Why climate change is good for the world
Don’t panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm
By Matt Ridley:
Climate change has done more good than harm so far and is likely to continue doing so for most of this century. This is not some barmy, right-wing fantasy; it is the consensus of expert opinion. Yet almost nobody seems to know this. Whenever I make the point in public, I am told by those who are paid to insult anybody who departs from climate alarm that I have got it embarrassingly wrong, don’t know what I am talking about, must be referring to Britain only, rather than the world as a whole, and so forth.
At first, I thought this was just their usual bluster. But then I realised that they are genuinely unaware. Good news is no news, which is why the mainstream media largely ignores all studies showing net benefits of climate change. And academics have not exactly been keen to push such analysis forward. So here follows, for possibly the first time in history, an entire article in the national press on the net benefits of climate change.
There are many likely effects of climate change: positive and negative, economic and ecological, humanitarian and financial. And if you aggregate them all, the overall effect is positive today — and likely to stay positive until around 2080. That was the conclusion of Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University after he reviewed 14 different studies of the effects of future climate trends.
To be precise, Prof Tol calculated that climate change would be beneficial up to 2.2˚C of warming from 2009 (when he wrote his paper). This means approximately 3˚C from pre-industrial levels, since about 0.8˚C of warming has happened in the last 150 years. The latest estimates of climate sensitivity suggest that such temperatures may not be reached till the end of the century — if at all. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, whose reports define the consensus, is sticking to older assumptions, however, which would mean net benefits till about 2080. Either way, it’s a long way off.
[Note as seen on WUWT before, here is the graph – Anthony]
Now Prof Tol has a new paper, published as a chapter in a new book, called How Much have Global Problems Cost the World?, which is edited by Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Centre, and was reviewed by a group of leading economists. In this paper he casts his gaze backwards to the last century. He concludes that climate change did indeed raise human and planetary welfare during the 20th century.
You can choose not to believe the studies Prof Tol has collated. Or you can say the net benefit is small (which it is), you can argue that the benefits have accrued more to rich countries than poor countries (which is true) or you can emphasise that after 2080 climate change would probably do net harm to the world (which may also be true). You can even say you do not trust the models involved (though they have proved more reliable than the temperature models). But what you cannot do is deny that this is the current consensus. If you wish to accept the consensus on temperature models, then you should accept the consensus on economic benefit.
Overall, Prof Tol finds that climate change in the past century improved human welfare. By how much? He calculates by 1.4 per cent of global economic output, rising to 1.5 per cent by 2025. For some people, this means the difference between survival and starvation.
Read the full article here: http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9057151/carry-on-warming/
Steve B said @ur momisugly October 17, 2013 at 1:40 pm
Dephlogisticated air.
Excellent article, worthy of our [UK] *BEST* scientific writer, by a Country Mile.
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Thanks. Guess I can stop running scans at my end.
It’s worth remembering that Marble Bar (in Western Australia) set a world record of most consecutive days of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or above, during a period of 160 days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.
Currently, here in Tasmania we have been suffering incessant rain for several weeks. Earlier in the month, we had a killing frost when our usual last frost date id late August. In September an unusually hard frost froze my asparagus spears, only the second time in 30 years. A few years ago, BoM told Tasmanians we had just experienced the hottest summer ever. The temperature only exceeded 30°C once that summer!
Incredulous that we have this huge battle over a theory that involves the effect of CO2 on the temperatures of our planet…………while the most important role of CO2, based on irrefutable, completely known and understood laws of science is getting far less weighting in discussions to determine uses of massive resources and expenditures world wide…………PHOTOSYNTHESIS!
This would be like 2 lions fighting to the death over a mouse, with 2 freshly killed wildebeest laying right in front of them.
http://www.impactlab.net/2008/06/09/scientists-surprised-to-find-earths-biosphere-booming/
http://blog.heartland.org/2013/07/global-warming-no-satellites-show-carbon-dioxide-is-causing-global-greening/
http://www.livescience.com/37055-greenhouse-gas-desert-plants-growing.html
http://www.dfmf.uned.es/curso_teledeteccion/palma/CSM/web/earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/GlobalGarden/index.html
http://buythetruth.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/photosynthesis-and-co2-enrichment/
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.fr/2013/02/study-finds-increased-co2-will-greatly.html
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/08/the-climate-grain-production-relationship-quantified/#more-93370
The world should be celebrating our great fortune to have one of the emissions of burning fossil fuels enriching the atmosphere with plant fertilizer.
The debate and investigation over where global temperatures might be going and what causes them to change is certainly important as well as potential impacts to climate/weather. However what should be the focus to take us out of the realm of political agenda, junk climate science, biased speculation and unproven theories is to hammer home what we can prove with absolute certainty about CO2.
The increase in carbon dioxide is causing our planets vegetative health, biosphere, crop yields and food production to go thru the roof.
That debate is over and that science is settled!
