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.
Jim Steele says:
September 17, 2013 at 11:53 am
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”
Which prompted me to…
Items Ordered
1 of: Into the Dustbin: Rajendra Pachauri, the Climate Report & the Nobel Peace Prize [Paperback]
By: Laframboise, Donna
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC
1 of: Landscapes & Cycles: An Environmentalist’s Journey to Climate Skepticism [Paperback]
By: Steele, Jim
Condition: New
Sold by: Amazon.com LLC
The good doctor obviously finds these (his) agnotological responses to be a cathartic
experience.
I cannot think of any better explanation for such a display of ignorance of the facts.
The quality of the response also tells us something about his presumption of the
level of intelligence of his readers.
When I saw the picture of Abrahams, I thought it was the Hood from Thunderbirds! Scary.
Abraham is a mechanical engineering professor. Does that make him a climate scientist?
Michael Jankowski says: @ur momisugly September 17, 2013 at 8:55 am
Gavin’s statement is also a bit of a catch-all..just because we aren’t seeing extremes (hurricanes, tornados, ice loss, etc) doesn’t mean climate change isn’t happening.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The climate is always changing. All you have to do is look at the O18 derived temperatures of the ice cores. link 1 and link 2
However it is pretty obvious that there is a top and a bottom value and the climate tends to hug either the top or the bottom. In Chaos theory these are called Strange Attractors. (as explained by Dr. Robert Brown of Duke University)
Bob Greene says: @ur momisugly September 17, 2013 at 10:59 am
…Why do folks like Abraham believe that we should now make energy more expensive and less available? You’d think those folks out to save the plant would have more regard for the third world.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You have it incorrect. It is the PLANET they want to save FROM the nasty humans. They just keep changing the excuse for killing off the poor.
Sounds like someone farming cattle…. or was that chattel?
This is not an isolated case either.
painter says: @ur momisugly 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…
>>>>>>>>>>
Duster says: @ur momisugly September 17, 2013 at 11:13 am
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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually Duster seems to be correct.
H/T to George E. Smith says on July 22, 2010 at 9:36 am
FROM WUWT: Global warming is making monster marmots
Abraham’s misquote completely changes the meaning of Ridley’s original quote.
This suggests the misquote was not accidental.
If you haven’t read Ridley’s The Rational Optimist, please do.
Absolute nectar for contrarians.
His talk to the Long Now Foundation is good too.
This is the same John P. Abraham who foolishly tangled w/ m’Lud Moncton a few years ago and got his ass handed to him, so no, don’t expect any embarrassment. The rhinoceros hide of the utterly clueless.
Ph.D. Mech Engineering + tenured academic (alth. not sure about the latter) says it all: If he was any good he’d be in the private sector and making min. 3x an academic’s salary. I used to think that a Ph.D. in Engineering or the exact sciences counted for something. Until I discovered that Joe Romm has one.
Any Ph.D. scientists or engineers out there? I’d really like to know what the standards are these days.
You must realise that the in group of climate scientists are seeing their future collapsing. They are discredited and basically unemployable in a non AGW world. They are desperate.
The “equilibrium climate sensitivity” (TECS) is a scientifically bogus concept in view of the fact that the global equilibrium temperature is not an observable. It follows from the non-observability that when a numerical value is asserted for TECS, this assertion cannot be tested.
Also, the purported existence of the “pause” is a consequence from unsupportable assumptions that include that include the linearity of variations in the global temperature with time.
Matt, you wrote “He directly contradicts the IPCC’s report on extreme weather, which found no link between current storms and man-made climate change;”
And what does the IPCC say about a posible link between current storms and natural climate change? – 🙂
Gord Richmond says:
September 17, 2013 at 2:07 pm
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.
Temperature and CO2 do not extend-growing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis,
The reason you don’t grow bananas, pineapples, or citrus in Alberta is because there is less sunlight.
Alberta’s Latitude is 54°40’N and has four distinct seasons caused by the axial tilt of the sun, the axial tilt also regulates how much sunlight reaches Alberta during a growing season, due to the seasonal amount of sunlight that reaches Alberta temperature will fluctuate from unfavorable conditions to favorable condition for a growing season.
If you travel down the Latitude towards the equator where they grow bananas, pineapples, or citrus there is more sunlight and longer growing seasons, you will also notice the temperatures are warmer nearer to the equator than higher latitudes, this is also a result of the earths axial tilt and the result of the equator being exposed to more sunlight.
To grow grow bananas, pineapples, or citrus artificially in higher latitudes you will need to simulate the natural environment of these plants, the first piece of equipment (besides the obvious) you will need is the sun lamps to increase the amount of light the plants will receive all year round, you will also need to artificially regulate the temperature, this is not done by increasing or decreasing CO2 levels.
