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.
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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.
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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.