I met Matt Ridley for the first time in person last month on his trip through California. We shared lunch in Novato on a Saturday, it was a pleasant and enlightening conversation. Dr. Ridley “gets it”; he gets what climate skepticism is all about, and gets what I am about. I’m honored to count him among my friends.
He has this new video out, from his next stop after visiting with me, please take a moment to watch, and more importantly, to share. Ridley’s message is simple – through our own activities, we are making the world a better, greener place.
From Reason Magazine’s description on YouTube:
Matt Ridley, author of The Red Queen, Genome, The Rational Optimist and other books, dropped by Reason’s studio in Los Angeles last month to talk about a curious global trend that is just starting to receive attention. Over the past three decades, our planet has gotten greener!
Even stranger, the greening of the planet in recent decades appears to be happening because of, not despite, our reliance on fossil fuels. While environmentalists often talk about how bad stuff like CO2 causes bad things to happen like global warming, it turns out that the plants aren’t complaining.
Approximately 18 minutes.
Produced by Paul Feine and Alex Manning.
So greening or desertification? Answer: greening. Desertification is only happening where morons are doing or stopping the farming.
Great Video. Conservation efforts and more efficient economies have been saving the environment. As Massachusetts reverted to 70% woodlands from 70% marginal farm land, moose of migrated south, just the opposite of Hansens’s prediction that wildlife will flee northward. Since 1980 over a thousand moose now inhabit the Quabbin region
I watched it. Great video. Will share with my facebook friends.
I hope this one doesn’t get ignored due to the CG3 release. A very sound talk.
Anthony,
THANK YOU! What a perfectly simple – and, in my view, quite charming – video of an informed enthusiast on top of his game. The message is clear…indeed, I can almost hear the PR machinery of the WWF grinding into action to find some way of nullifying/diverting its impact.
This film is 18 minutes long. WUWT visitors – do not hesitate. 18 minutes of your life well spent. Send it on to friends, colleagues, family members. Rent seekers and Government tax designers will be horrified. Because, of course, the truth always hurts.
By the way – wish I had been at that lunch!
JVW
And the alarmist environmentalists will not even consider this argument because it advocates the use of fuels that nature has provided. Think about that. Nature gave us all the fossil fuels but environmentalists would rather us mine and refine toxic metals and chemicals to make ‘green’ energy.
No doom and gloom? No catastrophes? Sorry Dr Ridley, no grants for you!
A well spent 18 minutes.
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2013/03/13/we-should-be-listening-to-susan-crockford/
Matt Ridley, author of The Rational Optimist, is a member of Global Warming Policy Foundation’s Academic Advisory Council. The text above is his foreword to Ten Good Reasons Not To Worry About Polar Bears by the University of Victoria’s Susan Crockford.
I’ve always been a huge fan of Matt Ridley, even before he entered the climate fray. For an entertaining read, try his book “Genome” . . .
Outstanding presentation! Shades of The Skeptical Environmentalist (Bjørn Lomborg). These are the data and the observations one NEVER hears about in the MSM, an MSM that is not only helplessly addicted to a diet of fear and threat propaganda but is the main dealer for the Green fear-mongers.
Ridley is infinitely more compelling.
In his last part, re the bio fuels. Matt Ridley forgot to mention that the Arab uprisings were initiated by higher food prices……
A kick in the teeth for the Green lobby. Post it as mutch as possible peoples
whoops – meant much derrrrr
Yet to watch the video but have to mention Matt Ridley’s book “The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature”. I have now bought this book three times on two continents (I’m from the UK)! I have read it about six times. I lent it to my (grown up) children, friends et al and whilst in Eugene OR where my daughter was at the Uni spotted it in the bookshop there and bought it again (I can never remember who or where I lend my books). MR has an excellent writing style (ideal for laymen like me) and thus makes technical issues very accessible for all. Anyway enough of the sales spiel I’ll get on and watch the video.
Demonstrates perfectly that the Greens have it 180 degrees wrong. Thanks, Mr. Ridley.
