Guest essay by Dr. Matt Ridley
![20101109_abraham_33[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/20101109_abraham_331.jpg?quality=83)
And here’s his piece: http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/09/16/john-abraham-slams-matt-ridley-climate-denial-op-ed-wall-street-journal.
It’s a poor response, characterized by inaccurate representation of what I said, even down to actual misquoting. In the whole article, he puts just four words in quotation marks as written by me, yet in doing so he misses out a whole word: 20% of the quotation. Remarkable. If I did that, I would be very embarrassed.
He directly contradicts the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, which found no link between current storms and man-made climate change; he is apparently unaware that the rising costs of extreme weather are entirely caused by rising investment and insurance values, not rising quantities of extreme weather, as even a small amount of research would have told him ( http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/follow-up-q-from-senate-epw.html ); he falsely claims that I say rising sea levels will be beneficial, when I wrote no such thing; and he wholly ignores the benefits of mild climate change, even though I was careful to say that the key thing is to compare costs and benefits. It is possible that he does not know the meaning of the word “net”: he certainly shows no understanding of the concept.
“General statements about extremes are almost nowhere to be found in the literature but seem to abound in the popular media,” said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently. “It’s this popular perception that global warming means all extremes have to increase all the time, even though if anyone thinks about that for 10 seconds they realize that’s nonsense.”
Mr Abraham’s main point is that up to 2 degrees C of warming is likely to do net harm. For this surprising claim, he produces noevidence. None. The evidence suggest the opposite – that less than two degrees of warming will cut excess winter deaths, increase average rainfall, extendgrowing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis in wild and agricultural ecosystems. “A global warming of less than 2.5°C could have no significant effect on overall food production,” says the UNFCC website.
See links here http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165188913000092%00 and here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/01/06/winter-kills-excess-deaths-in-the-winter-months/.
And yet it is he who accuses me of “non-science nonsense”. It’s truly disgraceful that a tenured academic, as I assume Mr Abraham to be, should make so many mistakes and yet feel free to hurl unsubstantiated abuse at another human being, however desperate he may be. In writing about climate change I am careful not to make unprovoked ad-hominem attacks – until attacked in this way.
I always play the ball, not the man. Mr Abraham, if he wishes to be taken seriously, should try to do likewise.
“Dr. Matt Ridley says: “extend-growing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis”.
…
But, Since when did Co2 or temperature get the ability to change the Earths Axial tilt of 23.4° since it is the Axial tilt that causes the seasons. Photosynthesis is a process based on light and not temperature. ;)”
An interesting proposition that implies that the growing season on the top of Mount Whitney and in Fresno are the same length
(hint: it is warmer in Fresno)
Meh… He’s talking nonsense; why get too upset about it?
That would be a reasonable response, IF the nonsense he is talking was not foisting a truly enormous financial and ecologic burden upon us. Perhaps the sheeple will only wake up to it when they realise that nearly ALL their taxes are being spent supporting such loonies, while the weather continues what is has always done – surprising (and embarrassing) us. It is not the first time that a hurricane, like Sandy (actually, the other 3 were stronger!), has teamed up to batter New York, nor will it be the last time. What amazes me is that, having had it happen 3 times in the 19th C., there were no defences it against it happening again – at least the British had the nous to erect the Thames barrier after the floods in the 1960s.
Climates change – live with it! Let’s face it, there is absolutely NOTHING we can do to alter that fact.
painter says:
September 17, 2013 at 9:38 am
…
Cooler climate brought decreased agricultural production and consequent economic contraction and the plague was an added misery. T…
Just an observation. While it is become quite fashionable to blame many things on climate change, there’s little justification in attributing the plague to it. Instead, the plagues might well be the result of the High Middle Ages themselves. Increased trade and increased distances traveled in order to trade exposed many “naieve” populations to each other both directly and indirectly through stowaways such as rats and their accompanying pests. The fact that outbreaks of the plague coincided with climate shifts may simply be the difference between correlated and causal. There really isn’t adequate evidence to evaluate the idea.
If you look deep enough, you will usually find that the people that are persistent in pushing climate change fear mongering, are making money from the scam, in one way or another. They are fighting like hell to hang on to the dream, but only the least intelligent among us, will continue to offer to foot the bill for their useless agenda.
Sparks says:
September 17, 2013 at 10:14 am
…
But, Since when did Co2 or temperature get the ability to change the Earths Axial tilt of 23.4° since it is the Axial tilt that causes the seasons. Photosynthesis is a process based on light and not temperature. ;)…
Plainly you aren’t a gardener. Neither am I, but the wife is. You can look up maps of “hardiness areas” fairly easily. You’ll note they are rated by temperature ranges: e.g.
http://www.growinginmygarden.com/hardiness-zones/.
