Richard Black at the BBC:
Take the president of the world’s most powerful nation. Add two intense and damaging natural storms which bring destruction to that country; then mix in the widely held view that the same nation’s environmental policies are partially responsible for those storms.
In the polarised world of climate change, this cocktail has proved an irresistible temptation to organisations which campaign against President Bush’s administration in support of enhanced action to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
The latest to succumb was the British newspaper The Independent, which screamed on its front page: “This is global warming”, above an alarmingly portentous graphic of Hurricane Rita’s projected path.
But is it global warming?
More here.