Great video. More people should listen to it. How can we get it equal time with global warming propaganda in the news?
Terraforming the Earth?
Although I agree with most of what Mr. Ridley says and it makes sense, I think he is not completely right on the biofuel question. Cutting wood just to cut wood for burning is a bad idea and we all know this. But usually forests are regrowth. The Pacific North West and most of western Canada forests are infested by the pine beetle. It is better to cut them down and make fuel with it than letting it die or burn up in smoke. The new forest will be healthy and much greener. We have a renewable source up here that lots of countries will enjoy, especially Northern Europe in winter. We are not cutting more than we can plant back.
Sure some crops are worst than others to make biofuel, ethanol being one of the worst fuel t make and to use, but the biofuel produced are a small fraction of the cause of food price increase we have seen. The real problems are the speculators. Take time to watch the following film and it will all make sense.
CO2 is essential to plants…not only will plants reduce CO2 to where it’s limiting to plants….plants have to compete with rocks and the abyss which can reduce levels to where plants die…..
Still all in all…the hysterics claim a 40% increase……40% of nothing is still nothing
Does anyone else have trouble viewing videos through network.coull.com? I haven’t been able to watch any of them. Direct links to youtube work fine. But coull.com just resizes my browser tab and gives me a black/blank video player screen.
He doesn’t mention Green Revolution crop varieties like Stevens wheat developed at WSU, but they need N from natural gas, so he noted rightly, along with much else. Of course, anti-GM activists hate people who help feed the planet, like Borlaug.
The ethanol program is actually a net energy consumer. My friends who grow corn (maize) on irrigated circles know this, but still take advantage of the subsidies, & feed the residue to their livestock.
My car is looking a little green around the tailpipe!
While we’re pointing toward great vids, this one is a bit off-topic (ok, a lot) but has some phenomenal video of upper-atmosphere sprites and some other interesting lightning (two different segments–the one on sprites is toward the end). Plus, if you’re a Top Gear UK fan, you’ll recognize the host.
One of the best films I’ve seen! I wish this was shown in schools! Any teachers out there who can slip this in the the classrooms???
Seriously, not a single wasted word. Right to the point.
The scary thing is, in a few years, the world will be looking browner again as the populations all over Europe (and no doubt everywhere else) head for the forests to cut down trees for their fuel supplies, as is happening in Germany and elsewhere right now. Then the Green-whackos will point to such browning and claim it’s CAGW that’s doing it. A bit like the report a while back right here how CAGW will “cause” brown-outs and black-outs.
This film really needs to reach far and wide. A breath of fresh air, blinkers off, commonsense talking. Brilliantly done.
[Reply: Link? — mod.]
NASA used to publish information of this sort and even put graphs online showing the greening of the planet over time.
Those days are over and any NASA works talking about earth greening do not mention CO2 and also put a negative spin on the subject of greening, i.e. it’s still our fault.
I invite others to prove me wrong and find any surviving links to NASA graphs/info which aren’t whining about man- made climate disaster, to some extent.
Repeat after me: Co2 is not plant food, it is a toxin. Well so say Al Gore et. al.
http://youtu.be/P2qVNK6zFgE
Here is some evidence of a tropical rain forest getting lusher & more diverse with more co2 toxin and unbearable heat. How can this be???
PETM
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1193833
It’s worse than we thought! Here is the response of trees to shrivelling levels of heat at an unprecedented rate. Head for them there hills.
I thought this was already known.
This sort of practical thinking reminds me of the debate on mitigating effects versus preventing, AGW. They are ignored by the Main Stream Media(MSM).
CAGW theory will prevail due to the Main Stream Media. The MSM’s power is greater than any government. They displace and emplace governments. Their controllers* have an agenda: The MSM will be THE drivers of Progressive Socialist revolution.Their agenda has nothing to do with the environment. CAGW hype is a smokescreen of fear to facilitate their eventual goal of Socialist Government control of energy.
Control of energy will give them control of commerce. Control of commerce will give them control of money,people society,
everything.
