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Michael Moore's 'Planet of the Humans' documentary peddles dangerous climate denial

nigelj at 07:26 AM on 4 May, 2020

frawhi24 @18

"We also found, as the film underscores again and again, that the intermittency of sunshine and wind is a real problem—one that can only be solved with energy storage (batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air, all of which are costly in money and energy terms); or with source redundancy (building way more generation capacity than you’re likely to need at any one time,"

A stand alone wind / solar grid reliant purely on storage is currently expensive, but those storage costs have been on a falling trajectory and will fall further and we know whats plausible and what the limiting factors are so can be realistic. Also look at the costs of wind and solar power compared to the alternatives (eg in the Lazard Analysis) and you could do a considerable 'over build' and still be economic.

The other alternative is just to accept some gas fired backup power and this means you need much less storage. We know the maths of this and its economic. The Texas electricity market already approximates this model. And this is still a lot better than burning fossil fuels. You could aslo sequester the CO2 emissions underground, but I dont know the economics of that.

I wouldn't count out nuclear power either. It may have a role to play.

Essentially Heinberg and Fridley have not properly considered all the options, and are exaggerating the problem.

"Altogether, the only realistic way to make the transition in industrial countries like the US is to begin reducing overall energy usage substantially, eventually running the economy on a quarter, a fifth, or maybe even a tenth of current energy."

No doubt we can get energy use to be more efficient but expecting to get it 1000% more efficient is magical thinking, and expecting people to go cold in winter is crazy thinking. You have to base decisions on realistic estimates and predictions of whats achievable.

Michael Moore's 'Planet of the Humans' documentary peddles dangerous climate denial

michael sweet at 04:33 AM on 4 May, 2020

Frawhi24@18,

When I Googled Heinberg and Fridley I ended up here at a white paper by Heinberg. I note that this paper is not peer reviewed. I noticed that 29 out of 30 references appeared to be to popular press articles and only one was to a peer reviewed publication. The one peer reviewed publication was mis-interpreted in the document. The other 3 links I tried were not functional.

Heinburg seems to me to have a preconcieved notion of what is correct. Perhaps if he read more of the peer reviewed literature and less popular press, he would have a different attitude.

I have written a summary of the peer reviewed paper Smart Energy Europe which deals with most of the issues Heinburg raises. I will submit that summary next week to SkS. While it will be easier to generate All Energy using renewable energy if consumption of energy is reduced, current peer reviewed research indicates that it will be possible to supply estimated future energy needs using renewable energy at a reasonable cost.

Michael Moore's 'Planet of the Humans' documentary peddles dangerous climate denial

frawhi24 at 00:40 AM on 4 May, 2020

For those interested in a more balanced critique of the film, I recommend a review by Richard Heinberg in Resilience. Heinberg, who was featured as an expert witness in the film.

On the pro side, Richard taps into research he did with David Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to assess the prospects for a complete transition to solar and wind power. Criticism of renewables was a prominent feature of the film. Here's what Richard wrote in his review:

"We [Heinberg and Fridley] found that the transition to renewables is going far too slowly to make much of a difference during the crucial next couple of decades, and would be gobsmackingly expensive if we were to try replacing all fossil fuel use with solar and wind. We also found, as the film underscores again and again, that the intermittency of sunshine and wind is a real problem—one that can only be solved with energy storage (batteries, pumped hydro, or compressed air, all of which are costly in money and energy terms); or with source redundancy (building way more generation capacity than you’re likely to need at any one time, and connecting far-flung generators on a super-grid); or demand management (which entails adapting our behavior to using energy only when it’s available). All three strategies involve trade-offs. In the energy world, there is no free lunch. Further, the ways we use energy today are mostly adapted to the unique characteristics of fossil fuels, so a full transition to renewables will require the replacement of an extraordinary amount of infrastructure in our food system, manufacturing, building heating, the construction industry, and on and on. Altogether, the only realistic way to make the transition in industrial countries like the US is to begin reducing overall energy usage substantially, eventually running the economy on a quarter, a fifth, or maybe even a tenth of current energy.
Is it true that mainstream enviros have oversold renewables? Yes. They have portrayed the transition away from fossil fuels as mostly a political problem; the implication in many of their communications is that, if we somehow come up with the money and the political will, we can replace oil with solar and continue living much as we do today, though with a clear climate conscience. That’s an illusion that deserves shattering. "

On the con side, Heinberg writes --
"The film is low on nuance, but our global climate and energy dilemma is all shades of gray. Gibbs seems to say that renewables are a complete waste of time. I would say, they are best seen as a marginal transitional strategy for industrial societies. Given climate change and the fact that fossil fuels are depleting, finite resources, it appears that if we want to maintain any sort of electrical energy infrastructure in the future, it will have to be powered by renewables—hydro, wind, or solar. As many studies have confirmed, the nuclear power industry has little realistic prospect of revival. The future will be renewable; there simply isn’t any other option.

What is very much in question, however, is the kind of society renewable energy can support."

Heinberg also felt the harsh criticism of McKibben was undeserved.

There is no consensus

PatrickSS at 06:51 AM on 20 December, 2019

Estoma I will check out the Iris Effect

Rodger, did you read the summary of the raw data that I pointed you to? Here's the link again:

https://www.pbl.nl/en/publications/climate-science-survey-questions-and-responses

What do you think of the responses to Q12?

Isn't it very odd that Bart V and colleagues didn't mention Q12 in their paper?

And do you realize that the "91%" quoted on this page includes Lindzen, Happer, Dyson, Curry and Ridley?

Thx for all your responses. I'm going to the "It's the sun" page.

There is no consensus

PatrickSS at 05:58 AM on 18 December, 2019

Thx so much for your replies.

It’s incredibly unfortunate that climate science has become political – on both sides IMO.

Actually I don’t feel that any of you have really engaged with my main argument: does this page give a fair summary of scientists’ views? E.g. does sticking up the percentage “91%” give a fair summary of Vergehhen’s data? (Obviously not.)

Science is IMO very subject to fashions. When authors, reviewers and the people who award grants all have the same point of view it can all go wrong. E.g. a few years ago almost everyone believed that fat in the diet was a kind of poison – which we now know is nonsense.

What I notice is that most scientists who are contrarians are either old and retired, or else somehow supporting themselves on private means or as consultants. That doesn’t seem like a good situation. It could mean that only crazy old men and women believe this nonsense, or it could mean that young climate scientists would damage their careers if they expressed contrarian views. MA Roger @857, I've listened to Freeman Dyson, Richard Lindzen and William Happer on youtube and none of them seem crazy, they seem to be good scientists. Judith Curry said that she couldn’t get her work published. I’ve just checked what she said – in fact she did publish one reviewer’s comment:

“Overall, there is the danger that the paper is used by unscrupulous people to create confusion or to discredit climate or sea-level science. Hence, I suggest that the author reconsiders the essence of its contribution to the scientific debate on climate and sea-level science.”

Hmm. That’s definitely a very dangerous argument. In fact it's very worrying indeed.

Scaddemp, most lukewarmers that I've listened to (including Judith C and Matt Ridley) definitely want to protect the environment, and they propose the expansion of research into new energy systems, but they worry about taking it to an extreme.

But . . . . although the process looks bad, there could be a real problem here. I find it incredibly hard to know. Unfoortunately we all have this thing called confirmation bias, and that makes everything tricky.

2019 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #20

One Planet Only Forever at 12:10 PM on 20 May, 2019

The “12 excuses for climate inaction and how to refute them” is a great presentation of what is going wrong within human socioeconomic-political development.

Pursuing improvement of awareness and understanding to develop sustainable new activities and correction of unsustainable and harmful activity is essential for the future of humanity and its advancement.
The 12 Excuses and their responses are Good examples of what is going wrong. And they are not 12 substantially different problems. The 12 Excuses have a lot in common. They fit within a common understanding that human actions must be Governed by the requirement to Do No Harm (and the related aspiration of being Helpful to Others). The future generations of humanity are undeniably the largest pool of Other people. Therefore they deserve the greatest amount of consideration when evaluating the Help and Harm, the merit or acceptability, of actions in any current moment.

Observations of what has developed in the current-moments (reality) of the World we all, as individual agents of action, share and act in response to in our series of moments (every person is an agent and the collective of the actions of all agents produces the future results), makes it pretty clear that in order for Humanity to have a better future, human actions need to be Governed as much as possible by the Encouragement of Helpfulness and the Discouragement of Harmfulness (related to the moral/ethical concept that many people, including myself, do not commonly encounter - Beneficence - which is well described in the following Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry “The Principle of Beneficence in Applied Ethics”).

That understanding has a lot in common with other understandings of moral requirements. Where it differs is that it makes one moral principle, the principle of Beneficence (which I present as Help and Harm), the governing consideration for any other principle that is 'thought to be moral'. Other Moral considerations presented by Jonathan Haidt (and others) include thoughts of Fairness, Loyalty, Subservience in Hierarchy, Liberty, or Perceptions of Tribal Sanctity/Purity. But it can be understood that in order to be 'Good for the Future of Humanity' those Other Principles need to be Governed by the Help/Harm principle. And the term Governing needs to understood to be Over-Ruling and Limiting.

That Governing Help/Harm Principle can even be understood to be required to govern the making and enforcement of rules (including rules in Sports). The Rule of Law can be understood to only be Good if it is Governed, based on improving awareness and understanding, to be Helpful to the future of a diversity of Humanity sustainably fitting into a robust diversity of life on this, or any other, amazing planet. And developed Law that contradicts that objective needs to be corrected.

Helpful actions need to be encouraged, desired and rewarded. Unsustainable actions need to be discouraged (limited). And Harmful actions need to be quickly identified and rapidly shut down before they can become powerful, especially before they become popular or profitable (Over-ruled and penalized as required).

The Sustainable Development Goals are a very good presentation of the understanding of Helpful required developments and the requirements for correction of Harmful unsustainable things that have already regrettably developed.

That understanding needs to be at the core of understanding of anyone who wants to be Helpful or Good. Powerful interests that develop due to a lack of awareness and understanding of how harmful their desires and pursuits were/are could choose, and are likely to choose, to powerfully resist correction rather than improve their awareness and understanding and increase their helpfulness and reduce their harmfulness.

The pressures to excuse doing harm to future generations, and the related lack of interest in helping the future generations, are well described by Stephen M. Gardiner in "A Perfect Moral Storm-The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change" published in 2011 (it is referred to in this SkS post “Changing Climates, Changing Minds: The Great Stink of London”). His earlier 2006 paper is referred to in this SkS post “The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen”.

