From Houston Chronicle:

Today let’s look back a few years ago at U.S. tornado activity, when a record was set for most EF1 and stronger tornadoes in a 12-month period, from June 2010 to May 2011.

The website Think Progress wrote at the time:

In an email interview with ThinkProgress, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, one of the world’s top climate scientists, who has been exploring for years how greenhouse pollution influences extreme weather, said he believes that it is “irresponsible not to mention climate change” in the context of these extreme tornadoes.

…

Those who deny the threat of polluting our climate system are not to blame for its fury — but none of us can shirk our responsibility to end our interference with the weather.

Fast forward to today.

With a barrage of legal briefs, a coalition of business groups and Republican-leaning states are taking their fight against Obama administration climate change regulations to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other industry groups, along with states such as Texas and Virginia, have filed nine petitions in recent weeks asking the justices to review four U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations that are designed to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

If the court were to take up any one of the petitions, it would be the biggest environmental case since Massachusetts v. EPA, the landmark 2007 decision in which the justices ruled that carbon dioxide is a pollutant that could be regulated under the Clean Air Act.

One of the more fashionable concepts that one hears among people who regard themselves as environmentalists, is that the world would be much better off if only we could make the electric car mainstream. Without having engaged in any kind of systematic survey among serious thinkers on the environment, I certainly feel this is the case, although with a little digging, one can see that this is certainly not universally held to be the case, especially if one looks in the primary scientific literature.

A recent article in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, for example noted that China already has 100 million electric vehicles and that the health and climate benefits and deficits of these vehicles is decidedly mixed, particularly because of the high externalities associated with China's overwhelming dependence on coal power.

Environ. Sci. Technol., 2012, 46 (4), pp 2018–2024

The majority of these “vehicles” are, in fact, electric scooters, and their overall externalities are much lower than other electric cars, just as motorized scooters powered by gasoline have lower externalities than gasoline cars. 

For a growing number of Europeans, their continent’s global warming policies have forced them to decide whether to heat their homes or buy food. In short they must choose whether to “Heat or Eat,” which was the title of a talk by a British climate policy expert delivered in Calgary Tuesday. Benny Peiser, director of the non-partisan, not for profit Global Warming Policy Foundation, laid out in graphic terms how Europe’s climate policies have “failed.” “This is the biggest wealth transfer in the history of modern Europe — from the poor to the rich,” explained Peiser, who spoke to a crowd of 200 at the 10th annual Friends of Science luncheon.  --Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald, 15 May 2013

European companies’ competitiveness is hampered by unnecessary burdensome legislative instruments in climate, energy and environment and policymakers must rebalance industrial strategies towards manufacturing, BusinessEurope president Jürgen Thumann said in an interview with EurActiv. The European Business Summit (EBS) begins today (15 May). “European companies are suffering from the negative effects of green tape,” said Thumann, slamming the Commission for its inclination to develop ‘unnecessary burdensome legislative instruments in climate, energy and environment policies.’ --EurActiv, 15 May 2013

When you look at what’s going on in some of the world’s leading democracies today, with some institutions running rampantly out of control without oversight, we should not wonder why people in droves are losing faith and trust in government.

Government issues pamphlet identifying enemy skeptics

The latest example comes from the powerful German Ministry for Environment: Umweltbundesamt (UBA) with the release of its latest 123-page pamphlet titled: Und sie erwärmt sich doch…Was steckt hinter der Debatte um den Klimawandel (It is indeed warming…What’s behind the climate change debate?). In the brochure the Ministry insists the climate catastrophe is coming, and appeals to the public not to listen to skeptics.

In fact, the German government pamphlet specifically singles out and targets US and German skeptics, portraying them as “spreaders of half-truths and misinformation“. Welcome to open and tolerant debate in the Federal Republic of Germany!

You’ll recall that the UBA are the ones who recently admitted being baffled by the 15-year global temperature stagnation that has taken hold.

Paul O. helped me to possess an iPod Touch, because of my modest contributions to his Our Climate app. I have downloaded about 500 applications on the device and the new addition today is called Just Science. This free app occupies about 50 megabytes on your iDevice.

It was created by the Novim Group led by Michael Ditmore at UC Santa Barbara; the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature team led by Richard Muller belongs to the group.

The application does one thing only – it shows you a map of the globe with animated colorful maps showing how the temperature was changing between 1800 or so and today in various regions around stations that reported and on a monthly basis.

So it's really a mundane visualization of a single well-known public dataset. If you listen to this interview with Michael Ditmore, you will learn about a $40,000 award for the "best science app" from an unknown foundation.

The following are the latest journal reviews from CO2 Science magazine:

Editorial
Holocene Histories of Atmospheric CO2 Concentration and West Greenland Air Temperature: What we can learn from even a cursory glance at the data?

Storms of the Northern Hemisphere: Is there any temperature-related pattern that provides a clue as to when they are more frequent and fierce?

Changes in Global Precipitation Over Land in a Warming World: Does the climate of the earth become more variable as it warms, leading to greater extremes of wetness and dryness, as climate alarmists say it should?

[Note: The below is a longer and updated version of the article by Marc Morano that appeared on May 14, 2013 in Human Events.]

The level of carbon dioxide, a trace essential gas in the atmosphere that humans exhale from our mouths, has come very close to reaching the “symbolic” 400 parts per million (ppm) threshold in the atmosphere. Former Vice President Al Gore declared the 400 ppm level “A sad milestone. A call to action.”  New York times reporter Justin Gillis compared trace amounts of CO2 to “a tiny bit of arsenic or cobra venom” and warned that rising CO2 means “the fate of the earth hangs in the balance.” The New Yorker Magazine declared “Everything we use that emits carbon dioxide needs to be replaced with something that doesn’t.”  And a UK Guardian editorial declared “Swift political action can avert a carbon dioxide crisis.”

CCD Editor's note: During the Carboniferous Period 359-299 million years ago, atmospheric CO2 content was 800 ppm. The mean surface temperature during that time period was 0°C above today's modern level.

* * * * *

Carbon dioxide measurements in the Earth's atmosphere did not break the symbolic milestone of 400 parts per million at a Hawaiian observatory last week, according to a revised reading from the nation's climate observers.

Prince Charles has attacked corporate lobbyists and climate change sceptics for turning the Earth into a "dying patient", making his most outspoken criticism yet of the world's failure to tackle global warming just when the heir to the throne is assuming a growing number of the duties of what is supposed to be an apolitical monarchy. Prince Charles's views were reinforced by Lord Stern, author of the 2006 report on the economics of climate change, who called sceptics and lobbyists "forces of darkness" who would be driven back. --Fiona Harvey, The Guardian, 9 May 2013