*With all the un-named “theirs” and “thems”, I am, apparently, a conspiracy theorist.
I can’t name them. But somethings going on. The evidence is there.
A.D. Everard says:
March 14, 2013 at 1:01 pm
“The scary thing is, in a few years, the world will be looking browner again as the populations all over Europe (and no doubt everywhere else) head for the forests to cut down trees for their fuel supplies, as is happening in Germany and elsewhere right now.”
No, we don’t. 98% of German forest are cultured forest, a lot of it private property. Some huge chunks owned and managed by old aristocratic families. So you run the risk of getting caught if stealing serious quantities of wood. What you can do is buy some; the foresters will make sure that only sustainable quantities are harvested.
It’s not like you’re somewhere in the middle of Canada. It’s a small country. Access roads to private forests are often gated. Not so easy to steal more than a few sticks.
Hey Jimbo, I heard ALGorical call CO2 “filth” before.
He’s not the Idiot though.
His useful followers are.
In the past we also had the wrong kind of green people. But at least they wore brown uniforms .
http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/Radical%20Ecology.htm
The ‘green’ bio fuel is doing the same thing . Killing millions but by malnutrition which I think is even more cruel .
A wonderful video I urge all to see. Matt Ridley’s engaging presentation invites the viewer to explore a truly alternative take – backed by science, no less – on everything from the ‘greening’ of the planet over the past 30 years to how some previously endagered species populations have thrived in the past 50 years. You get the entire video (just over 18mins worth) if you click on the ‘view on YouTube’ icon in the bottom right of the screen. Compulsive, upbeat viewing!
He should have made a video of his Angus Miller lecture.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/thank-you-matt-ridley/
I’ve been waiting for a presentation like this. These results would have been predicted by any plant physiologist half a century ago and indeed by any student of elementary biology.
As good as this was, and as accurate as it is, it still missed a key point covered in my ebook Gaia’s Limits. The peak of fossil fuel energy production per year will be before about 2050. That does not say we have run out. Actually, about 2/3 of technically recoverable reserves will remain. But we will only be able to produce less of them per year. So net fossil fuel energy will decline. That simple probable fact has massive consequences for many things, not the least of which are the ridiculous SRES scenarios of the IPCC.
Compound that with the ‘peaking’ of greening, especially from the green revolution in food production, and certain absolute population/economic limits begin to emerge.
Food is a ‘soft’ limit. No catastrophes, only misery. Fossil fuels peaks are a ‘hard’ limit. Not good.
As Ray said:
More than that. The Canadian park rangers now want all pine out of the Canadian Rockies. They invited the loggers in to take it, free. Pine trees boil their sap inside their trunks at about 60C (don’t quote me, but it’s less than 100C) during a forest fire and burst, sending embers 1/4 to 1/2 mile away increasing the fire. Further, pine trees clog the forests and prevent elk with 24-pointers from maneuvering freely, or bears from roaming. The park rangers now like only firs and some spruce. In addition, they want the forest floor taken down to the dirt (as 100-year-old photos of the Rockies showed the Indians did, they actually swept the forest floor), for three reasons.
(1) ground cover, especially when it rings the base of the trees, is considered “gasoline” that will ignite the tree during a forest fire (esp. lightning fires)
(2) it provides for new green shoots to grow for the fauna
(3) it releases CO2 for the forest canopy to renew the forest annually.
A park ranger up there told me that the worse thing you can do is have a pine tree within 20 feet of your house or cottage. This was considered heresy in the 1990s, and they would fine anyone $10,000 for cutting down a pine.
She laughs while twisting knobs, none have an effect traceable in our snippet of measurements.
Some cancel out, while others re-combine.
Mayhem, interspersed with human desires.
We are the experiment.
Rud Istvan says:
March 14, 2013 at 3:11 pm
As good as this was, and as accurate as it is, it still missed a key point covered in my ebook Gaia’s Limits. The peak of fossil fuel energy production per year will be before about 2050.
___________________
Oh, brother. Where have I heard this before?
Prove it.