Gardiner's 2016 article in the Washington Post "Why climate change is an ethical problem", is a partial presentation of his ethical argument about the moral corruption that can be observed to be occurring in matters related to climate change.

That perfect moral storm can be understood to be part of the reason for people wanting to believe each of the 12 misleading claims addressed in the Vox article, and many other claimed excused for harmful unsustainable behaviour. That moral storm has developed powers that fight against correction of the Biodiversity threat, Climate Change threat, and many other threats to the future of humanity.

The powerful ability of harmful Status Seekers to abuse misleading marketing makes things worse (except for the Status Seekers who benefit). Particularly harmful are those misleading political marketers who understand how to directly appeal to moral principles in ways that by-pass the need for Helpfulness to Govern (and who abuse the Rules of Law).

Similarly extremely harmful are the people who tempt people to believe that the benefit of 'some people today' can be claimed to excuse (justify) causing harm to others (including the largest group of others, the future generations, an unacceptable harm that even benefits for all of current day humans cannot justify/excuse).

Discounting likely, or even potential, future harm then comparing it to perceptions of lost current day opportunity to justify continuing the harmful actions is morally reprehensible, if Do No Harm (aspire to be helpful to future generations) is the governing (over-ruling, limiting) moral principle.

What is the One Easy Thing Everyone can do? Start pursuing improvement of awareness and understanding to develop sustainable new activities and correction of unsustainable and harmful activity. That starts with accepting the need to achieve and improve on the Sustainable Development Goals. All of them, not just a Favourite one to the detriment of achieving the other ones. And don't Hope for some new development to solve the problem. Be particularly skeptical of new artificial (technological) developments that are claimed to be 'solutions', especially the ones that are potentially popular and profitable. Pursuits of Status based on popularity and profit created the problem and the resistance to correction.

Climate Science Denial Explained: The Denial Personality

Tadaaa at 22:39 PM on 26 April, 2018

I agree wholeaheartedly with the article pretty much all the comments, here is a great clip of Matt Ridley in the House of Lords - not speaking on AGW, but on Brexit (here in the UK, Brexit and Climate denial where twinned at birth)

https://twitter.com/Jim_Cornelius/status/986742292085133312

the fascinating thing is Ridley was making a point about Tariffs and the EU's dasterdly application of them to Africa

when another Lord simply points out that the EU exempts Africa from tariffs - does this new fact dissuade Lord Ridley, not a bit of it, he simply carries on restating what has been faltly contradicted only a moment before, they have no shame. It is the verbal equivelant of spaying crap on a wall, they know some of it will stick.

Anti-vaccers, climate change deniers, and anti-GMO activists are all the same

Ian Forrester at 04:25 AM on 1 June, 2017

I don't know who wrote this but just about everything they have said about people who oppose the unrestricted use of GMOs is wrong. One just has to look at climate change deniers and GMO apologists to see that they are cut from the same cloth and are often the same people e.g. Matt Ridley, Dennis Avery et al.

To claim that there are no papers showing deleterious health effects from eating GMOs is just a blatant lie. There are a number of papers showing exactly that. However, the GMO apologists come out in force using ad hominem comments and lies to discredit the scientists producing those reports. One can start off by reading up on the treatment of Arpad Pusztai at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen Scotland to find the anti-science virulence aimed at a respected scientist whose results showed negative health effects.

Skeptical Science deserves better than the nonsense written by that anonymous poster. GMO apologists are exactly the same as AGW deniers and use the same tactics.

Global warming hiatus claims prebunked in 1980s and 1990s

Haze at 12:57 PM on 7 February, 2017

@18 There is a saying "that lies are round the world before truth is even out of bed" The current publicity on the Dr Bates' comments exemplifies what that saying means. Yesterday the Australian published a piece, written by Matt Ridley and first published in the UK Times. The number of people reading that piece both here and in the UK plus those reading the piece by David Rose in the deplorable Daily Mail headlined "Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data", far, far exceeds the number that will read the denuciations to which you refer. In consequence these pieces will have far, far more effect on the general public's view of the validity of climate science and the credibility of climate scientists

No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups

Rocketscientist at 09:31 AM on 10 November, 2016

Your ‘congregation’ could do with a little more of a balanced assessment of the points raised by Ridely (and many others).
I have a degree in Physics and helped developed the first satellite communication satellite systems used around the world i.e. so while not an expert I can understand the science involved. I'm also a greenie, left winger by nature and was initially at least very concerned by Al Gore’s ‘famous’ work. After spending a LOT of time and effort looking into the issues involved I came away impressed by much of the science of global warming - particular the ice age reconstructions - but extremely disappointed by much of the work on 'climate modelling'. The CO2 modelling fails the most basic of tests in that it HAS CONTINUNALLY FAILED to predict current trends or more importantly replicate the past paleoclimatic cycle data. To match the short term recent temperature data the models have continually required after the fact hindsight tweaking to match the data or the data has required tweaking.
So, when 'sceptics' point this out give them a little credit and admit the science is far from perfect. I've quoted your own assessment of Christies report below to point out the problem. You should acknowledge and THANK him instead you denigrate!
'So, this recent paper did a few things. First, they took the contrarian argument that the mid-troposphere temperatures have been rising at only 1/3 the rate predicted by models. They found that Christy’s team neglected the contamination of the cooling in the upper stratosphere. When they applied this correction, they found that Christy’s claim was incorrect. Differences between modelled and observed warming rates were much smaller, and had known explanations'.
The abstract is also provided below
‘We use updated and improved satellite retrievals of the temperature of the mid- to upper troposphere (TMT) to address key questions about the size and significance of TMT trends, agreement with model-derived TMT values, and whether models and satellite data show similar vertical profiles of warming. A recent study claimed that TMT trends over 1979 and 2015 are three times larger in climate models than in satellite data, but did not correct for the contribution TMT trends receive from stratospheric cooling. Here we show that the average ratio of modeled and observed TMT trends is sensitive to both satellite data uncertainties and to model-data differences in stratospheric cooling. When the impact of lower stratospheric cooling on TMT is accounted for, and when the most recent versions of satellite datasets are used, the previously claimed ratio of three between simulated and observed near-global TMT trends is reduced to ≈ 1.7. Next, we assess the validity of the statement that satellite data show no significant tropospheric warming over the last 18 years. This claim is not supported by our analysis: in five out of six corrected satellite TMT records, significant global-scale tropospheric warming has occurred within the last 18 years. Finally, we address long-standing concerns regarding discrepancies in modeled and observed vertical profiles of warming in the tropical atmosphere. We show that amplification of tropical warming between the lower and mid- to upper troposphere is now in close agreement in the average of 37 climate models and in one updated satellite record.’
To get the models to match it was also necessary to mess with the basic satellite data itself as well - probably for good reason but none the less more after the fact hindsight fiddling - yet AGAIN. Now all this is fine - that's how science and the models advance but at least acknowledge the problem and the fact that the science is NOT OVER. (PS the factor of 3 error was reduced to 1.7 – WELL DONE)
The other major problem is that none of these, what I call CO2 forcing factor driven models have manage to replicate the past ice age cycle data. Especially if the CO2 levels allowed to 'free run' rather than being artificially forced to match the ice core data response. The problem with the later should be obvious – does CO2 drive temperature or does temperature drive CO2 – obviously, a combination of both but the two factors need to be isolated.
This is basic 101 stuff - you have to validate major model assumptions before they have any credibility. The ONLY work that managed to do this as far as I've been able to determine was a paper (peer reviewed) published in 2013 in Nature. ' Insolation-driven 100,000-year glacial cycles and hysteresis of ice-sheet volume.' This to me was a major piece of work which has largely been ignored. This group finally managed to replicate the past ice age cycle behaviour largely using insolation factors coupled with isostatic rebound of the continental plates. I'm sure you'll be aware of this work and its potential importance. Basically, they appear to have demonstrated that you do NOT need to assign an artificially high forcing factor to CO2 to replicate the cycles. As they noted from their sensitivity runs 'Carbon dioxide is involved, but is not determinative, in the evolution of the 100,000-year glacial cycles.'
FINALLY, you avoided the other incredibly important issue totally - which is to question whether a warmer, wetter planet with higher CO2 levels is a BAD outcome. The greening of the planet since the end of the last ice age has directly enabled us to develop agriculture and societies to the point that we now all enjoy. Past geological data also readily indicates the planet has been much warmer in the past and lush as a result. Plants have done an incredible job in terraforming the atmosphere reducing CO2 to TRACE levels. I noticed that there was no response to Ridley’s and other’s arguments in this respect.
These are important issues and as Ridley rightly points out the concern is that attention and resources are being diverted from much more important ecological and social concerns.
PS I wonder whether this post will survive your ‘peer’ review?

No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups

nigelj at 08:38 AM on 22 October, 2016

Andy Skuce @6, thanks for the reference. I hadn't read that before, and I agree with the points made.

One thing caught my eye and is worth a comment. Your article quotes Ridley “But what made the bubble of the 2000s so much worse than most was government housing and monetary policy, especially in the United States, which sluiced artificially cheap money towards bad risks as a matter of policy and thus also towards the middlemen of the capital markets. The crisis has at least as much political as economic causation, which is why I also mistrust too much government.”

I have read plenty about causal factors in the GFC. Government housing policy probably didn’t help, but the government is not responsible for monetary policy! That is the privately owned Federal Reserve, which was run by Alan Greenspan. He is a libertarian like Ridley and implemented very low interest rates that caused the housing bubble, and convinced the government to reduce banking regulation, a major factor in the crash. Ridleys own ideology was instrumental in the crash, but he can’t or won’t see it.

Of course business can benefit from “risk taking” and the creative destruction of capitalism. But it’s a fine line. Bank crashes can bring the entire global economy down. Some sections of the business sector benefit from regulation.

Ridley is taking his penchant for risk taking, and concerns about freedom of the individual and applying this ideology to the management or conservation of the planet. In other words leave it to markets.

Markets are brilliant at some things, however the record of markets and the environment is not good. Its a dysfunction that requires regulation of actvity that impacts on the environment, something that overall has a very successful history. Ridley refuses to acknowledge the obvious evidence so cannot call himself "rational" as he tends to do.

