Update On Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn Litigation

The tortured history of this case very well illustrates the difficulty of trying to strike a good balance between, on the one hand, having libel law as a mechanism for people to defend themselves against false statements that could ruin their reputations and, on the other hand, having a wildly expensive litigation process that can be wielded as a weapon by the powerful to threaten to bankrupt political opponents and thereby silence debate on important topics of public interest.…

Cherry Picking Real Cherries

Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach Now that the cherry trees have bloomed in Kyoto this year, I’ve been seeing people claiming that the cherry blossoming record shows the dreaded “Climate……

A pertinent climate question

How much of a change in cloudiness would it take to account for the 0.53 W/m2 increase in TOA radiative forcing since 2003?…

Stellar eggs near galactic center hatching into baby stars

Astronomers found a number of stellar eggs containing baby stars around the center of the Milky Way using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Previous studies had suggested that the environment there is too harsh to form stars. These findings indicate that star formation is more resilient than researchers thought.…

UK government scraps green homes grant after six months

The abandonment of the £1.5bn programme, which offered households grants of up to £5,000 or £10,000 to put in insulation or low-carbon heating, leaves the UK without a plan for tackling one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions.…