Leading Scientists Debunk Ridley Piece, Even Climatologist Cited By Ridley Says He “Is Just Plain Wrong About Future Warming”
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/12/20/1365671/error-riddled-matt-ridley-piece-lowballs-global-warming-discredits-wall-street-journal-world-faces-10f-warming/?mobile=wt
barkway,
Please link to credible sources. Thanx.
barkway says:
March 14, 2013 at 4:04 pm
“Leading Scientists Debunk Ridley Piece, Even Climatologist Cited By Ridley Says He “Is Just Plain Wrong About Future Warming””
Shouldn’t that read “He might be wrong about future warming”? Or did the esteemed climatologist improve his computer model in such a way that it suddenly has the never before seen predictive skill?
There is currently no man-made co2 problem for man to solve. Just let nature solve it for you. She does a much quicker job for free. Relax you pant wetters and scaremongers, give us a break.
Rud Istvan says:
March 14, 2013 at 3:11 pm
“The peak of fossil fuel energy production per year will be before about 2050. That does not say we have run out. Actually, about 2/3 of technically recoverable reserves will remain. But we will only be able to produce less of them per year. So net fossil fuel energy will decline.”
“Food is a ‘soft’ limit. No catastrophes, only misery. Fossil fuels peaks are a ‘hard’ limit.”
Assuming you’re right I still see no problem at all. You admit that the decline would be gradual. This would lead to increasing energy prices. This would make alternative sources economically viable, whether it be nuclear, solar or wind. At least for solar we can expect efficiency gains. Lab solar cells already achieve 53%. Assuming the switchover would have to begin in 2040, PV would probably be 1/8 as expensive as now (extrapolating the decline in prices continues as it did in the past). So even including some batteries or H2 or CH4 synthesis it would be easy to switch. Rising prices for conventional fuels make subsidies unnecessary, and PV could become the reasonable solution instead of a drag on the economy that it is as a subsidized solution.
But, I don’t believe that the decline begins in 2040. You said “fossil fuels”, this includes coal, and there’s no way we’ll run out of coal the next 200 years.
I’ve been a “fan” (I don’t like the word or the concept) of Matt Ridley as early as I read his first books, something like more than 20 years ago. They were (and still are) fascinating, so well informed and factual, taking us to new vistas.
He is an interesting man with an interesting ancestry (one of his forefathers was burned at the stake for abominable reasons). He is of course thoroughly vilified by quite a few people…
Stay tuned to his “rational optimist” blog, as you are to this one (and many others…)
DirkH – you forgot natural gas. And forget reason, now is the time to panic! (/sarc) There is always a Malthusian “we’re all gonna die!” out there, and challenging a believer will rarely result in productive discussions. Just my opinion of course, but zealot has described those who have tried to convert me to peak oil.
It is nice to have a person of Matt Ridley’s intellectual capability publically showing the clear evidence against nature’s non-support of the ideological based thesis of alarming / dangerous AGW from CO2.
Thanks for the post.
– – – – – – –
Response to peak oil concept discussion in comments => There is no realistic peak oil concept that can withstand rational economic analysis as performed by Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig Von Mises and several other more modern sources. It is an advent of anti-market thinking, i.e., central planned thinking.
John
An excellent video especially the link between the agriculture revolution and afforestation.
At best we can capture someone’s attention for 10 minutes to advance a scientific argument. Karl Popper said that “Science must begin with myths, and with the criticism of myths.”
As this video demostrates it takes more than ten minutes simply to undo the environmental myths necessary to advance a particlular argument.
The warmists are having a hard time of it. The release of the Climategate third batch, the evidence the oceans are not warming and now this. That’s only a partial list.
It’s a sin to gloat I say as I sin away.
If you think the video is good, don’t miss his book The Rational Optimist.
http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Optimist-Prosperity-Evolves-P-S/dp/0061452068
I had already read Julian Simon and Bjorn Lomborg, but Matt Ridley still blew my socks off. 🙂
OK I read that higher levels of CO2 enable growth of trees with less water, so why would the world not green? this would enable all plant life to survive any minor heat stress so the world greens! now Im sure this is heresy in this modern world and I am delighted that someone has produced an intelligent video explaining this (I would so love to hear a warmist try and explain why this is bad!!) My 8 year old son is aware of all this and over the last 4 years I have cut down and burned 32, 70 foot pine trees so Im doing my bit I hope!
