Breath of Fresh Air,

Contrary to popular belief, a conventional diesel car may be more fuel efficient under real world conditions than a petrol-electric hybrid. That's the main finding of Which? Car in a new study.

http://uk.cars.yahoo.com/06052011/36/diesel-efficient-hybrid-0.html

A program on Radio 4 at lunch time yesterday looked at using ground source heat pumps to deliver home heating, very interesting program the example property used was a six bedroom detached property with a swimming pool, hyprocracy central!

Lean has a piece in this morning's DT about the UK's heath fires. And as far as I can see he manages to get through it without a single reference to global warming! This must be a first. He does say that April was the hottest on record but I am prepared to believe him on that.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthcomment/geoffrey-lean/8499192/Forest-fires-Britain-bursts-into-flames.html
It seems that as usual his commenters haven't bothered reading what he wrote since they are straight into the attack on him as a "warmist". Does the sceptic cause no end of good! Not!

Australian FOI law keeps secret the construction of New Zealand seven station temperature series
May 7th, 2011 by Warwick Hughes

link

There is also an ongoing FOI request from NZ to get basically the same information. This has also been declined and is with the ombudsman.

Guardian pushing electric (coal) cars as green, once you read it the green curtain falls down very rapidly.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/green-living-blog/2011/may/06/electric-car

This bloke has had 4 cars in 5 years and has even had 3 cars at the same time.
And this is what they call green living?

Giving money to developing countries to fight Climate Change is not all its cracked up to be.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/04/mexico-climate-aid-carbon

"We have had problems monitoring the use of these funds, because not all of the information is available to the public. There is no process for identifying the outcomes of these projects. We want to know where these resources ended up," Andrés Pirazzoli, an attorney from the Interamerican Association for Environmental Defense (AIDA), told Tierramérica.

Opps but highly predictable (well easier than a MET Office seasonal weather forecast !!!)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9475000/9475712.stm
This was on the today prog on radio 4... caught it on the way to work... Brendan O'Neill of spiked manages to disrupt the early morning misanthropy:
How many people can the world support?
Arch Malthusian Roger Martin of Population Matters calmly vomits the repugnant population control measures required and manages to slip in climate change, co2 and unsustainable consumptive activities as the evil culprits. In a bizarre twist to proceedings, Martin managed to label O'Neill as the loony Marxist [2.40], as if painting anti-capitalist revolutionary socialism as immoral was the norm for the bbc.

WWF are at it, just seen their TV add asking to save the Lemur Leopard, one of the reasons given for their low numbers is harse winters.

But when you go to their website you find that their natural habitat is Russia and the harsh winters are normal.

http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/amurleopard/amurleopard.html

Funny how they support the fight against Global warming but will also grab any handy reason for money evn its at odds with their beliefs.

I have just meandered the 200 metres to our rural mailbox here in South Island, New Zealand, and was most gratified to find my long-awaited copy of The Hockey Stick Illusion resting therein.

Looking forward to a good read, Andrew; I am sure it will live up to expectations.

If you don't hear from me for a while - you know where I am :)

Judith Curry has a good discussion going on the Monbiot Guardian essay of May 1. See

judithcurry.com/2011/05/04/monbiot-on-environmental-fixes/#more-3152

With no trace of embarrassment or self-awareness the Non Scientist is reporting a Royal Soc Proc B paper about giant thermophile ants crossing into the American continent by a "tropical Arctic" land bridge 50m years ago. How did the earth survive?

The abstract is here http://tinyurl.com/3wksnzu