Alaskan native groups among those suing over the fed. govts. designation of critical habitat for polar bears, because they're concerned about losing potential oil revenues if drilling is prevented:

Native groups sue over polar bear critical habitat

(Funny, that, I thought "Natives" were always the good guys and govts the bad guys when it comes to environmental matters ...)

Vatican's scientists back 'dodgy' UN climate change report that even the author admitted was WRONG
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article-1386596/Now-Vaticans-scientists-join-calls-action-climate-change.html

Good letter in the Graun today from Prof. Roger Kemp, which basically points out that the recommendations of the Committee on Climate Change, from an engineering perspective, amount to pie in the sky (though he does it much more politely):

"The CCC should be more upfront about the challenges it is creating."

(I suspect the CCC simply don't understand the challenges.)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/13/renewable-energy-engineering-challenge

Err,

'Look at these beautiful places threathened by CO2, you best fly out and see them quick before they dissappear'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/12/100-places-under-threat-global-warming

Hits forehead with palm DOH.

Millipede has not changed his spots.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/12/miliband-cameron-carbon-budget?intcmp=122

BoFA. I responded to the consultation (as did Piers Corbyn). They didn't like it that we both said the Met Office models had a warming bias. They also didn't like that we said private forecasters should be used in preference to the Met Office.

Can't believe our MP's have fallen for the con-job again. The MET Office should be given more money so they can improve their long range forecasting.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/snow-report-urges-met-office-cash-2282955.html

Best comment so far, expect lots more corkers !!!!

More Money for the Met Office? Gercha!

Bung a few quid to Piers Corbyn and you'd get a better result.

That, or buy Julia Wossname a new bunch of seaweed to hang on the off-switch of that planet-warming superdupercomputer of hers.

Here we go again....

Human influence comes of age

Geologists debate epoch to mark effects of Homo sapiens.

Nicola Jones

Humanity's profound impact on this planet is hard to deny, but is it big enough to merit its own geological epoch? This is the question facing geoscientists gathered in London this week to debate the validity and definition of the 'Anthropocene', a proposed new epoch characterized by human effects on the geological record.

"We are in the process of formalizing it," says Michael Ellis, head of the climate-change programme of the British Geological Survey in Nottingham, who coordinated the 11 May meeting. He and others hope that adopting the term will shift the thinking of policy-makers. "It should remind them of the global and significant impact that humans have," says Ellis.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110511/full/473133a.html

Anthropocene: Have humans created a new geological age?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13335683

"Dr Jan Zalasiewicz of the University of Leicester is one of the leading proponents of the Anthropocene theory. He told BBC News: "Simply put, our planet no longer functions in the way that it once did. Atmosphere, climate, oceans, ecosystems… they're all now operating outside Holocene norms. This strongly suggests we've crossed an epoch boundary."

As might be expected from the group think on a Nature sponsored blog (Soapbox Science)
http://blogs.nature.com/soapbox_science/2011/05/11/risk-perception

Harvard instructor in risk analysis (formerly a journalist), David Ropeik, tells us:

"We worry about some things more than the evidence warrants (vaccines, nuclear radiation, genetically modified food), and less about some threats than the evidence warns (climate change, obesity, using our mobiles when we drive). That produces what I have labeled The Perception Gap, the gap between our fears and the facts, which is a huge risk in and of itself."

and then explains this in terms of Cultural Cognition & the dreaded "free market-fossil fuel status quo":

"Individualists prefer a society that maximizes the individual's control over his or her life. Communitarians prefer a society in which the collective group is more actively engaged in making the rules and solving society's problems (Individualists deny environmental problems like climate change because such problems require a 'we're all in this together' communal response. Communitarians see climate change as a huge threat in part because it requires a social response). Along the other continuum, Hierarchists prefer a society with rigid structure and class and a stable predictable status quo, while Egalitarians prefer a society that is more flexible, that allows more social and economic mobility, and is less constrained by 'the way it's always been'. (Hierarchists deny climate change because they fear the response means shaking up the free market-fossil fuel status quo. Shaking up the status quo is music to the ears of Egalitarians, who are therefore more likely to believe in climate change.)"

I'm not sure it's worth your trouble looking at the whole post (though it's not long).

BOFA

Thanks for the Indie link and pointer to comments there. A little more useful information in the Vesta bin. It all adds up.