I second the recommendation of The Rational Optimist although my work on education globally makes me less optimistic. I actually believe that what is going on now with education reform is not dissimilar to what Matt describes in about 15th century China. The bureaucrats do not want technology or inventions that will displace their current authority. We are literally watching education being used now to try to avoid the cretive destruction inherent in markets. We can get through the ed reforms and the false CAGW hyping but only if they are seen accurately for the effects they are trying to achieve. Statism would be a succinct way to describe it.
On the link request above for support for the cutting trees and then blaming the loss on CAGW. I thought this Cato paper http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/humanity-unbound-how-fossil-fuels-saved-humanity-nature-nature-humanity did an excellent job of making that very point.
And Matt’s metaphor of innovation as ideas having sex should make a Top Ten list of succinct phrases that describe the essence in a light bulb way.
Ridley’s video discusses 4 defining revolutions of the last 150 years that shaped the environment we see today -the shift from wood to fossil fuels, synthetic fertilizer, increasing CO2 and the pesticide/ Borlaug agriculture revolution. These revolutions caused the abandonment of agricultural land and the regrowth of forests. There were 2 other equally important revolutions not discussed- the mole plow and fire suppression.
The mole plow started the “great draining” of the northern hemisphere’s wetlands as “swamp land” was converted to agriculture land. The rate at which we drained the swamps and hydric soils accelerated once we understood mosquitos caused malaria. (Most people in the US are unaware the CDC’s first mission was the eradication of malaria that was endemic in most of the US up til the 1940s)
Fire suppression also commenced in earnest in the first part of the 20th century. As the abandoned farms transformed to young forests the production of organic acids increased. Forest soils, without the benefit of agricultural lime and tilling, began the long acid march to lower pH. The recent forests regrowing on poorly buffered granitic soils and those depleted of cations from frequent logging cycles saw soil pH decline more rapidly. However, in this new era of fire suppression the buffering once provided by alkaline ash is no longer available and many forest headwater river and ponds saw pH and productivity crash. The Acid rain crisis was born with environmental activists hijacking the why to attack fossil fuels.
The loss of hydric soils via draining and the low alkalinity resulting from fire suppression suppressed nitrogen fixation and reduced the mobilization of phosphorus. The massive reduction in available nutrients to aquatic and terrestrial systems has exacerbated by a young regrowing forest sucking up the now limited nutrient supply and starving many headwater streams. This continuing starvation in the headwater areas is compounded by the collapse of anadromous fish stocks(salmon in Europe, the west coast and Asia and shad and herring on the US East coast) that once moved the abundant nutrient resources of the oceans into the limited freshwater environment. This nutrient limitation is one of the single greatest hurdles to anadromous fishery restoration. EPA now takes the very low and unnatural nutrient conditions of headwater forests as the natural reference condition to achieve goals having little to do with the conventional understanding of the environment.
The modern forest regrowth, while helping the world to regreen, has no analog in history. It is a forest of disrupted nutrient cycles. A forest that no longer has any controls on tree density causing accelerated pest infestation and disease. It is a dark forest with little of the necessary complex understory habitat. A forest with artificial fire suppressed tree densities that are sucking the already draining challenged soils dry and dewatering important headwater streams and killing moisture intolerant trees like the hemlocks in the process.
Many of the above discussed problems are an improvement compared to a hundred years ago and could be corrected were it not for one fact. The problems have been hijacked to serve a political narrative. Ridley’s video is an excellent example of how to start the long process of explaining the world we see to the Public free of ideological spin. Meaningful environmental improvement will be on hold until we complete this task.
My favorite part was the Earth spinning backwards at 8:28. 🙂 Why do the production guys never seem to catch this stuff?
