The dodgiest of dossiers – Dr Vincent Gauci reacts to Daily Express

Further to David Humphrey’s post  “Is Global Warming Natural?”, Dr Vincent Gauci also offers reaction to today’s Express article…   “The Express’ lead story reports on the dodgiest of dossiers produced by the European Foundation.  Records show that there are big natural changes over a range of time scales that are closely related to observable [...]

Is global warming natural?

Today’s Daily Express gives 100 reasons why global warming is natural. One of our scientists offers his own view: Dr David Humphreys says: “First, it is necessary to differentiate between climate and weather. Even if the world’s climatic system was completely stable with no increase or decrease over time in the mean global temperature, there [...]

The NHS climate change challenge

The Open University is a partner in a new research project to design and deliver hospital environments that respond to our changing climate. The NHS, which manages more than 14,000 sites, is facing a particular challenge. It needs to protect patients, carers and visitors from excess temperatures, but standard mechanical ventilation solutions or air conditioning [...]

Faith in climate change

By Yoseph Araya, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Faculty of Science   Human-induced climate change poses a grave risk to all inhabitants of the Earth – flora, fauna and us. There is overwhelming evidence it’s happening and the future impacts will be even more severe. The recent demonstrations ahead of COP15 are just one indicator of peoples’ concern and their demand for international action. [...]

How do we know climate change is real?

Users of Platform, the OU’s community website, were asked to submit their own questions around climate change ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference being held in Copenhagen this month. Six questions were chosen and answers will be supplied by the OU’s academic experts. Here’s the response to the first question… How do we know [...]

Expert comment on the IGBP Climate Change index

The IGBP Climate-Change Index announced today is the first attempt to distill the complexity of the Earth’s climate down to one number, in the same way that the Dow Jones Index condenses volumes of data into a single figure. Commenting on the index, Bob Spicer, Professor of Earth Sciences at The Open University, said: “Measuring [...]

The Climate Connection: journeys into the heart of the climate change debate

TX from 30 November, BBC World Service The Climate Connection follows five people as they embark on a journey of self-exploration – each championing an issue that they believe is at the centre of climate change debate.    Produced in partnership with The Open University, in each programme one person from a different part of the [...]

Climate change – the why, what and how

By Dr Stephen Peake, Senior Lecturer in Environmental Technologies Avoiding dangerous climate change: the why, the what, but HOW? The reasons why we need to avoid dangerous climate change have been clearly articulated. So too has the scale of the challenge we face. Governments around the world have adopted the target of reducing global greenhouse [...]

You ask the questions – at COP15

Who will be asking the big questions at the UN Climate Change Conference in December? Obama? Brown? Sarkozy? What about you? If you had the chance to pose a question to the world’s foremost experts on global warming, what would you ask? The Open University is giving you the chance to do just that. We’re [...]

Citizen responses to climate change examined

New project ‘The Lived Experience of Climate Change:  interdisciplinary e-module development and virtual mobility’ to contribute to sustainable development education A grant for almost 300,000 Euros was awarded for a project that will create a European community of scholars, students and citizens to collectively make a major contribution to sustainable development education. The research will [...]

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