Nothing to do with light per se. Climate warming or cooling moves the borders of of the those zones. During the last glacial epoch, typical geographic shifts were, IIRC, about 1,200 km southward.
There must be a point where we all realise (as I have done) there is absolutely no point in either reading, analysing or replying to anything Dr. A and his climate-change catamite , Dana Nuccitelli, have to say. They have become as irrelevant as Al Gore in the realms of scientific argument.
The only way forward here IS playing the man and not the ball. To further mix metaphors, the gloves are off.
This is yet another example of the bogus nature of Abraham’s “Climate Science Rapid Response Team.” Instead of climate scientists engaging in respectful face to face debate where such falsehoods can be immediately countered, global warming advocates like Abraham are orchestrating “drive-by intellectual shootings”
Matt, he is aware of all that he does. Every aspect of his writing is done with full awareness of its faults and distortions. Surely you understand this?
AlecMM says:
September 17, 2013 at 7:55 am
Abraham is clearly a fool with delusions of political grandeur.
……………
No. He is an expert (!) reviewer of IPCC AR5.
This tells us a lot.
About the report. And IPCC.
@mpainter 8:27 am
@Mike Rossander 8:54 am
@Canman 9:02 am
Thank you for filling in the hole I thought was in the post. Yes, I could have looked it up, and many other people could have spent the time, too. But why give DeSmogBlog the clicks and attention they don’t deserve?
The context was important, too. Not only did Abraham sloppily misquote Ridley, but sets up a strawman at the same time.
Ridley writes of
“less than 2 degrees Celsius
from preindustrial levels”
Abraham misquotes with
“warming of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit”
without mentioning from when or what.
This leads the reader to fill in, “from today.”
“Dr. John Abraham Professor of Thermal Sciences University of St. Thomas”
What, pray tell, is a “professor of thermal sciences”? If he were a physicist, I presume he would so claim, eh?
And, Sparks, living here on the prairie of Alberta, I can tell you that temperature does indeed have a crucial role in determining growing season. You cannot plant your garden “until all danger of frost has passed”, and your crops will cease growing (or be destroyed, depending upon the crop) after the first frost of Fall. Which is why, sweet corn, for example, can only be grown in a fairly restricted area in southern Alberta, near Taber, and in some tiny microclimates in northern Alberta in the deep canyons of the Peace and Smoky rivers.
tty says:
September 17, 2013 at 11:02 am
An interesting proposition that implies that the growing season on the top of Mount Whitney and in Fresno are the same length
(hint: it is warmer in Fresno)
A hardy plant growing on Mount Whitney which has an elevation of 14,505 would have a year-round growing season, there are also holoparasitic plants that do not use photosynthesis, and freezing temperatures would kill-off any species of plant planted on Mt Whitney that has adapted to the conditions of Fresno.
The point is temperature and CO2 do not increase the rate of photosynthesis, Plants can control the amount of CO2 it uses through stomata and it controls the rate it uses all other nutrients it needs, plants do not control the amount of sunlight they receive, this implies that CO2 does not extend-growing seasons, temperature does not extend-growing seasons, it is either beneficial for maintaining the health of a plant or kill it.
Sparks says:
September 17, 2013 at 10:53 am
“Higher CO2 levels are great for plants and they do grow much better, but without plenty of sunlight it doesn’t matter how much CO2 there is, the plants will not grow.”
For photosynthesis light and CO2 are both required. Plants deplete the air of CO2 around them.
More CO2, more photosynthesis until CO2 is depleted to the level that the plant can (C3 plants about 150 ppm, C4 plants down to 0 ppm).
See also Liebig’s Law.
Stop the sophistry.
galileonardo says:
September 17, 2013 at 9:48 am
“DirkH,
Thank you for the link to the alexa stats for desmogblog. Forgive my Eurocentric bias here, but am I the only one who finds it suspect that a full 17.7% of the visitors to desmogblog are from the Philippines and India? Really?”
India has 1.2 bn people of which many speak English as their lingua franca; an active agitation arm of Greenpeace is there – and one in the Phillipines as well, as Nonoy Oplas told us on notrickszone.
So, I don’t find it surprising.