Sparks… greenhouses. If you’re really a horticulturalist you should know how a greenhouse works. For that matter most climate skeptics should understand how a greenhouse works by now as it comes up fairly often. And they obviously don’t work by increasing the amount of sunlight, that’s a constant. So by definition a greenhouse increases growing season by maintaining a warmer environment.
Gail Combs says:
September 17, 2013 at 4:54 pm
The two major bubonic plague epidemics in Europe (part of an Old World pandemic) did happen to coincide with climatic decline, ie The Plague of Justinian during the Dark Ages Cold Period & the Black Death at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. Historians have hypothesized that a worsening climate in the early 14th century weakened a European population already too high, having flourished during the fat years of the Medieval Warm Period. In France, of course, the 100 Years’ War was also raging.
Then the plague arrived into this stressed population from the East, presumably on ships, the Silk Road being closed by the Mongols. The most likely route of microbial invasion was from the Crimea in 1346, to Constantinople & Sicily in 1347, thence to the rest of the western Mediterranean the next year & on north & west in Europe.
The extent to which the Mongol siege of the Italian trading city of Caffa played a role is debatable, but credible evidence suggests a role for biological warfare.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536_article.htm
However, the pestilence probably would have spread westwards across the Black Sea to the Med even had this battle not taken place.
The third plague epidemic was limited largely to Asia, & occurred when climate was improving, ie during the 1890s.
milodonharlani :
At September 18, 2013 at 2:50 pm you conclude
In my opinion you could have added the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919 which estimates suggest killed between 20 and 40 million people; i.e. it killed more people that the Great War (1914-1918).
Richard
richardscourtney says:
September 18, 2013 at 3:06 pm
I could have, along with the cholera pandemics, but was dealing just with the bubonic plague infestations. The 1918 Flu occurred during an ameliorating climate, but of course after a terrible global conflict. The 1830s & 1850s cholera outbreaks came at the end of the LIA, but were also aided by expanded commercial routes around the globe (a la AIDS). Sometimes War, Famine, Pestilence & Death from Climate ride together, but not always.
PS: Apropos of “climate science” prognostications, Nostradamus was a 16th century plague doctor in Provence. Santer, Schmidt & Mann could learn a lot from him.
Misquote! MIsquote! Heh. What was said, remarkably, was actually “no significant effect”
“A global warming of less than 2.5°C could have no significant effect on overall food production,” says the UNFCC website.
The 2°C figure is pure PR invention in the first instance, but it is clearly false a global rise of 2.5° would have no positive or negative effect on food production, as it would lengthen growing season and expand arable territory considerably. So it appears the claim/admission is a prophylactic pronouncement to try and fend off real world welcoming of warming by farmers and planners of food provision.
PS;
As for “netting” of said improvement against drought, etc., droughts are more associated with cooling/drying than warming/humidifying of the atmosphere, it seems. Viz. the Sahel.
Sounds like Sparks is the reincarnation of RGates, n’est ce pas? Same invincible ignorance.
Just to clear the issue up a little, because I’ve been getting some grief for pointing out in a comment something which is incorrect.
If you believe CO2 controls the earths climate and your proof is “extend-growing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis” I will say that you are wrong, which is what I’ve been commenting about, it’s the amount of sunlight that a plant receives which determines the rate of photosynthesis not CO2, CO2 increases the yield of a crop at higher levels not the growing season or the rate of photosynthesis.
Sigh. Sparks, this is a climate skeptic blog. The only ones here who think “CO2 controls the earths climate” are the visiting warmists. What the article says is that warming of 2º or less will do no net harm because it will increase growing seasons. And several of us have given evidence for how warming or the control of temperature can effect growing season. And you ignore it, while repeating that plants needsunlight for photosynthesis, a fact no one here argues.
Well, it’s been fun, but there are newer articles too read.
schitzree, I understand what the article says and I agree with Dr Matt Ridley’s view that there will be no net harm from ‘2°C’ warming, What I have an issue with is, a rise in temperature of ‘2°C’ causing “extend-growing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis”.
CO2 doesn’t control temperature and it does not control the amount of sun light a crop receives, therefor does not extend-growing seasons and increase rates of photosynthesis.
This is well known, If you grew wheat in a greenhouse with CO2 levels at 400ppmv and measured Wheat’s growing season, then repeat with a new crop with CO2 levels at 500-600ppmv there will be no change in the growing season of the Crop, but there will be a greater Yield due to the higher CO2 levels, Sun light controls photosynthesis Not CO2 or temperature. Higher levels of CO2 are beneficial, plants control CO2 and optimize how much they will use over a growing season, this also depends on other available resources, nutrients, water etc…