All of modern human history has elapsed within the current interglacial period. The warmer temperatures have been a boon to humanity. It seems what we are arguing about is a little more or less warm, and right now we still are not even up to the maximum for this interglacial. People need to step back and see the big picture …..
James Allison says: October 17, 2013 at 11:25 am Matt – Don’t panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm ————————————————————– Try telling that to the Australian NSW people about now.
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Rank opportunism from a climate hysteric.
The maximum temperatures around Sydney yesterday was about 4 – 5C above average, not that unusual.
By contrast the max. in Melbourne yesterday was about 7C below average.
The fires around Sydney were due to the considerable build-up of fuel due to the well above average rainfall in the last two years or so, abundant rain that climate hysterics like Mr Allison said we would never see again.
I have decided to share this peculiar view of current climate science as I have recently stumbled upon, though I’m sure this has been raised though before, in pieces and and I have never it all together in one simple comment or post, but I have seen the traces but I never seemed to get the full thrust of what this shows.
First look at some various plots of the adjustments made to the various temperature datasets gathered over the last few years, they are all close to linear in the years past 1940 and will be dealt with as such, linear form start year to now. The red lines added were just for myself to get a close average rate it seems all datasets are being adjusted upward (artificially warmer) over time. Why it started right at 1940, I don’t know why. Quite honestly I don’t really care here how many peer-reviewed papers created the adjustments, just going to ignore that topic here.
Can artificial adjustments actually warm or cool the earth? Of course not, so they will be removed.
USHCN: http://i43.tinypic.com/s3m3wk.png
GISS: http://i39.tinypic.com/1zfrn1l.png
NOAA: http://i40.tinypic.com/2uy2bg4.png
Here is a plot of the latest accepted dataset after removing the +0.75°C/century (0.000625 °C/mo) artificial adjustments from the dataset starting in 1940.
http://i43.tinypic.com/90dchy.png
or with less smoothing:
http://i42.tinypic.com/j8fjwy.png
Any adjustments before 1940 were ignored but you may want to find actual datasets of these adjustments and get very precise but the changes you would see prior to 1940 to that plot are going to be very small. This is just a rough overview but you should see the point.
Put on your thinking hat and you decide what you gather from this set of data. I seem to see that all of the rise of temperature over and above the natural variance (of about ±0.25°C) is completely in the upward adjustments, without the adjustments it appears perfectly normal and symmetric the way I have always assumed nature to be, vacillations about the mean. I for one have the opinion that 1997-1998 was no warmer that the late 1930’s temperatures after information from elders living through the dust bowl years.
Read Callender’s 1938 paper, especially the comments from Society memmbers at the end, and you just may see what I see is so amusing, seems nothing has changed at all, it was right at the peak of temperatures in 1938 also:
http://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/qjcallender38.pdf
This was such a quick and simple look at that data but it sure left an impression and it might leave such on others who get confused by the complexities involved in the temperature series plots.
Some will say this is not proper science, true, but it is proper reality to look at what it was before the adjustments.
Can I add my comments to those of Everard, PG, Steve B etc – to the education of James Allison. 5 years ago my house was destroyed by the Black Saturday bushfires and I am heartily sick of my environmental colleagues (yes I work for an environmental company) telling me that it was from climate change. The worst fires in Victoria’s history were in 1851 (long before any possible impact of AGW) when a quarter of the state was destroyed by fire and 17 people died, a larger proportion of the population then than the 173 who died on 7 February 2009 when a 40th portion of the state burned.
The main reason for damaging bushfires – or in my case – firestorms – is the wind – not the heat. If you have plenty of uncontrolled vegetation that has spent the last 4 to 5 years of good rains growing – then dry it out in a drought – it only takes a strong wind and the idiot with matches to create our special form of bushfires. New South Wales fire season starts in the last few months of the year before the summer rains put an end to the danger period. 1000 km to the south – Victoria’s then starts in about the last month of the year and goes on into high summer – as we have hot desert dry summers. High fuel load, dry conditions and wind – are the main ingredients of our bushfires – oh yes and people who live in bush settings and then expect to be somehow protected by the fire services – an impossible task. I am close to completing my new house on the same property where the previous one was destroyed. It is very different – being 400mm thick rammed earth walls, a fire blanket in the roof and fire shutters on every window – if we all built suitable houses – we could live anywhere.
The main reason for the design is fire protection – but the pay off is that it is highly insulated – has a 6 star rating and will cost very little in electricity – an essential ingredient given that we are now suffering the fate of carbon tax cost increases and Agenda 21 smart meters. Roll on the next Ice Age I say…
James Allison says:
October 17, 2013 at 11:25 am
Matt – Don’t panic! The scientific consensus is that warmer temperatures do more good than harm
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Try telling that to the Australian NSW people about now.
Don’t worry, the alarmists are doing so at high decibels.
In fact, the bushfires disprove CAGW. We were told that AGW would push Australia into permanent drought. The real cause of the bushfires is two years of exceptionally heavy rain which has caused massive growth, which of course provides tonnes of fuel for the fires. If AGW predicitons had been correct the fires (if they had occurred at all) would have been minuscule.