Seriously, though, an interesting presentation with much to consider.
this goes well with ridley’s video & allan savory’s desertification presentation:
‘Amazon’ (BBC ‘UH III’) – Terra Preta RECUT
policycritic says:
“A park ranger up there told me that the worse thing you can do is have a pine tree within 20 feet of your house or cottage. This was considered heresy in the 1990s, and they would fine anyone $10,000 for cutting down a pine.”
We had/have a similar thing in Australia which came to light after some recent bushfires. The fact that one of the plants that people were encouraged to grow next to their houses (for ‘native flora’ reasons) ws nicknamed the ‘petrol bush’ by local fire fighters did not seem to raise any concerns.
Pat Moffitt says:
March 14, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Wow. Thank you Pat. You (or anyone including me, here and now) should ask Anthony to ‘post’ this. Rarely have I read a comment so thick with meaning, politics and science – surely you could cut the brevity into a full-blown precis 😉
Seriously. The way WUWT moves nowadays this could get lost in the dust of ongoing revelation and the points you make are very relevant, important and would invite much expanded discussion (imo) as a stand-alone post.
Good talk Dr Ridley, thanks.
That was totally excellent. Well done everybody involved. I have sent it out to all my doubting Thomas’s as well.
I wish everyone in the known universe could see this video.
That the world is getting greener is wonderful news for all of us. Except for the green fanatics, of course. Now there’s an irony….
Matt Ridley’s book Genome is an excellent read. One thing struck me: it contains an account of a scientific consensus that lasted for decades and was in all the textbooks. Of course, it turned out that the consensus was completely wrong. Ridley stated that some photographs in the textbooks actually showed that the concensus was wrong, but nobody spotted that.
He was originally somewhat sceptical over climate change, but was convinced by the Mann hockey stick. It was when he finally realised that the hockey stick was fraudulent that he became sceptical again.
Well done, Matt Ridley!
Chris
Chemtrail warning, michaelwiseguy posted agitprop on the subject above.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Dr. Ridley makes a great point. Add this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/08/a-bridge-in-the-climate-debate-how-to-green-the-worlds-deserts-and-reverse-climate-change/ and we have a strategy that environmentalists and everyone else can get busy working on.
pat says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:16 am
_________________
Many thanks, Pat.
There are videos on YouTube describing people’s efforts to replicate terra prieta soils for themselves.
That image of Haiti just broke it all for me. I hate when people use deception to prove their points, no matter which side they are on.
That visible edge is great deal into Dominican Republic actually and that’s not because Dominican Republic shares Haiti laws within their border zone but because the two halves of the island use differently saturated photos.
Yes Haiti still may be less green than Dominican Republic. Or it may not. That photo cannot be used to decide or even illustrate that.
Now how should I believe he says truth in all his other points, however pleasant they sound?
Kashuha.
Please call up the island on Google Earth, as I’ve just done. Once there, zoom well into the border zone. There you will see the dramatic green/brown delineation, with denuded mountains and valleys immediately on the Haitian side, and green well vegetated mountains and valleys immediately on the Dominican side. Yes, the island is bisected on high by differing satellite images, well into the Dominican Republic as you state. However, that effect, which has nothing to do with vegetation or the lack of it, becomes irrelevant upon close inspection.
A voice of reason and good sense. Thank you Matt!
Kasuha says:
March 15, 2013 at 8:29 am
That image of Haiti just broke it all for me. I hate when people use deception to prove their points, no matter which side they are on.
That visible edge is great deal into Dominican Republic actually and that’s not because Dominican Republic shares Haiti laws within their border zone but because the two halves of the island use differently saturated photos.
Yes Haiti still may be less green than Dominican Republic. Or it may not. That photo cannot be used to decide or even illustrate that.
Now how should I believe he says truth in all his other points, however pleasant they sound?
Kasuha, just google Haiti Domincan republic border:
http://www.google.com/search?q=haiti+dominican+republic+border&hl=en&biw=1920&bih=1110&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=GWpDUef6KbKM7AbBwoHQAg&ved=0CDAQsAQ
The deception is not in Matt’s message, look for yourself.