Individuals do not have the right to cause reckless harm to their community. This is virtually the basis of western law and order and is a fundamental values decision. Therefore the community as a whole also have rights to ensure business does not get carried away and undermine the foundations of the global environment, provided business has a decent level of freedom, so its a balancing act. Ridley has to accept there have to be boundaries of some sort.

No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups

Andy Skuce at 13:27 PM on 21 October, 2016

nigelj, we previously covered the debacle of the collapse of Northern Rock and how Ridley's catastrophic risk management was to blame.

No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups

nigelj at 10:56 AM on 21 October, 2016

Lionel @2, thanks for the review link. It was most interesting, I totally agree with it, and it confirms what I said. Ridley is an extreme libertarian and his book is on “evolution” is a sort of "trojan horse" for his libertarian views on completely unrelated matters.This is what annoyed me in particular. Some of his views are reasonable, but most aren't.

I read somewhere in the mainstream, responsible part of the media that Ridleys company Northern Rock went bankrupt. The article noted Ridley had previously argued for minimal financial regulation and was quite successful at this goal. He also rubbished government bail outs of financial institutions. Then Northern Rock, (which he managed) went bankrupt and this was largely his own fault due to a high level of risk taking, yet he blames everyone else, and asked for a big handout from the tax payer to bail his company out. The arrogance and hypocrisy is breath taking.

Regarding Ridley and climate change, he subscribes to every sceptical argument imaginable including the truly silly ones, which just goes to show you can have an advanced degree in biology and still embrace ludicrous notions.

No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups

Lionel A at 20:43 PM on 20 October, 2016

nigelj and others may be interested in a review by Jerry Coyne of what is at guess the Ridley book indicated above:

My review of Matt Ridley’s new book, “The Evolution of Everything”

No longer taken seriously, we're seeing the last gasp of climate denial groups

nigelj at 11:37 AM on 20 October, 2016

Good article. I recently bought Ridley’s book on evolution on impulse, never having heard of the guy. The back cover looked interesting and appeared to be about evolution as applied to organisations.

The theory of evolution applied to organisations was actually rather weakly developed, but many of the chapters were nothing to do with evolution, and totally about climate change denialism and quite extreme neoliberal theories about the virtues of private education, deregulation, and neoliberal economics.There was nothing about this on the back cover, so the title and back cover was misleading.

His ideas on climate make very selective use of evidence, and so do his ideas on economics and social issues. I know because I'm reasonably familar with some of these issues. So Ridley is true to form I guess.

Most of what the book said on economics and social issues was utter nonsense. I put the book in the rubbish after a few chapters.

Can the Republican Party solve its science denial problem?

Ian Forrester at 13:20 PM on 1 May, 2016

Rolf, I have spent countless hours studying the similarities and differences between AGW deniers and GMO apologists. The similarities are staggering, in many cases the same people are best described as both, Matt Ridley and the Averys spring to mind. The same think tanks that attack climate science and climate scientists support GMOs and smear any independent scientist who publishes a paper showing the negative effects of GMOs. Of course these people and their organizations receive money from the companies involved in these areas. The Science Media Centre has a cabal of GMO apologists hiding under their identification as “independent experts”. They do not disclose their close financial ties to the GMO indiustry.

http://www.gmwatch.org/index.php/news/archive/2012/14224-how-independent-is-the-science-media-centre-and-its-experts

The big difference is that at the start the GMO apologists and their companies did and controlled the research. Any scientist wishing to study the GMO crops had firstly to get samples from the company involved and had to allow the company to vet and veto any results before they could be published. It is no wonder that the initial impression was that these crops were safe, the only research allowed out was controlled by the companies. It was only later that independent scientists such as Arpad Pusztai published results showing negative effects. The industry and its apologists were so incensed by this that they got him fired from his position at the Rowett Institute in Aberdeen. Since then there have been quite a few similar studies showing problems. The industry has responded in a similar fashion smearing and vilifying the scientists.

The other big difference is the argument about consensus. The AGW deniers argue that there is no consensus regarding AGW when in fact approximately 97 % of scientists and science papers agree that there is. The GMO apologists claim that there is a consensus supporting “GMOs are safe”. This is just not true.

You are perfectly correct when you state that the science involved in rDNA technology is much more complicated than climate science. I’ll just throw out a few terms which I’m sure most people have never heard of but are critical to understanding what could go wrong with the technology: post-translational modification, cryptic transcription, horizontal gene transfer, activation of silenced genes etc.

The Paris agreement signals that deniers have lost the climate wars

michael sweet at 06:38 AM on 17 December, 2015

Ryland,

When I Googled Dharnai I got several hits with your reference. I also got several links from Indian newspapers like this one which say the program was a success. None of the additional links described the problems your link cited. Since the Indians actually live nearby, why should I believe the report you cited? Can you provide a reference to support the claims that you have referenced?

Scientific American recently printed an article by the same author claiming that Nuclear is required to provide electricity (with no peer reviewed references) and an op-ed from Matt Ridley, a well known science denier, saying that warming is no problem. I am skeptical of what they currently publish.

Scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal re: Ridley and Peiser

TonyW at 20:16 PM on 7 December, 2015

It really is pointless arguing with contrarians (to use an uncontroversial description) because they are quite happy lying about the facts and, of course, cherry picking. They also have no single coherent theory to explain the warming since pre-industrial times, but that doesn't stop them.

However, the publishing of a Matt Ridley article on the new Scientific American site (which doesn't appear to allow comments) is sad, indeed. Sci Am generally publishes sound articles on the subject, so I was a bit taken aback that they would include an article by a prominent contrarian that is riddled with errors. It is any wonder that it's so hard to get significant action on this issue?

Scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal re: Ridley and Peiser

Tom Curtis at 03:19 AM on 7 December, 2015

Charlie A @38, the BAU (scenario A) projections from the IPCC FAR are shown on this graph:

By pixel count, I have determined the increase from 1990-2015 to be 0.64 C [0.48-0.91], leading to a mean decadal trend of 0.26 C per decade [0.19-0.36]. Your estimate of the BAU prediction is, therefore, [0% and 65%] to high. Given the 0.163 C/decade trend over that period (GISTEMP), that means the BAU estimate from IPCC FAR is 60% to high compared to the observed rate. Already we detect significant exageration by Ridley and Peiser. (That is probably based on based on treating the trend to 2015 as equally the trend to 2100, which as you note is an error.)

Further, the Scenario A projection is not the IPCC FAR prediction. The reason for the various scenarios, and for calling them projections is that the IPCC does not attempt to predict the future growth of forcing agents. Rather it considers various plausible scenarios and makes predictions for those so that the uncertainty in the projections is not further exagerated by uncertainty regarding political and economic decisions into the future.

In this case, and in particular the Business As Usual in 1990 assumes:

1) No massive reduction of British coal production under Margaret Thatcher;

2) No breakup of the Soviet Union and consequent massive reduction in very polluting Soviet block factories;

3) No Kyoto protocol with the consequent massive reduction in CFC emissions;

4) No plateauing of CH4 concentrations through the 1990s; and

5) No major uptake of renewable energy and reduction in energy intensity due to the e-revolution.

I presume the difference in forcing between the BAU scenario and the very much not BAU reality accounts for the additional difference between "predicted" temperatures as noted in the scientists letter. Certainly that difference means the 60% overestimate is the upper bound of the overestimate by the IPCC FAR.

MA Rodger and Michael Sweet have already raised these points - but it is useful, I think, to remind people how very much not BAU the 1990s was. The lazy assumption that what happened was automatically BAU repeatedly made by deniers is as intellectually impoverished as the assumption that the first few decades of trend will be the same as the centenial trend.

Scientists' open letter to the Wall Street Journal re: Ridley and Peiser

ryland at 16:56 PM on 5 December, 2015

@9 Your comment "I have several colleagues who find the warmist "data" amusing but we would never speak out against this junk science because of the career repercussions" is extremely disturbing. As an ex-scientist. now retired, I am appalled that any scientist or indeed anyone, who questions the perceived wisdom of the modellers is excoriated and may well be dismissed from their position. Science conducted by intimidation and haranguing and threats isn't science. It is more reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition where heretics were tortured until they recanted. Here we have eminent professors who attack those that disagree with their views claiming that Ridley and Peiser are obfuscating. No they're not, they're putting forward a different point of view. That is not obfuscation but scientific discourse. The paper by Zwalley et al that states the Antarctic is gaining ice, is dismissed as an isolated paper that has numerous uncertainties and is contradicted by many other observations. None of these many observations are specified. Significantly there is no mention of the comment on Antarctic ice by Dr Eric Steig, a Climate Scientist with many publications on Antarctica.He comments at RealClimate “I think the evidence that the current retreat of Antarctic glaciers is owing to anthropogenic global warming is weak. The literature is mixed on this, about 50% of experts agree with me on this.” Dr Steig can hardly be described as a denier so why no mention of his view?

Skeptical Science honoured by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

mancan18 at 12:59 PM on 18 October, 2015

Congratulations. This accolade is well deserved. The SkS site was and is a breath of fresh air in a country like Australia where the dialogue of Climate Change is dominated by the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA), the likes of Ian Plimer and Bob Carter, the Mining Council of Australia, the conservative contrarians in the ruling Liberal National Party of Australia and the Murdoch Press. I can at least now say to those who have been influenced by their contrarian line to go to SkS and do a bit of extra reading.

However, it is not all done and dusted. Even today, the Sunday Telegraph has run a column by Miranda Devine (one of the big three along with Andrew Bolt and Piers Ackerman) that extols the virtue of digging up fossil fuels to save poor people in poor countries, and that global warming is not happening and it is all a conspiracy. I am not sure how you overcome such an overwhelmingly one sided view in the popular media. Usually the contrian debate goes along political lines or merely pays lip service to perhaps there has been some mild warming but it isn't a problem. The only response you can make to such arguments is that the person needs to understand the science more and they need to do more research. Sks is an important reference for that reason.

Unfortunately, there seems to be two types of contrarians. There is the doubter, who may well argue with you on a purely scientific level, which is Ok. They are just demonstrating the natural skepticism of science, so Sks is important in giving them extra information; AND then there is the doofus, the blind denier, who just doesn't want to know, totally ignores it all, just isn't able to understand the scientific arguments, thinks it is all political or thinks it is all some sort of greenie/socialist conspiracy. You can easily tell who they are. They will call you a "warmist" or a "carbonite" or something. Not sure that Sks is going to be helpful informing people like these. Those people wouldn't go to the Sks site anyway and are likely to use derogatory language to describe the site and the scientists who write for it. Matt Ridley did, when describing John Cooke's 97% Consensus project as being discredited, in his recent contrarian article in the June 2015 edition of "Quadrant", by using parts of the IPAs latest contarian publication "Climate Science - The Facts" to make his case.