(Of course green/left promoted land mismanagement contributed, as has been noted above.)
James Allison says:
October 17, 2013 at 11:25 am
Try telling that to the Australian NSW people about now.
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NSW person here and I find your comment downright disrespectful and frankly if you and I were face to face, I would be calling the cops to get my fine for putting you in your place, you would be ringing the ambulance if you wake up.
1. The fires are highly suspected to be arson.
2. The build-up of fuel in the areas due to stupid green movements preventing backburning is a known factor for the level of these fires, it was raised with the Victorian fires before and everyone just looked the other way.
3. Without a lightning storm I struggle to see how this fire started. Blamely an outbreak of bushfires on climate change when the root cause is either some lowlife with a match or a smoker (Olympic park fire…) makes you sound like an idiot.
Considering one of my work colleagues family is in the direct line of the fires, a couple of my friends live in the areas affected and are helping others impacted by it, I think you using this outbreak as some “death porn” you lefties love so much only makes your lot look worse by the minute.
I have been on the South Coast were we haven’t had a bush fire in a while and the fallen timber and other fuels is over 10 feet in some places. Once it starts there due to some low life like you. People will die, houses will be lost and you will be watching the news with your hand in your pants smiling at the carnage.
Why are conservative-minded people always denigrated as “barmy, right-wing fantasists”? Are there no left-wing fantasists?
The Piers Akerman blog is laying the blame for the bushfires in NSW at least at the feet of Bob Carr. It was him that locked up our national and state parks and the funding for the Parks service went down as a percentage and they couldn’t get the funding to do the necessary hazard reduction. Full article here.
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/piersakerman/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/belief_in_common_sense_lies_in_ashes/
Bob Mount says:
Why are conservative-minded people always denigrated as “barmy, right-wing fantasists”? Are there no left-wing fantasists?
It is a vicious, underhanded tactic used by people who have no credible scientific argument. They are taking their marching orders from the despicable Saul Alinsky:
“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)”
well said ferret. so far its been an argument between academics and generally well behaved people.now everyone is feeling the bite of useless green extortion,sorry taxes,some of these eco loons are in for a rude awakening.i am quite prepared to accept my punishment the first time i have the opportunity to show my displeasure to some of these cretins.
Just an update James Allison since you are on a “destruction porn” trip
That workmate I mentioned, his sister’s place burnt down.
I am grateful to Northern Rock for giving me a mortgage when no-one else would, back in 2001. I was lucky to sell our UK house in 2006.
Its the end of the world as we know it
and I feel fine
REM
And beyond. The 2.2K limit is itself contradicted by every civilization-blooming Warm period back to at least the Minoan. Adaptation to warming is more like “taking advantage of” than “coping with”.
Brian H says:
October 17, 2013 at 4:44 pm
And beyond. The 2.2K limit is itself contradicted by every civilization-blooming Warm period back to at least the Minoan. Adaptation to warming is more like “taking advantage of” than “coping with”.
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Well said, mate. “Taking advantage of” of any warming is exactly what we all should be doing. These crazies are wailing and gnashing their teeth over a godsend. They are so sucked into their fears, they want civilization brought down because the weather is nice!
A.D. Everard says:
October 17, 2013 at 2:08 pm
Argh! I’m a writer – I hate typos – in my post above, it should have read “hard to believe in it” and “nobody”. Never mind.
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We need writers, it is all we got.
Speed kills, the “post comment” button needs a warning sign built into it.
Something like “are you sure you want to post this ?”.
It might deter me 🙂
u.k.(us) says:
October 17, 2013 at 5:19 pm
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We need writers, it is all we got.
Speed kills, the “post comment” button needs a warning sign built into it.
Something like “are you sure you want to post this ?”.
It might deter me 🙂
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Naw, I always think it’s right when I hit that button. I shall have to fall back on being human and trust that everyone remembers their own mistakes, and in so doing, forgive me mine. 🙂
When you are sure why you should or should not listen to… etc. please do let us know.
This makes sense. If CO2 levels are making things worse then we would know what the impact of the rise is… It would be just like now. And it would be getting less abrupt as the impact of CO2 is meant to be logarithmic.
Therefore, the consensus would be that CO2 is not a problem.
If CO2 is making things better right now then we do not know that we will be able to cope when the reversal happens.
Admittedly that is not a problem for this generation but it will affect our grandchildren. And it is only a matter of opinion whether our grandparents were right to focus on fighting WW2 rather than internet spam.
But I cannot make sense of those who think CO2 is a problem right now. We know we can cope with this.
The Precautionary Principle is redundant.
Just waiting for some alarmist to join the “good” and “bad” CO2 dots together on this one. “No, nothing to do with our banning of effective land management, it’s that pesky CO2 again. You see, it makes plants grow and develop faster. THAT’S what created all the additional fuel for these fires to consume and proves our point that CO2 is an evil, harmful pollutant that requires regulation and taxes”