ScienceBits

The I recently wrote an OpEd for the Epoch Times which tries to succinctly capture my main grievances with the global warming scare. Here is brought again with a few comments (and references) added at its end.

This paper made some waves in the Media recently. It is based on highly biased data selection, and therefore flawed to its bone. It shouldn't have passed refereeing.

An article interviewing me was removed yesterday from forbes. Instead, they published an article by Meteorologist Prof. Marshall Shepherd that claims that the sun has no effect on climate. That article, however, falls to the same pitfalls that pointed out on my blog yesterday.

Specifically, why is Shepherd’s arguments faulty? Although I addressed them yesterday, here they are brought again more explicitly and with figures.

A few days ago I was interviewed by Doron Levin, for an article to appear online on forbes.com. After having seen a draft (to make sure that I am quoted correctly), I told him good luck with getting it published, as I doubted it will. Why? Because a year ago I was interviewed by a reporter working for Bloomberg, while the cities of San Francisco and Oakland were deliberating a climate change lawsuit against Exxon-Mobil (which the latter won!), only to find out that their editorial board decided that it is inappropriate to publish an interview with a heretic like me. Doron’s reply was to assure me that Forbes’ current model of the publication online allows relative freedom with “relatively little interference from editors”. Yeah Sure.

Last week I had the opportunity to talk in front of the Environment committee of the German Bundestag. It was quite an interesting experience, and frankly, something I would have considered unlikely before receiving the invitation. It was in fact the first time a climate "skeptic" like myself appeared behind those doors in many years. 

Our new results published today in nature communications provide the last piece of a long studied puzzle. We finally found the actual physical mechanism linking between atmospheric ionization and the formation of cloud condensation nuclei. Thus, we now understand the complete physical picture linking solar activity and our galactic environment (which govern the flux of cosmic rays ionizing the atmosphere) to climate here on Earth though changes in the cloud characteristics.

Last week I participated in an interesting debate that was held at the Cambridge Union, the oldest debating club in the world (dating back to 1815. The invite was to be on the side opposing the proposition “This house would rather cool the planet than warm the economy”.

Although I think the phrasing of the question is problematic to begin with, since it assumes that “warming the economy” necessary would cool the climate, I should applaud the Cambridge Union for supporting free speech and allowing people on both side to voice their arguments, especially given how many on the alarmist side refuse to do so, claiming that there is nothing to debate anymore.

Here you will find my 10 minute summary of the main flaws plaguing the alarmist science.

Just over a week ago I received an interesting call from a science magazine reporter. He asked me what do I think about the recent discovery of the Quantum Electrodynamic (QED) produced vacuum birefringence around neutron stars. It was an interesting surprise as my colleague Jeremey Heyl at the University of British Columbia and I had what seemed to be a bizarre prediction back in around 1998, a prediction which seems to have been verified almost 2 decades later. So, what is the effect and what was measured?