Anyway SkS and John Cooke, well done. Keep it up, even though I sometimes feel that some of the discussion in the threads becomes a bit too esoteric for the lay public to follow at times. Mind you, I do understand why this is. It is because Sks still has to maintain scientific integrity so it can remain a valuable resource in the continuing AGW CC debate.

Global warming deniers are an endangered species

mancan18 at 10:19 AM on 25 July, 2015

In Australia, Climate Change denial does pay. Australia is one of the world's largest coal exporters, a significant proportion of it's power generation comes from coal, and coal products are an important component the national income that underpins Australia's wealth. As a result, attitudes towards climate change follows party lines, with one party, Labor, promoting it as a serious issue and the other, Liberal/National Party, while giving it token support, take a "lukewarmer" position. This is the reason that the Government has implemented it's clayton's climate change policy, "Direct Action" and has attacked the climate advisory bodies, climate change funding arrangements for developing needed technologies, and promoted many climate change deniers to important positions upon it's economic advisory bodies.

The reason for this is actually quite simple. One of the main Liberal/National party policy think tanks is the Institute of Public Affairs (the IPA). It is Australia's equivalent of the George C Marshall Institute. The IPA, along with other Liberal Party policy think tanks like the Menzies Research Centre and the H. R. Nicholls Society, all actively promote Climate Change denial. Scientists like climate change deniers, Ian Plimer and Bob Carter are attached to the IPA, providing advice related to climate change policy. Plimer is also an important member of the Mining Council of Australia, having been it's chairman, and he influences it's political stance. Gina Reinhart, Australia's wealthiest person, who made her money from huge mining projects, is also related to the IPA. She funded a Christopher Monkton speaking tour of Australia, at the height of the ETS/Carbon Tax debate when Labor tried to introduce an ETS. The IPA is also an important source of climate change denial material and underpins the political stance of Murdoch media outlets who reach around 83% of the Australian population, where right wing commentators like Andrew Bolt, Miranda Devine, and Piers Ackereman, and right wing shock jocks like Alan Jones and Ray Hadley, disseminate IPA inspired climate change denial material to their readers and listeners.

Also, the IPA, through it's journal, provides climate change material to its readers, and it's latest effort comes in the form of a book called "Climate Change - the Facts 2014" with contributions from Ian Plimer, Richard Lindzen, Bob Carter, Nigel Lawson, Bill Kininmonth, Willie Soon, Christopher Monckton, Garth Paltridge, Richard Tol, Brian Fisher, Bob Carter, Donna Laframboise, Anthony Watts, Alan Moran amongst others and other climate change deniers. Also, this book seems to form the basis of Matt Ridley's latest essay in June's Quadrant magazine "How the Climate Wars Undermine Science", where John Cook's Consensus Project is discredited, (in their eyes), by referring to it as being biased and unrepresentative.

Now I don't know about you, but, I don't think that climate change deniers are being marginalised in Australia. If anything, they are still pre-eminent due to the IPA's political and media reach. Trying to take effective action to tackle climate change in Australia has already seen the toppling of two prime minsters and a leader of the Liberal Party who did think that the issue was important. It will be a significant issue in the next election but whether the electorate will embrace it, after a fear campaign related to the hip pocket nerve and xenophobic fears related to asylum seekers, is questionable.

While it is easier to have a debate with like minded people; what is happening in Australia, while the Sydney Morning Herald and the Guardian do present material properly conveying the 97% consensus; demonstrates why climate change advocates need to be more engaged with the climate change deniers from the IPA, the Murdoch press, and the right wing shock jock community, because, at the moment the denier/lukewarmer argument is still pre-eminent and not getting it's proper voice with Australia's public.

Making sense of the slowdown in global surface warming

Michael Whittemore at 01:10 AM on 1 June, 2015

After reading Schmidt et al (2014) from the link above they dont use Ridley et al (2014) data which found a lot more volcanic cooling. If you included his findings I think the models are running low, so more than 3 degrees should be expected..

Matt Ridley is wrong again on fossil fuels

SteveAplin at 22:38 PM on 9 April, 2015

Is there a reason my comment on this post, left last week, was not published? While it was critical of Matt Ridley, it was not ad hominem. Nor was it off-topic, and nor (I believe) was it poorly written.

Just asking.

Matt Ridley is wrong again on fossil fuels

billthefrog at 20:40 PM on 2 April, 2015

As I was starting to articulate some thoughts on this thread, I was overtaken by a strange sense of déjà vu.

Checking the SkS archives threw up (tee hee) many references to Ridley, in particular a piece that Dana wrote in January of this year. Any reader unfamiliar with Ridley may find it profitable to peruse that posting in conjunction with this one.

Nothing has changed in the interim that would even remotely lead me to consider revising my comment (#3) on Dana's earlier thread.

cheers Bill F

Matt Ridley is wrong again on fossil fuels

One Planet Only Forever at 14:50 PM on 2 April, 2015

Matt Ridley can be debunked just by addressing his opening salvo.

"To throw away these immense economic, environmental and moral benefits, you would have to have a very good reason. The one most often invoked today is that we are wrecking the planet’s climate. But are we?"

There is no moral justification for a few among a generation of humanity getting way with benefiting form activities that the rest of humanity will not be able to benefit from through the hundreds of millions of years this amazing planet will be habitable. And it is immoral for anyone to try to excuse a few in this generation benefiting as much as they can get away with through the fatally flawed economic system of profitability and popularity.

Matt Ridley wants to gamble the Earth’s future because he won’t learn from the past

One Planet Only Forever at 13:22 PM on 22 January, 2015

As billthefrog has pointed out the problem is not Ridley, it is News Corp and all of its fans.

News Corp does not even try to present a one-to-one 'discussion' of this issue (and certainly not a 97 to 3 discussion). Their media is flooded with attempts to discredit climate science. When they present anything from "the other side" it is planned and presented to to ensure it is surrounded by attacks and unjustifiable attempts to discredit the valid points mentioned.

The fact that so many people are willing to be faithful fans of such obviously crass irresponsible illigitimate unjustifiable behaviour is the problem. And that type of person is encouraged to develop their attitude by a socio-economic-politcal system that rewards and reveres those who are able to get away with illigitimate profitability and popularity.

One way to beat such trouble-makers is to continue to increase the understanding of what is going on and ensure that all people in positions of significant responsibility and influence have no excuse to not understand it. That may enable people in the near future to compile and present solid cases of 'Evidence of a lack of the required mental capability to lead responsibly' as justification for the legal removal of such people from their illigitimately obtained positions of responsibility.

Matt Ridley wants to gamble the Earth’s future because he won’t learn from the past

shoyemore at 08:38 AM on 22 January, 2015

Ridley's record as CEO of a failed bank (Northern Rock) should be a Health Warning - apparently he ignored warnings of reckless lending. Now he was re-invented himself as a commentator on climate science, as far as I can see with the help of Tory influence on the BBC and the media.

Matt Ridley: Libertarian & Parasite

The-man-who-wants-to-northern-rock-the-planet/

Matt Ridley wants to gamble the Earth’s future because he won’t learn from the past

billthefrog at 04:34 AM on 22 January, 2015

@ubrew12

The Times (of London) is wholly owned by News Corp: in other words, it is part of the Rupert Murdoch fiefdom. Matt Ridley is an attractive proposition to them as a commentator on climate change for a variety of reasons...

a) He is part of the titled aristocracy and therefore, in the minds of some, his views carry more weight

b) He is an advisor to the Global Warming Policy Foundation

c) He is a lot more than a mere Fourth Estate hack. He has written extensively on science matters and his scientific credentials are vastly more impressive than mine. See either his wiki entry, or his entry on deSmogBlog. (NB The letters FRSL do not stand for Fellow of the Royal Society (of London), the most prestigious science body in the UK. That would just be FRS. The letter "L" at the end turns it into Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.)

I hope that helps explain why the Times is eager and willing to provide a platform for Ridley's views. (Which I am sure are not in any way influenced by the fortuitous location of any coal fields - see the link provided by Lionel in #1)

Cheers Bill F

Matt Ridley wants to gamble the Earth’s future because he won’t learn from the past

ubrew12 at 03:51 AM on 22 January, 2015

Ridley: "I no longer think [Global Warming]... is likely to be dangerous and I think its slow and erratic progress so far is what we should expect in the future." This is a prediction of future climate. If this guy doesn't have a PhD in Climatology why is the London Times broadcasting his prediction as if he did? The problem isn't Ridley. The problem is the London Times. The media are complicit in public complacency toward this topic. The Times today has to bypass hundreds of perfectly qualified Scientists to find one science journalist to give it the prediction it wants to hear. Who would buy it if it disserved its readership similarly in the area of economic or business prediction? But we are now well within the 'Age of Consequences' on this topic: Climate predictions are, in fact, now economic predictions. The Times is already disserving its readership about tomorrows economy.

Matt Ridley wants to gamble the Earth’s future because he won’t learn from the past

Lionel A at 02:37 AM on 22 January, 2015

Matt Ridley opposes immediate aggressive efforts to cut global carbon pollution.
Of course he does, he will see a drop in income:
Lord Ridley: Make Mine A Large One!

2014 SkS Weekly Digest #36

jim at 05:48 AM on 9 September, 2014

If the hiatus is due to internal variation of the climate system does that imply that previous warming must be partially attributed to internal variation? And further does that mean that the warming attributed to anthropogenic carbon is overestimated?

I refer to Matt Ridley's argument and his defense here:
http://www.mattridley.co.uk/blog/whatever-happened-to-global-warming.aspx

I found convincing the email he quoted from the Chen and Tung (2014) authors supporting his interpretation of their paper.

Richard Tol accidentally confirms the 97% global warming consensus

Tom Curtis at 22:54 PM on 10 June, 2014

chriskoz @28, regardless of RobH's assertions, the article did in fact appear in the Australian, and the Australian is certainly published by one of the constituent bodies, ie, News Ltd. Further, publication of this sort of biased, and poorly researched story on climate science is par for the course for the Australian and Grahame Lloyd. Indeed, the Australian is so bad that Tim Lambert, prior to becoming unfortunately inactive, was up to number 83 in his series on "The Australian's war on science". The Australian's treatment of climate science also features heavily in Robert Manne's astute criticism of that publication (very worth buying by any Australian citizen or student of the press).