Gord Richmond says:
September 17, 2013 at 12:23 pm
I can tell you that temperature does indeed have a crucial role in determining growing season. You cannot plant your garden “until all danger of frost has passed”
The temperature favorable to a specific plant is due to the adaptation to the environmental conditions it evolved in, temperature does not extend-growing seasons, try growing sweet corn in a dark room with warmer temperatures than it is used to.
GWPF?
Dr. Matt Ridley, just ignore these fools. They have very few comments. The piece by Abraham has ZERO comments. The one on Lord Monckton has TWO comments. This thread has 61 and rising. Don’t give them more importance than they deserve.
Look here, and explain the ‘problem’.
In fact, there is no problem. The planet has stopped warming for more than 200 months now. Extreme weather events and global temperatures have steadily moderated.
In short, Abraham is wrong about everything. Nothing he writes has any scientific credibility. He will never debate the science, because all of the scientific evidence directly contradicts his alarmist narrative.
Abraham is the sort of pseudo-scienist that the catastrophic AGW nonsense attracts in droves. He is an alarmist propagandist, nothing more; a shameless, self-serving grant chaser. In a rational world, Abraham would be tarred, feathered, and run out of town on a rail along with Gleick, Mann, and the rest of the climate alarmist shills who shamelessly defraud the taxpaying public based on a completely fabricated runaway global warming scare. They have zero integrity, and they lie through their teeth. And those, I think, are their good points.
TomR,Worc,MA:
GWPF?
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, one of desmog’s primary targets.
As a fellow Mass. resident, I offer you my Tollbooth Willie: Welcome to Worcester. Dollar twenty-five please…I’m sure you haven’t heard that a 1,000 times.
DirkH says:
September 17, 2013 at 1:00 pm
For photosynthesis light and CO2 are both required. Plants deplete the air of CO2 around them.
More CO2, more photosynthesis until CO2 is depleted to the level that the plant can (C3 plants about 150 ppm, C4 plants down to 0 ppm).
See also Liebig’s Law.
Stop the sophistry.
DirkH, There is no sophistry, CO2 or temperature do not extend-growing seasons, more CO2 will increase crop yield if that’s where your confusion is, the earths axial tilt controls the seasons which is how the temperature fluctuates from unfavorable conditions to favorable condition for a growing season.
Duster says:
September 17, 2013 at 11:25 am
Plainly you aren’t a gardener. Neither am I, but the wife is.
Clearly you didn’t bother reading other comments I made
Nothing to do with light per se. Climate warming or cooling moves the borders of of the those zones. During the last glacial epoch, typical geographic shifts were, IIRC, about 1,200 km southward.
Geographical shifts are a good point about changing temperatures and the movement of borders of certain plants, but this process happens over many years it has nothing to do with extended-growing seasons, when the temperature favorable to a specific plant is due to the adaptation to the environmental conditions it evolved in.
DirkH,
Thank you for the clarification. I suppose I judged the numbers from what I see with skeptic audiences where probably 90% of visitors are in Europe, NA, and AUS/NZ. I will take your word that it is NGO-driven though I wouldn’t put inflationary tactics past them…their ilk do seem to have a penchant for exaggeration.
If you extend the number of frost-free days in a given area, you will extend the growing season. Full stop. Hours of daylight and darkness do influence the growth cycle of perennials, especially trees, but many, if not most, of the crops of commerce are annuals, and frost is the limiting factor.
There’s a reason we don’t grow bananas, pineapples, or citrus in Alberta, and it has nothing to do with hours of daylight.
Incidentally, in the Chinook zone of Alberta, and that certainly includes the city of Calgary, plants can fooled into budding by a prolonged chinook in late winter, only to have the buds killed off by frost, once the chinook ends.
in my recent journey of (lack of) climate change enlightenment i have tried to maintain a balance in reading information from both sceptics and warmists.
during this journey i have read some pretty nasty stuff,funnily enough,so far it has all been on pro warmist sites. i have spent a fair bit of time on sites like sks and real climate,which is very hard going at times. but after one look at desmogblog i point blank refuse to go there.
if mr graham is indeed a tenured academic,i believe that casts serious doubt on the criteria required to achieve such a position today.
bit chilly says:
September 17, 2013 at 2:40 pm
Jeez – no wonder you are a bit cold if you visit such sites! Out of curiosity (as I haven’t been to such sites for a good few years now!) – have you managed to post querying or even heretical type questions???
Since you said ‘a fair bit of time’ – I must tip my hat to you for stamina! (I managed very liitle time before my stomach involuntarily regurgitated it’s contents – causing immense distress to my computer – and indeed, the dog)
Another question springs to mind – have you seen the light yet?
regards
Kev