Sign On in the blogosphere

WeatherWatch weather analyst Philip Duncan's blogs on climate change have attracted a lot of reader interest. He took readers' 10 most commonly asked questions and put them to Dr James Renwick, Principal Scientist, Climate Variability & Change at Niwa.

As it drifts from the present into the past, the Copenhagen climate change conference looks both better and worse. Worse, because a considered reading of the accord, which was its only tangible output, reveals that it is not just inadequate but in fact utterly empty. Better, because of the novel manner in which this ultimate failure was reached. As the sight of the daily chaos drops out of view, it becomes easier to appreciate that the rich world was forced to haggle with the bigger emerging economies on more equal terms than ever before.

The most progressive US president in a generation comes to the most important international meeting since the Second World War and delivers a speech so devoid of substance that he might as well have made it on speaker-phone from a beach in Hawaii.

rime Minister John Key's comments on climate change have come to the world's attention, earning New Zealand a "fossil of the day" award at the Copenhagen climate change negotiations.

Mark your calendar, and turn out next Saturday for the Planet A Concert and March (the concert to be webcast live):