Models are unreliable

michael sweet at 12:04 PM on 3 June, 2014

Razo,

Calibration of Global Climate Models is difficult. I understand that they are not calibrated to match the temperature trend (either for forcast or hindcast). The equations are adjusted so that measured values like cloud height and precipitation are close to climatological averages for times when they have measurements (hindcasts). The temperature trends are an emergent property, not a calibrated property. This also applies to ENSO. When the current equations are implemented ENSO emerges from the calculations, it is not a calibrated property.

Exact discussions of calibration seem excessive to me. In 1894, Arrhenius calculated from basic principles, using only a pencil, and estimated the Climate Sensitivity as 4.5C. This value was not calibrated or curve fitted at all— there was no data to fit to. The current range (from IPCC AR5) is 1.5-4.5C with a most likely value near 3 (IPCC does not state a most likely value). If the effect of aerosols is high the value could be 3.5-4, almost what Arrhenius calculated without knowing about aerosol effects. If it was really difficult to model climate, how could Arrhenius have been so accurate when the Stratosphere had not even been discovered yet? To support your claim that the models are not reliable you have to address Arrhenius' projection, made 120 years ago. If it is so hard to model climate, how did Arrhenius successfully do it? Examinations of other model predictions (click on the Lessons from Past Predictions box to get a long list) compared to what has actually occured show scientists have been generally accurate. You are arguing against success.

A brief examination of the sea level projections in the OP show that they are too low. The IPCC has had to raise it's projection for sea level rise the last two reports and will have to significantly increase it again in the near future. Arctic sea ice collapsed decades before projections and other effects (drought, heat waves) are worse than projected only a decade ago. Scientists did not even notice ocean acidification until the last 10 or 20 years. If your complaint is that the projections are too conservative you may be able to support that.

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #13A

KR at 04:09 AM on 29 March, 2014

Poster - The low-ball estimates you describe come almost entirely from Richard Tol, taken from his own papers and inserted into the WGII report - as discussed at Rabett Run his work represents an extreme opinion, not that of the literature as a whole.

Richard Tols estimates seem to assume a best-case scenario (immediate curtailing of emissions), ignore many possible consequences of climate change, and only hold true up to the mid-21st century. They are by no means the mid-line estimates.

[Ridley and Tol, incidentally, are both on the Academic Advisory Council of the denialist organization GWPF]

"Do you have any thoughts or comments why on Ridley and Delingpole suggest the Summary for Policymakers will be "much more alarmist" than the report from the Working Party?" That outcome remains to be seen, as the WGII report has not been published yet - it may be more pessimistic than they expect. Clearly, though, denialists such as Ridley and Delingpole find it advantageous to highlight the lowest estimates.

2014 SkS Weekly News Roundup #13A

Poster at 02:51 AM on 29 March, 2014

Thanks for ypur criticism scaddenp. Perhaps you might also have suggested Gingerbaker could have looked for another thread. Incidentally have you seen the comments (admittedly from climate change deniers Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal and James Delingpole in Breitbart News) that the upcoming IPCC report from Working Group II will ( -snip-) estimates a rise of 2.5C in glbal temperature will cost the global economy between 0.2% and 2% of its GDP. Do you have any thoughts or comments why on Ridley and Delingpole suggest the Summary for Policymakers will be "much more alarmist" than the report from the Working Party? Are they telling lies?

Matt Ridley's misguided climate change policy

George Fleming at 03:37 AM on 19 January, 2014

To understand skeptics such as Matt Ridley, the best aid is Mark Twain:

"...There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

To get the full impact of this statement, see how he prepared the ground at:

http://www.twainquotes.com/Conjecture.html

Matt Ridley's misguided climate change policy

Riduna at 12:54 PM on 24 May, 2013

Climate sensitivity is found by the IPCC to be ~3.5C, a value confirmed by paleoclimate studies undertaken by Hansen and others and is widely accepted. Dr Otto et al, using data covering a relatively short period (too short?) has found that sensitivity appears to be significantly lower.

Ridley concludes from this that public policy on curbing anthropogenic carbon emissions is misplaced, damaging and should be slowed. He comes to this conclusion without accurately quantifying and estimating the effect of slow feedbacks over next 87 years of this century or their capacity to fully off-set the Dr Otto's findings by 2100.

Those feedbacks include loss of albedo, methane and carbon dioxide emissions trapped in and under permafrost and increased water vapour due to atmospheric warming. Nor can we ignore increasing ocean heat content and the likelihood of its release to the atmosphere, accelerating feedbacks.

The speed with which feedbacks are now developing is more likely to increase rather than lower the rate of global warming. To interpret the findings of Dr Otto et al as indicating that we may have a decade or so longer in which to curb anthropogenic emissions is, in my view, the height of folly.

The Fool's Gold of Current Climate

Riduna at 10:43 AM on 5 April, 2013

Scaddenp … Quite right! There is a tendency to forget that plant (and animal) life is temperature sensitive and can only function within a limited range. That range is moving further north and south of the equator and plants will either do the same or adapt to higher surface temperatures. The problem is that the speed of temperature rise is too rapid for most plants to either adapt or move.

As Dana points out, even if Ridley is not concerned by present climate conditions produced by a surface temperature rise of 0.8°C since 1750, he – and we – should be very alarmed at the effects of a further increase of 2°C by 2100. Why should we be alarmed? Because the effects on climate are likely to be so severe that the ability of our own species to adapt and survive may well be compromised.

The Fool's Gold of Current Climate

mandas at 09:02 AM on 5 April, 2013

Hi Guys,

I believe there is an error in your article. In the paragraph under the cartoon of the falling Venture Banker, you say this:

Of course, Ridley isn't the only climate contrarian to make the mistake of focusing on current impacts while ignoring those to come in the future.

A 'mistake' suggest that Ridley makes an error of oversight. I would like to suggest that this is far from the truth. It is not a 'mistake' it is a deliberate distortion, and as such the sentence should read:

Of course, Ridley isn't the only climate contrarian to deliberately misinform the public by focusing on current impacts while ignoring those to come in the future.

The Fool's Gold of Current Climate

John Fisher at 07:10 AM on 5 April, 2013

Anthony Watts made the same mistake 3 years ago, commenting

"Actually a warmer planet with more C02 will in fact improve growing conditions, which is why that exact growing environment is created in production greenhouses."

Conditions in production greenhouses are monitored and modulated (drip lines, drainage, ventilation, etc). We can't simply open a 'space window' to let more heat escape!

Matt Ridley's talk reminds me of the Swedish politician who remarked--from his perspective--that a little global warming would be a good thing. He was later berated by an Israeli minister who called him self-interested twit.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Rob Painting at 17:19 PM on 17 March, 2013

Roger Dewhurst - your comments are on the wrong thread. See: Ridley, Murdoch and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming.

Given the prior analyses of satellite greening show opposing trends what is so special about the latest as-yet-unpublished study? See you over at the other thread.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Leto at 13:55 PM on 17 March, 2013

Hi Roger,

When I asked for details, I was wondering whether Ridley had mounted any sort of sophisticated botanical argument of relevance to the science of climatology. If you can't answer without mentioning fears of a mini-ice age and mass starvation on the back of "lacl of warming for over a decade", or without dismissing concerns about AGW as "inane", it does give me some idea of the audience he is pitching to, at least.

Comment policy on this site prevents me from saying much more of what I think, so I'll leave it at that. Some of the more patient folk here at SkS might be ready to discuss your ideas with you.

I'm not sure you've done Ridley any favours here.

Leto.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Roger Dewhurst at 11:37 AM on 17 March, 2013

Leto.

Ridley's initial claim is that the earth is getting greener and he presented good evidence for that. Do you wish to dispute that point?

He also claimed that the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide contributed to that greening arguing, on correct botanical grounds, that carbon dioxide is plant food.

Do you wish to dispute that point? Are there any point in his talk that you would like to dispute? If so what are they?

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Leto at 08:47 AM on 17 March, 2013

Hi Roger @30,

Care to put some detail into that claim? Given all of the nonsense Ridley has spouted in the past, I would be surprised if he got something right, but it's always interesting to hear the argument.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Roger Dewhurst at 08:38 AM on 17 March, 2013

Attacks on the messenger but the message escapes unscathed. Rightly so becuse he stuck to facts. Although Ridley is not a botanist his botanical arument was totally correct.

No alternative to atmospheric CO2 draw-down

Kevin at 07:17 AM on 19 February, 2013

This whole article is an opinion piece. There is no back up to it.

The scale and rate of modern climate change have been greatly underestimated

The leaked AR5 shows that this statement is not true, and no, I don't think it's required to link to that, as it is in many places. There was even a discussion here on Ridley's predictions being wrong, with the IPCC's being closer - but ALL above the actual temp. So the author's statement is clearly wrong. Where is his back up? (-snip-)?

This article suggests that the current atmospheric CO2 level is already triggering amplifying feedbacks from the Earth system and therefore, in themselves, efforts at reduction in atmospheric CO2-emission are no longer sufficient to prevent further global warming.

Again, without any backup, this is just opinion. The author can (-snip-) anything he wants. Where is his proof that amplifying feedbacks are already triggerred, and more importantly, where is his proof that a reduction of CO2 is no longer sufficient.

Ocean acidification: Some Winners, Many Losers

Rob Painting at 05:03 AM on 18 February, 2013

Eric - It shouldn't surprise you to learn that Matt Ridley is wrong. The oceans are well saturated with calcium ions, so they are not a consideration. The concentration of calcium ions dissolved into the oceans only changes on geological timescales (typically millions of years) - hence the shift between aragonite and calcite seas over these long periods.

It seems for many marine life the concentration (activity) of carbonate ions is the key because carbonate ions serve as one of the building blocks of the calcium carbonate (chalk) shell/skeleton. One of the reactions that takes place when extra CO2 is dissolved into the oceans is:

Seawater currently favours the left-hand side of that equation, so adding CO2 to the oceans is actually decreasing the activity of carbonate ions, which in turn makes shell-building ever more energetically expensive. Decrease the carbonate ion concentration sufficiently (calcium carbonate undersaturation) and we end up with seawater that is physically corrosive to marine calcifiers.

