100 articles from Carbon Brief between March 2012 and July 2012

July 2012

• Onshore wind subsidies spared with 10% cut, as DECC also announces gas power has a ‘key role’ beyond 2030
• The Carbon Briefing: Do the UK’s green taxes make its industry uncompetitive?
• Energy cold war goes hot
• At a glance: Key criticisms of UK draft energy bill in Select Committee report
• Energy efficiency: policies need reform, but the UK still outperforms other countries
• Daily Mail attributes the entire cost of upgrading the UK energy system to “wind farm pylons”
• ‘You can’t absolutely prove, can you, that CO2 is responsible for global warming?’ The Today programme out of its depth on climate science
• Old study – same error: The Mail is still wrong about Asian glaciers
• Is the washout summer proof of climate change? Could Radio 5 have made a worse programme?
• Why does it always rain on me? The British media talk weather and climate change
• Does more carbon dioxide mean more forests? And is this all good? Not quite.
• Fox News: It’s not OK to link extreme weather to global warming (unless we do it)
• DECC polling shows people still worried about energy bills, support renewable energy
• Everything you wanted to know about CCS (but were afraid to ask)
• Does the BBC really have to keep presenting climate science as ‘believers’ versus ‘skeptics’?
• Wiltshire’s wind regulation: blowing evidence-based policymaking out of the window
• Unseasonal summer doesn’t make climate models wrong

June 2012

• We need proper research into the climate impacts of shale gas, says Royal Society, as the Committee on Climate Change warns over emissions from gas
• The Register reports climate poll inaccurately
• The Guardian jumps the gun on record June sea ice melt
• Scientists respond to the Register on Antarctic ice shelf melt: ‘This is the equivalent of turning the statement “the cancer is not as bad as we thought” into “you don’t have cancer”.’
• Enthusiastic climate science communicator? Come and work with us
• Cutting methane emissions could give us an extra decade to deal with climate change
• Why are new estimates of emissions from tropical deforestation lower?
• Has the law caught up with science in North Carolina?
• Polling indicates belief in climate change has risen – so why does the Sunday Times describe it as ‘cooling off’?
• Confidential House of Commons research on renewables and fuel poverty makes it into the Sunday Telegraph
• More work needed to find and develop new energy technologies
• Stick to the data on shale gas, say experts, as climate change takes a back seat
• Nine climate change pictures I really don’t need to see again
• Don’t like sea level rise projections? Make them illegal
• How much does onshore wind power cost?
• AR5’s coming – get busy: why scientists must get better at communicating uncertainty
• The Future of Climate Projections
• The anatomy of a WSJ article on “Europe’s Green Energy Suicide”
• Algae under Arctic sea ice – ‘certainly not going to solve our CO2 problem’
• Can climate change cause earthquakes? We look at the science and the spin
• If George Osborne reduces subsidies for onshore wind, what will it mean for 2020 renewable energy targets?
• A couple of changes to our comment policy
• Three-quarters of Arctic sea ice lost in 30 years? We check.
• When it comes to Geoengineering, are you a Promethean?

May 2012

• Inaccuracy through two degrees of separation – Mail mangles science literacy findings by misreporting Fox
• How confident should we be..? A psychologist answers our question about his research
• Ed Davey’s defence of UK gas policy doesn’t give the full picture
• Another warming myth busted? Only in a Mail Online headline
• Fugitive emissions from shale gas: our Q&A
• Geeks form cliques too – why better scientific understanding doesn’t guarantee concern about climate change
• A high estimate for shale gas won’t solve our climate change woes
• Energy policy or the dark art of global cooling?
• £100 or £1000? The Times and the Telegraph interpret Energy Bill figures in very different ways
• Poking a complex system – Will the end of La Niña mean record temperature rise?
• Anti-wind lobby group criticises DECC’s projections on energy bills – is it right?
• Reaction to the draft energy bill – and the questions it raises
• Zombie statistics: £200 figure that won’t die lurches onto Today Programme
• Christopher Booker on climate science: comment and conjecture, but where are the facts?
• The Telegraph fumbles cost of carbon price floor to consumers
• Overstating climate findings – it’s just not helpful
• Americans get the most information about climate models from Rush Limbaugh
• Hail to the geeks!
• Report suggests need for certainty on business carbon reduction legislation
• Myths versus facts: the real deal on the Green Deal
• Ofgem figures show energy bills continue to rise rapidly
• Is climate change all just a recovery from the Little Ice Age?
• Video: How do climate models work
• Summer’s been a washout so far. Does that tell us anything about climate change?
• Booker short of the mark on greenhouse gas claims
• Telegraph muddle the numbers on electricity bills
• Mail Online “absolutely wrong” to infer global cooling from new research – but that doesn’t stop it warning of new ‘Ice Age’
• Reporting of Lord Smith’s views on shale gas misses the important caveats
• Latest Arctic sea ice science
• Glaciologists ride to the rescue: Greenland mistake corrected in peer-reviewed paper
• Shale gas needs CCS and emissions guarantee, says Environment Agency boss
• Global confidence in CCS wanes
• Study into Greenland’s speeding glaciers prompts yet more confusion
• Potential crunch coming for UK gas supplies – Ofgem CEO
• Wind turbine bites dog: Wind farms and global warming
• Creating a credible alternative: communicating climate change on the Right

April 2012

• Wind farms can affect local temperature – how the papers reported it
• Open access publishing and how science gets into the media
• David Cameron’s energy ‘remarks’ leave media to create their own narrative
• By the Mail’s reasoning, temperatures have “barely risen” – by 9 degrees
• Climate change: Lovelock changes his mind but the planet’s still warming
• Republican meteorologist on why climate change has “nothing to do with Al Gore”
• 1,000 trillion cubic feet of offshore shale gas? “Don’t believe the figures,” says geologist
• Puzzled by ‘global weirding’? Watch these videos
• Extreme weather leads to extremely different headlines
• How to write a Daily Mail article about climate change
• “Top Tories” buy into Mail’s mischaracterisation of the Green Deal
• Delving into the ‘great green myth’
• Ten thousand, ten percent or a green deal? More mangled numbers on the Mail’s conservatory tax
• Scientist Responds To Misleading Polar Bear Coverage
• Cosmic dust and Chinese whispers
• What does the Climate Change Committee advice on aviation and shipping mean in practice?
• “A disservice to the scientific method”: climate scientists take on Richard Lindzen
• Lessons in Newspeak: How to make a sociologist sound Orwellian
• Publish and be wrong: Daily Mail prints article even after scientist says it “misrepresents” his work
• Notes from a Small Island State: AOSIS negotiators on making the case for emissions reductions

March 2012

• UK emissions are down seven per cent – but DECC is missing something big
• Why would the “Godfather of Tory donations” fund the Global Warming Policy Foundation?
• Imports of gas to the UK outpaced domestic production in 2011, for the first time