Matt Ridley has an excelent article in the UK Daily Telegraph today. Sorry, cannot supply a link but if you can have a look.
‘How Hillary Clinton’s clean stoves will help African women’ Article in poverty matters blog shows
that propane stoves are being sent to africa from china – purchased by American/International
charity monies. Why can’t these propane stoves be made in the U.S.A.
Is it because China is allowed to use coal?
I guesse it is a good thing, because coal burning in China will green the world.
I was wondering will our politicians allow us to help green the world by burning coal
to make propane stoves?
Kasuha says:
March 15, 2013 at 8:29 am
“That image of Haiti just broke it all for me. I hate when people use deception to prove their points, no matter which side they are on.
That visible edge is great deal into Dominican Republic actually and that’s not because Dominican Republic shares Haiti laws within their border zone but because the two halves of the island use differently saturated photos.”
Kasuha, please read the book Collapse by Jared Diamond. He has an entire chapter devoted to the ecological collapse in Haiti versus the forest protection policies of DomRep. It is a well documented fact and beyond all dispute.
John D. Rockefeller = Greatest Environmentalist Ever. His cheap kerosene saved the whales. His cheap heating oil replaced coal in homes cleaning the air.
Whoops, the Matt Ridley piece is in Friday’s Times, not theTelegraph.
Matt Ridley’s blog can be found here:
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog
Deserts are shrinking – the sahara by an area the size of Germany on both the north and south. Since deserts are very hot in the day and cold at night the atmosphere there becomes unstable leading to climate instability (hurricanes, severe storms, heavy rains, drought etc.) even at great distances away. The warmists want to reduce CO2 to 350 ppm from the current amount which will be 400ppm within a few years. Google world climate 1956 and discover what the climate was like at 350ppm. It was hellish in comparison to today! With time our climate will continue to improve and and Al Gore et al will disappear into irrelevancy. Thank god and Matt Ridley and especially CO2! More food and of increasing nutritional value, more pleasant climate, longer and healthier lives sounds like the iconic garden of eden.
pat says:
March 15, 2013 at 1:16 am
this goes well with ridley’s video & allan savory’s desertification presentation
Indeed perhaps some of the re-greening attributed by Allan Savory to the hooves and dung of large livestock herds is helped along considerably by rising CO2.
Dr. Ridley was well advised to avoid his former camp on Spitsbergen:
The commentator is not correct about polar bears as the only predator to hunt humans, however, as opposed to just taking targets of opportunity.
Kasuha says: March 15, 2013 at 8:29 am
Now how should I believe he says truth in all his other points, however pleasant they sound?
Gee, Kasuha, you are learning, never take any single “fact” at face value.
Solution? I guess you’re gonna have to do a little of what ever other thinking person does; thinking, listening and reading….
Good luck with that.
Ridley is right about the earth becoming greener due to anthropogenic CO2. He just doesn’t mention the “however” part. This is the same tactic he has used on claiming that anthropogenic CO2 is not the cause of extreme weather events. He just doesn’t give the public the whole story and he needs to share the entire truth with the public and not just his narrow view.
In this video he makes it sound like turning the northern latitudes green is a good thing, failing to mention that a thawing worldwide permafrost will be releasing a torrent of greenhouse gases (billions of tons of methane and two trillion tons of CO2), that all of the increased CO2 is making the oceans more acidic, killing reefs and affecting all ocean life, that the thawing poles will eventually create higher sea levels that will flood many coastal cities, that climate scientists agree that anthropogenic CO2 makes extreme weather even worse and that its effect will cost billions of dollars in our economy, and that the CO2 produced by us will not dissipate like other greenhouse gases and in fact may be with us for thousands of years. Also, scientists say that by 2050 the higher global temperatures will amplify infectious diseases and increase heat related mortality. So yes, we are seeing a greener earth in northern latitudes, but it is coming at a great cost that could be lasting.
The public deserves to have the whole story and not just a smattering of data that hides what is really happening.