This corrosiveness is already occurring in the waters of the American Pacific Northwest where oyster larvae are now largely unable to survive in the wild, because they dissolve (Barton [2012]). The Antarctic is also seeing highly corrosive surface water too. See the photo below of a pteropod (sea butterfly) which was caught (alive) several years ago:

Ocean acidification: Some Winners, Many Losers

Eric Grimsrud at 02:50 AM on 18 February, 2013

Sorry, I meant to say because" average concentration of Ca++ in the oceans is much HIGHER than the sum of all carbonate, bicarbonate, and carbonic acid concentrations." Thus according to Ridley, increasing the latter three would assist in CaCO3 formation.

(as we also know, of course, increased acidity serves to decrease the conc of carbonate ion relative to bicarbonate and carbonic acid - thus working against CaCO3 (s) formation - an important point not mentioned by Ridley).

Ocean acidification: Some Winners, Many Losers

Eric Grimsrud at 02:42 AM on 18 February, 2013

I have a question. I have heard that the oceans are under saturated by CaCO3 because the average concentration of Ca++ in the oceans is much lower than the sum of all carbonate, bicarbonate, and carbonic acid concentrations. However, when concerned with the solubility of the CaCO3 shells of living organisms, I would expect that the more relevant question is - is the sea water in the immediate vicinity of these living species saturated with respect to CaCO3? If so, one would observe a gradient of Ca++ concentration as one moves from the region of shelled species out towards the depths am remote regions of the oceans. Certainly such measurements have been made.

Note that Matt Ridley has suggested that increased atmospheric CO2 levels will actually facilitate the growth of CaCO3 shells (in his misnamed book, Realistic Optimist) - an argument that has meaning only if the sea water in the vicinity of shelled critters is not saturated w.r.t. CaCO3.

Any insight on this point would be apprecited.

Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence

Andy Skuce at 06:32 AM on 12 February, 2013

shoyemore:

Do you have a link for that?

Just like M Jourdain in the play le Bourgeois Gentilhomme who was surprised to hear he had been speaking prose all his life and never knew it, so it is that I am now shocked to discover that I have been a lukewarmer all along, at least by Steve Mosher's definition.

The 50% of Lukewarmers who would vote for a most likely climate sensitivity between 1 and 3 is a broad church encompassing contrarian extremists like Ridley, as well as the IPCC consensus. There's a factor of three over that particular range—a lot of uncertainty by any but Judith Curry's standards—and it implies a huge difference in climate outcomes from mild to very serious.

I think that what truly unites Lukewarmers is not any internal consistency of scientific opinion, but rather their desire not to be seen as so stupid to deny basic science and, at the same time, not being able to admit that the dirty hippies were right all along.

Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence

dana1981 at 05:45 AM on 12 February, 2013

Agreed with Dikran @2 - Mosher's definition of "lukewarmer" is pretty much where the IPCC already is, and close to where I am too. Basically he says lukewarmers think the most likely equilibrium climate sensitivity value is maybe a smidge lower than the IPCC does. That's an inconsequential distinction, and incompatible with the positions of Ridley and Michaels.

HH @3 - yes, let's just hope that Ridley doesn't exert any significant influence over UK climate or energy policy from his new position.

Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence

Hyperactive Hydrologist at 05:29 AM on 12 February, 2013

Ridley has recently been elected to the House of Lords and he is also on the GWPF’s Academic Advisory Council.

Lukewarmerism, a.k.a. Ignoring Inconvenient Evidence

shoyemore at 04:42 AM on 12 February, 2013

Steve Mosher recently defined "Lukewarmer" on WUWT as (reformatted for clarity)

... back in 2007 or 2008 we did a poll on Climate audit asking the question
How much of the warming we see today is due to GHG?
There was a distinct group of us that said ‘some, but not all ” heck even Willis said 30%
We called ourselves Lukewarmers.
Over the years a few of us have worked to define what we mean by Lukewarmer and what defines the position.
1. Acceptance of radiative physics.
2. Acceptance of a lower bound to sensitivity. basically the no feedback estimate is 1.2C per doubling. We think that the true sensitivity will be above 1.
3. over/under line. The over under line is 3C. That is, if offered a bet that the climate sensitivity is either ‘between 1 and 3 or over 3, we take the under bet.
ballpark:
less than 1.     2 5%
    1.2 to 3.     50%
    3 to 4.5      45%
     4.5+          5%
So if you believe that GHG can warm the planet and not cool it, and you think that the mean estimate of the IPCC of 3.2 is more likely high than low, then you are a lukewarmer. But you have to drop the crazy refusals over radiative physics.
Note:
Lukewarmers dont have to attack the surface record, its probably correct to within .2C
We also dont have to slam models, or invent kook theories about the sun.
Everything we believe is well within the consensus and we think that you can change the consensus from inside the tent rather than attacking everything and everyone.
Focus on sensitivity, work to refine that. You see there is a debate in climate science, its a debate about sensitivity.
When folks start putting their effort into that ( instead of frittering away time on tangents then you will see changes.

I find most ofthat innocuous, which suggest that "Lukewarmerism" is more of an emotional position with regard to scientific consensus than a fundamental scientific difference. Ridley and Michaels are definitely not "Lukewarmers" like Mosher.

A Climate Sensitivity Tail

shoyemore at 18:26 PM on 7 February, 2013

Rob Painting #6,

You are right. There was a lot of sense in what Annan wrote, but also a lot of drivel as well. He seems to have been stung somewhere along the way. I thought gavin Schmidt comment to Andy Revkin summed up matters:

Indeed, the consensus statements in the IPCC reports have remained within the 1.5 – 4.5 range first set by Charney in 1979. James’ work has helped improve the quantifications of the paleo constraints (particular for the LGM), but these have been supported by work from Lorius et al (1991), Kohler et al (2010), etc. and therefore are not particularly radical.

By not reflecting that, you are implying that the wishful thinking of people like Ridley and Lindzen for a climate sensitivity of around 1 deg C is tenable. It is not, and James’ statement was simply alluding to that. For reference, James stated that his favored number was around 2.5 deg C, Jim Hansen in a recent letter to the WSJ quote 2.5-3.5 (based on the recent Palaeosens paper), and for what it’s worth the CMIP5 GISS models have sensitivities of 2.4 to 2.7 deg C. None of this is out of the mainstream.

Revkin complains the scientists have not "adequately conveyed the reality." Isn't that your job too, Andy?

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

monkeyorchid at 05:52 AM on 5 February, 2013

Worryingly, Ridley is also on the advisory council of Sense About Science (http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/advisory-council.html), along with at least one other climate denier (Tony Trewavas). Might explain why SAS has been seems to have been very quiet about climate disinformation.

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

JasonB at 15:35 PM on 1 February, 2013

It's very hard to read that GWPF PDF without getting very angry at the blatant distortions and misrepresentations.

I also can't help noticing two things:

1. The description of "Dr Matt Ridley" on page 1 and his own description of his expertise stand in stark contrast to the kindergarten-level logical fallacies and misunderstandings of the science.

2. The "Academic Advisory Council" is full of important-sounding people (at least to those who are unfamiliar with its members), yet practically all of his references are to dubious blog postings rather than any peer-reviewed scientific papers that his esteemed colleagues might have written. For example, what's the point of that Advisory Council if he's going to rely on prematurely reported, significantly flawed and unpublished papers by ex-TV weathermen to prove his point?

Climate Sensitivity Single Study Syndrome

dana1981 at 13:28 PM on 31 January, 2013

Yes, sparse OHC data are a challenge. It's interesting that for example when Levitus et al. (2012) came out, climate contrarians were saying the error bars were too small and OHC data are still highly uncertain. Now suddenly they seem to think the uncertainties are inconsequential. In his new 'ten tests' document, Matt Ridley said that aerosols and ocean heat uptake "are now well understood". My jaw nearly hit the floor when I read that.

Personally I'm more comfortable with paleoclimate-based sensitivity estimates, the main problem there being that feedbacks in different climate states may not be the same, as I mentioned in this post. And of course there are significant uncertainties in forcing and temperature data further back in time, but the results always seem to be fairly consistent (PALAEOSENS being the latest example).

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

Doug Hutcheson at 11:59 AM on 31 January, 2013

dana1981 @ 16, Daniel Bailey emailed the Ridley GWPF PDF to me - thanks, Daniel.

What a crock! I am an interested spectator of average intelligence, not a scientist, but even I could debunk most of what the document contains. The front cover lists the GWPF Board of Trustees and Academic Advisory Council: why am I not surprised at the rubbish they advocate?

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

dana1981 at 04:53 AM on 31 January, 2013

Ridley's new list of '10 tests' is pretty horrid, full of denialist blog-based misinformation. We'll address it in a future blog post.

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

Martin Lack at 01:53 AM on 31 January, 2013

#11 For the avoidance of any doubt, Doug, the Matt Ridley document is here:
http://www.thegwpf.org/content/uploads/2013/01/Ridley-Lukewarmer-Ten-Tests.pdf

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

Lionel A at 01:15 AM on 30 January, 2013

It would appear that Ridley has been at it again this time using the GWPF to promote his propaganda, or is it the other way around, H/T Russell Seitz at Eli's:

A Lukewarmers Ten Tests, PDF, from GWPF.

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

EliRabett at 02:18 AM on 28 January, 2013

IEHO it would be best to change

"but they have almost all been far more accurate than his own"

to

"all the IPCC predictions have been much more accurate that Ridley's. The only one that has been worse was Hansen's 1988 model because of an assumption of a too high climate sensitivity, something that Hansen acknowledges and corrected in later versions of his model.

Eli might add the later GISS model projections to the list, e.g. 1998.

NASA Retirees Appeal to their Own Lack of Climate Authority

JoeT at 05:42 AM on 26 January, 2013

Dana

At H. Leighton Steward's website, CO2isGreen.org, he says,

"Empirical evidence shows that Earth is currently "greening" significantly due to additional CO2 and a modest warming."

This is essentially the same argument that Matt Ridley made in his WSJ article that you dissected in your post of January 16. In the WSJ piece Ridley attributes this position to Ranga Myneni of Boston University. I was wondering if you were ever able to ascertain whether Myneni's views were accurately reflected in Ridley's article? And if this is Myneni's position, what evidence does he have to back it up?

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

Philippe Chantreau at 04:42 AM on 25 January, 2013

Ridley is yet anbother one of those individuals whose ramblings deserve no attention whatsoever from the ones who can think, as shown above. It is really unfortunate that so many charlatans can gather so much attention these days. It seems to me there were times when the average ability of the population for critical thinking was much higher.

