1:00 mins reading time)

Climate change is a contentious issue and it appears that yet another argument has broken out over the topic – this time, over whether the warming planet will in fact help to spread disease or not.

Proponents of the theory claim that the rise in global temperatures will help to spread more disease. An example of this is malaria. Warmer temperatures may help mosquitoes carrying the disease to spread to new areas.  Read more... (227 words, estimated 54 secs reading time)