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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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.