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

dana1981 at 02:24 AM on 25 January, 2013

John Brookes @1 - yes, Ridley is one of those "lukewarmers" who's not in total denial, but also advocates for climate inaction because he doesn't believe AGW is a problem. From a practical standpoint for those trying to solve this problem, it's really not any better.

Composer @2 and John Russell @3 - yes, a good scientist will admit when his prior conceptions were wrong. Ridley apparently will not (this is also a problem for some other contrarians like Richard Lindzen).

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

John Russell at 02:04 AM on 25 January, 2013

Ridley is not sceptical, he's heels-in-the-mud entrenched. Completely unwilling to consider evidence, he clearly exhibits the ideological zeal of which he accuses others. Is he an example of psychological projection?

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

Composer99 at 23:56 PM on 24 January, 2013

I think the contrast between Hansen's re-assessment of his 1988 projections vs. Ridley's doubling down on his 1993 projections makes plain the difference between scientific and pseudo-scientific thinking.

(If anyone cares to quote-mine the above, let me also note that the contrast makes plain that it is Ridley who is engaged in the pseudo-scientific thinking here.)

Lessons From Past Predictions: Ridley vs. IPCC and Hansen

John Brookes at 21:38 PM on 24 January, 2013

At least Ridley predicts warming...

Open Letter to London Mayor Boris Johnson - Weather is not Climate

MA Rodger at 04:10 AM on 23 January, 2013

Boris Johnson has made a political career of courting maximum publicity while sending mixed messages. Is he the affable fool or should some part of what he says or does be seen as a the true Boris, a calculating and focused campaigner?

This recent Op Ed is not the first time he has made climate denier noises. Last year, for instance, he staged 4 events to discuss 4 imperatives facing London. One of these was The Environmental Imperative. "The question of the environment is often described as the most significant challenge faced by the planet today.""
So who gets asked to provide the Key Note speech? One Matt Riley, one of the GWPF crowd. You can see the slides of Riley's presentation here and then ask if Boris is a fool, a dyed-in-the-wool denier, or a consummate politician buttering up the right-wing tories.
It makes for an interesting question.

2013 SkS Weekly News Roundup #3

JoeT at 03:17 AM on 20 January, 2013

Thank you for putting together this round-up. I always find something interesting to learn.

One thing I would point out --- in the article titled "Megadrought took long-lasting toll on Amazon rainforest" there is this quote from Sassan Saatchi, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lead author of the paper:

"Our results suggest that if droughts continue at five- to 10-year intervals or increase in frequency due to climate change, large areas of the Amazon forest are likely to be exposed to persistent effects of droughts and corresponding slow forest recovery," Saatchi said. "This may alter the structure and function of Amazonian rainforest ecosystems."

I would point out that Ranga Myneni is a co-author on the paper. Myneni is the guy who Matt Ridley quotes in his Wall Street Journal article as saying that the increasing greening of the planet is half due to increased warming or rainfall and half due to carbon fertilization.

All the more reason for someone to check with Myneni and see if his views were represented accurately.

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

JoeT at 08:49 AM on 19 January, 2013

As a follow-up to my post above, I did a cursory search for papers by Myneni to see if he ever wrote anything suggesting that carbon fertilization is responsible for the greening of the planet as suggested by the Ridley article. I was unsuccessful in finding anything by Myneni, but I did find the following in a paper in which Nemani is a co-author regarding the western Amazon basin:

"CO2 fertilization effects were evenly distributed over the course of an entire year, but NDVI did not show such an overall increase. Our results do not exclude the possibility that potential gains in productivity resulting from CO2 fertilization effects were not likely distributed to leaf production; however, we suggest that changes in climate rather than CO2 fertilization effects could explain the increasing trend in NDVI. Specifically, a positive trend in shortwave radiation and negative trend in cloud cover most strongly explain the corresponding increase in NDVI, as our simulations showed that these factors drove a simulated increase in NPP for the same months (from August to December) in which the increases in NDVI have been observed."

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

John Hartz at 07:28 AM on 19 January, 2013

Ruppert Murdoch’s transformation from a climate hawk to a climate skeptic Is nicely covered in:

Has Rupert Murdoch turned into a climate change sceptic? by Ian Burrell, the Independent, Jan 11, 2013

Like Dana’s excellent OP, this article was precipitated by Murdoch’s recent tweet about Ridley’s op-ed.

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

JoeT at 04:56 AM on 19 January, 2013

Excellent article with a lot of good references to follow up on. I'm also looking forward to the follow-up article on carbon fertilization.

I finally read the Ridley article about which I have a question. He says:

Dr. Myneni reckons that it is now possible to distinguish between these two effects in the satellite data, and he concludes that 50% is due to "relaxation of climate constraints," i.e., warming or rainfall, and roughly 50% is due to carbon dioxide fertilization itself.

I noticed that '50% is due to carbon dioxide fertilization' is not a direct quote from Myneni. I was wondering if anyone followed up to see whether Myneni actually said this? I find it hard to believe that any scientist would make such a blanket statement without a large number of caveats. And if by chance Myneni did say this, what in the world is the method by which he came to this conclusion? Is it published or just a wild guess? What's the error bar on that 50%?

Also, was anyone able to find the "online lecture last July by Ranga Myneni of Boston University, confirms that the greening of the Earth has now been going on for 30 years"? I came up short.

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

dana1981 at 05:13 AM on 18 January, 2013

ajki @13 - thanks. I think the 'greening' myth has been around for a while, probably since the Nemani (2003) NPP research.

prestrud @15 - good point, greening isn't necessarily beneficial, depending on where it happens. Arctic greening will change that ecosystem, but will also add to overall global greening. As the post notes, it's just not nearly as simple as Ridley/Murdoch/Lomborg are trying to make it.

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

Cugel at 14:08 PM on 17 January, 2013

Regarding Ridley's selective vision and excuse to Parliament, it has for centuries been a financial maxim that to borrow short and lend long is a sure road to bankruptcy. It's not credible that nobody ever pointed this out to Ridley, but he either could not hear or he regaled them with the "new economic paradigm" which comes with every asset bubble, in which old unwelcome maxims no longer applied. What's more the bank was lending long on 125% mortgages, on the understanding that the asset value would inevitably rise (thanks to the new economic paradigm) to fill the gap. None of this was unprecented by a very long way.

Ridley is a (-snip-), pure and simple.

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

dana1981 at 06:17 AM on 17 January, 2013

John Russell @1 - indeed, failing to account for any but the best possible scenario seems to be a constant problem for Ridley in many different areas. Maybe we'll get lucky - maybe climate sensitivity is on the low end of possible values, maybe the greening trend will continue in the future, etc. But banking (pun intended) on that best case scenario is a fundamental risk management failure. If any but the very best case scenario comes to fruition and we fail to do anything about it, we're in big trouble. Which seems to be basically what happened to Ridley's bank, which probably isn't a coincidence.

Ridley, Murdoch, and Lomborg Attempt to Greenwash Global Warming

John Russell at 05:20 AM on 17 January, 2013

Ridley is "always assuming the best case scenario, never preparing for the worst."

Which is why he totally screwed up his bank. Northern Rock was once a fine building society until it became a bank and under Ridley's leadership was then the first to crash when the financial meltdown came along. [This is all referenced in the second link in the article.]

Note the excuse Ridley made to the Parliamentary inquiry when explaining why his bank went down; "we were subject to a completely unpredicted and unpredictable closing of the world credit markets." Doesn't that say so much about his denial mindset? I can just hear him now using similar words, when he's called to account for denying the changing of the world's climate (well, one can dream, can't one?).

Nature Confirms Global Warming and Temperature Record Accuracy

dana1981 at 05:00 AM on 14 January, 2013

fpjohn @5 - we will have a rebuttal to a similar argument by Ridley and Murdoch this upcoming week. If I have time I'll try to incorporate some of Lomborg's nonsense. Unfortunately the deniers have been very busy writing BS media articles lately, and it's very hard to keep up.

This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.

Albatross at 14:08 PM on 30 December, 2012

Ron @60,

"...should not be attacked for not being a climate scientist by people who aren't climate scientists."

Your red herring argument dismisses one and all critiques made by non-climate scientists in this faux debate? You are conceding that the opinions Monckton, Watts, McIntyre, Ridley, McKitrick, Morano, Michaels, Pielke Jnr., Inhofe, Bastardi, Douglass, Knox, Singer, Easterbrook, Peiser, McLean, Jo Nova, Montford, Mosher, Baliunas, Loehle, Tom Harris, Muller, Liljegren, Condon, Happer, Lewis, Plimer, Soon, Idso, Tisdale, Dyson and many, many other fake skeptics and contrarians are to be ignored when it comes to climate science.

For the record, in science it is not considered an "attack" to note legitimate and noteworthy errors and flaws in arguments made by fake skeptics and those in denial. Trying to invoke that hyperbole in a scientific debate is conceding that you have lost and are grasping at straws.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Bert from Eltham at 10:26 AM on 25 December, 2012

When I was learning how to fly in the late seventies my instructor put this hood thing on my head so I could only see my instruments or dash and not outside. This exercise was designed to teach a mere beginner like me to never fly in clouds or lose sight of the real horizon or worse at night. He gave me the usual instructions to climb/descend and turn to set headings and various combinations. He then asked me to climb to 7000ft on a heading of 135. I knew there was cloud higher than we were and sure enough we were in thick cloud. I could tell by the sudden dimming of the light. He then put me through a lot of turns climbs and descents and combinations of all these. After about twenty minutes he said 'You do know how to fly on instruments! You were not cheating!' I then told him it was a simple matter to just cross correlate all the instruments to give a true indication of the state of the aircraft. Working in science had given me this insight. Further if you rely only on one instrument and ignore all others you will crash. Even if you look at all and fail to cross correlate and not see the pattern you still crash. The usual control failure is a spiral descent at ever increasing speed into the deck.
This is analogous to the deniers flying. They will point to one instrument and say all is good. If that one changes they will find another that tells them all is OK. They then put absolute trust in the balance centre in their ear (natural cycles) . They then ignore that their airspeed is increasing, engine revs are increasing, they are losing height and the artificial horizon looks 'stuck' at some impossible angle. The heading is varying a bit but that is due to the wind! All is fine until you hit the deck at a velocity higher than V never exceed for your aircraft.
This chap Ridley has crashed a bank and he now knows how to drive a planet! Bert

The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen

Philippe Chantreau at 12:20 PM on 24 December, 2012

I'll add that talking about entrenched individuals when discussing a US goverment agency is also moot. The leadership of these agencies is subject to the vagaries of elections and changes in fact more often than desirable for consistency and follow-up of long term actions. The 2 consecutive Bush administrations appointed leaders for the EPA under whom the enforcement process slowed to a crawl, effectively rendering the agency toothless.

I note that Markx also establishes his strawman of choice by suggesting that proponents of goverment involvement have the illusion that government will always act in the interest of most people. Ridley shares in that fallacy, as far as I can tell (I don't really have the time to dwell in his ramblings). Of course, since nobdy and no group of people is perfect, this is not the case, the strawman is an especially easy one to set on fire.

But that's a very different contention that saying that the overall sum of government actions will result in mostly adverse consequences, a step that Markx and Ridley seem eager to take as if it logically followed.

Ideologues pushing this nonsense in the opulent comfort of Western countries that have well established, stable, democratic goverments would be well served to go experience what life is like in countries that have no effective goverment. Basically, it's hell: Life run by whatever local maffia manages to scare other groups by violence; corruption as a way of life; merit and competence relegated as useless ornaments of one's persona, because connections are the only thing that matter. I've lived on 3 continents and a large island, and visited other places too. It takes more than ideologically driven rethoric to convince me. Ideology almost never passes the test against reality.

The other strawman is that any kind of new government action is a step toward non-democratic government. This argument has been around for so long that you'd swear by now we should be in a full blown dictature.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Paul D at 08:57 AM on 23 December, 2012

I really don't understand the likes of Ridley.
This year in the UK we started with drought, now we have to much water everywhere and we are no where near seeing the worst of climate change!

There are businesses really suffering as well as home owners.
The risk is clear in the UK, do nothing and the costs are going to be astonishing.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

JoeT at 06:20 AM on 23 December, 2012

Victor@18 Actually, I read your blog post several days ago. Like you, I had seen the post on WUWT, then I did a google search on NVAP-M which led me to your blog. After I read your post, I went back and read the Colorado State paper. Nice catch on how WUWT (as well as Matt Ridley) distorted the conclusion in the report by quoting a single sentence out of context.

The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen

markx at 04:51 AM on 23 December, 2012

(-Moderation complaints snipped-)

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Albatross at 04:41 AM on 23 December, 2012

BBD and Neven,

Fortunately, someone has invested the time to look closer at the curios claims made by Ridley and Lewis. It seems the more "sophisticated" the fake skeptics are, the more skilled they are at deluding themselves and anyone who will listen or take them seriously.

A post by ThingsBreak titled "Matt Ridley and the Wall Street Journal misrepresent paper cited in Ridley column" exposes just how "creative" and sly Lewis et al. had to be to force their desired narrative.

"Ignoring the two main findings of a paper for values that you’re either estimating from a curve or are creating yourself based on data not used by the paper will be seen by at least some people to be misleading. Claiming that ECS cannot be estimated by paleo data is absurd, especially when so many are aware of efforts like the PALAEOSENS project and various paleoclimatic intercomparison groups."

So yet another alleged "nail in the coffin of AGW" is, pardon the pun, vapourized. Water vapour is not our friend in this situation, I'm inclined to call it "Darth Vapour" ;) Physics cares not one iota for the shenanigans of fake skeptics....

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Neven at 04:31 AM on 23 December, 2012

If we bank (pardon the pun) on Ridley's optimism and it turns out to be unfounded, we will be on a path headed towards catastrophe.

But I'm sure Ridley will be fine. He was born into the 1%.

My sense is that the more sophisticated contrarians are going to run with this.

Indeed.

The Ridley Riddle Part One: The Red Queen

markx at 03:40 AM on 23 December, 2012

(-snip-).

Philippe Chantreau at 20:23 PM on 22 December, 2012 said:

1. A major downfall of capitalism, which has nothing to do with the basic concept or its intent, is the "immunity" given to some corporations and certain individuals, enabling them to consolidate their power and exploit their positions to entrench and enrich themselves.
2. …. there never was communism in the Soviet Union, or China, or Korea. These places have experienced totalitarian socialism, as defined by state ownership of the means of production.
3. ….. socialist countries have a notoriously poor record of environmental performance, far worse than capitalistic countries.
4. ….. strong environmental regulations, and consistent enforcement thereof, are theoretically possible only where there is adequate separation of powers…..

Philippe, I absolutely agree with your points 1 to 5 above, but am not sure if I can make any valid comparison of the EPA to the market crash.

DSL at 14:46 PM on 22 December, 2012 makes very good points,

“…… does this year's corn production mean that global warming is benefiting corn production? Or are there other, more significant factors at work?....”

Which can be applied directly to show the meaninglessness of Killians’s statement:

Killian at 18:44 PM on 31 July, 2011 said: ".... crop reductions of 3% are already being realized..."

My point still remains that government action is not necessarily always in everyone’s (or anyone’s) best interests, subject as they are to lobbyists of all types and from all directions.

(-snip-).

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

John Russell at 00:43 AM on 23 December, 2012

Several points to make here.

I've noticed that most of the 'more sophisticated' sceptics have dropped denial of warming and its anthropogenic origins and now base all their arguments around the climate sensitivity issue. So 'it wont be bad' seems to be the 'meme du jour'. Ridley fits the mould perfectly.

To John Brookes: "...optimists... [are] ...generally healthier and happier than pessimists..." They are until overtaken by events they didn't foresee due to their irrational optimism. It's interesting that there are so many optimists around -- I'd have thought that, thanks to evolution, we'd have lost them all to lions hiding behind rocks.

The Ridleys of this world (especially given his financial background) tend to fall optimistically into the 'short-termist' camp. It's also a more general failing. I was struck by this graph the other day showing longer timescales than we usually see. If the concern is future generations, rather than our own self-satisfaction, the cherry-pickers need to think a little more deeply.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

David Lee at 23:45 PM on 22 December, 2012

It was Sir John Sulston (biologist, Nobel Prize winner) who called Ridley an "irrational optimist".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017mrbd

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

John Brookes at 20:22 PM on 22 December, 2012

Its funny, but when it came to running a bank, Ridley was an optimist. Everything would be fine. I once heard a lecture on learned optimism. Basically it said that optimists were generally healthier and happier than pessimists, and that we should all learn how to be optimists. However, it did offer a caution. If you are in an aeroplane, and are heading for a thunderstorm, you should very much hope that your pilot is a pessimist.

It appears that Ridley has learned little from the failure of his optimism at Northern Rock, and is now applying it to climate science.

On a slightly related note, it has been found that the presence or absence of optimism in people diagnosed with cancer does not affect their outcomes. However the presence of hope does lead to more positive outcomes. One hopes it will work for climate change as well.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

VictorVenema at 19:38 PM on 22 December, 2012

One of Ridleys arguments that indicates "that the water vapor feedback is weak" is that water vapor does not show any trend. He probably got this piece of misinformation from WUWT.

In his guest post at WUWT Forest Mims makes this claim, by citing one sentence from an article on the NASA NVAP global humidity dataset. Had he quoted the entire paragraph, not just one sentence, the message would haven been that the authors did not try to study the water vapor trend.

They did not do so because the dataset is currently only suited to study "seasonal to interannual variability" due to inhomogeneities in the dataset. For example, because the types and number of satellites changed during the observation period. But Mims knows better than the authors and does not feel the need to say that the authors of this paper do not agree with his original science without arguments.

Furthermore, this dataset is only 23 years long and thus not interesting for trend analysis as the uncertainty would be huge anyway, even if the dataset would not be biased.

Another clear piece of misinformation.

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Doug Hutcheson at 17:21 PM on 22 December, 2012

The caption to figure 1 includes this:

The IPCC likely range (2 to 4.5°C) and most likely value (3°C) are indicated by the vertical grey bar and black line, respectively.

I could not see either a vertical grey bar or a black line in the image - am I going blind? Perhaps, like Ridley's credibility, they are figaments of the imagination ...

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Andy Skuce at 15:52 PM on 22 December, 2012

Ridley's answer to a question at the parliamentary enquiry to the Northern Rock fiasco was revealing:

Q406 Mr Fallon: But you were wrong?

Dr Ridley: We were hit by an unexpected and unpredictable concatenation of events.

Except that the events were predicted by some analysts. With respect to climate change, just because there are uncertainties does not mean that terrible outcomes are unpredictable or unexpected. Wishful thinking is not an admissible defence against gross negligence.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ridleyriddle3.html

Matt Ridley Risk Management Failure Deja Vu

Composer99 at 13:49 PM on 22 December, 2012

Ridley practically ran his bank into the ground.

And we're supposed to take his advice on how to run national or global economies with regards to climate?

No thanks. Stick a fork in Ridley-as-climate-advisor. He's done.

This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.

dana1981 at 03:56 AM on 22 December, 2012

My response to Ridley's WSJ piece will be published later today, FYI.

This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.

dana1981 at 11:48 AM on 21 December, 2012

Even though I'm currently on vacation, since Ridley's WSJ piece was little more than a repeat of the errors in his WIRED piece (as noted by KR @50), I drafted up a blog post about it. So that will probably be published here in the coming days.

This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.

KR at 09:09 AM on 21 December, 2012

Bradely - Matt Ridley has made these kinds of claims before (see this thread on his writing), and they've never been supportable. He bases this article on the posts of Nic Lewis, a blogger with as far as I can tell zero publications in the field.

Neither Ridleys claims on sensitivity nor his feelings about "beneficial" are supported in the actual literature, and I can only suspect that he and Lewis have misread the various publications, including the IPCC AR4 and the (pre-publication draft) AR5.

I would suggest reading climate sensitivity is low to see what the science says - ~3C/doubling of CO2 - and positives and negatives of global warming regarding the impacts. Those are summaries; read the primary literature linked therein for details.

Rather than taking (IMO) what are just ideological polemics as gospel...

This is Global Warming - A Lesson for Monckton and Co.

Bradely at 08:16 AM on 21 December, 2012

December 18, 2012
Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change
Evidence points to a further rise of just 1°C by 2100. The net effect on the planet may actually be beneficial.

(-snip-).
A version of this article appeared December 19, 2012, on page A19 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Cooling Down the Fears of Climate Change.

WSJ, Sandy, and Global Warming - Asking the Right Questions

dana1981 at 05:49 AM on 12 November, 2012

idunno @68 - yes, Ridley and the WSJ is a bad combination. Rob Painting is working on a response to that article. Suffice it to say that like everything Matt Ridley writes related to the climate, it's riddled with errors.

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