The Working Group II IPCC report from the big shindig in Japan this week will be making headlines shortly, but take those headlines with a grain of salt.
Richard Tol Pulls Out, Says IPCC Draft Report Alarmist
One of the authors of a U.N. draft report on climate change pulled out of the writing team, saying his colleagues were issuing unfounded “alarmist” claims at the expense of real solutions.
“The drafts became too alarmist,” said Richard Tol, a Dutch professor of economics at Sussex University in England, to Reuters.
Mr. Tol was part of a team of 70 authors working on revisions to a U.N. report on climate change, to be issued in Japan on March 31. The final draft, which is the copy that Mr. Tol found objectionable, included findings that a warming global temperature will lead to disruption in food supplies and stagnating economies — and that coral reefs and lands in the Arctic may already have suffered irreversible damages, Reuters said.
“The report is a product of the scientific community and not of any individual author,” the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, said in a statement. “The report does not comprehensively represent the views of any individual.”
The U.N. agency also said Mr. Tol advised months ago of his reluctance to participate in the summary writing of the report. He had still been invited to Japan to help with its drafting, however, Reuters reported.
Mr. Tol said many of the other authors “strongly disagree with me,” but that he found the IPCC’s emphasis on climate change alarmism — and focus on risk — came at the expense of providing solutions for the world’s governments to adapt and overcome.
He said, for instance, farmers could grow new and different crops to offset any negative impacts from climate change that impacted food supplies.
“They will adapt,” Mr. Tol said, Reuters reported. “Farmers are not stupid.”
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Andres Valencia said: “Do you forget that astrology gave birth to astronomy?”
Not at all, Astrology however has been transcended by Astronomy. Once it was understood that the the planets and our Moon orbit in the same plane (the Ecliptic) and that the stars within the ecliptic are random patterns that to the imaginative mind, form shapes although the distances between them are enormous, Astrology should have been made redundant. Unfortunately like AGW neither of them have been.
Ironically one of my favourite pictures is an etching by Flammarian, a 19th – 20th century astronomer which shows how medieval people viewed the heavens. His life story makes interesting reading too, because he tried to expose psychic mediums as frauds. Move on almost a century and we have Anthony Watts and all the contributors to this website trying to expose yet another false belief!.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flammarion_engraving
“He said, for instance, farmers could grow new and different crops to offset any negative impacts from climate change that impacted food supplies”
That’s the right idea but no need to do anything different than we have been doing. Trend line corn yields since 1940 have quadrupled. Hybrids today are much more drought tolerant than a few decades ago and improvements continue.
A couple decades ago, global warming was predicted to be taking a toll on world food production by now……………funny thing is that increasing CO2 is in fact effecting world food production and its all been greatly beneficial.
Anybody that states otherwise is blatantly biased and/or delusional.
http://www.co2science.org/education/reports/co2benefits/MonetaryBenefitsofRisingCO2onGlobalFoodProduction.pdf
The IPCC is an entity who’s entire power has been based on wild speculation about the future. Since we are now experiencing the future that was predicted in the 1990’s, all we see is a bunch of exaggerations of extreme weather events(that now include snow and cold) that have all happened in the past before CO2 went up.
In fact, the physical laws of meteorology are clear that when you warm the higher latitudes, some types of severe and extreme weather DECREASE.
“All your base are belong to us.” I suspect this will get zero play in the media. Climate Change is a juggernaut. Juggernaut: “The figurative sense of the English word, with the idea of “something that demands blind devotion or merciless sacrifice” became common in the mid-nineteenth century… a literal or metaphorical force regarded as mercilessly destructive and unstoppable. This usage originated in the mid-nineteenth century as an allegorical reference to the Hindu Ratha Yatra temple car, which apocryphally was reputed to crush devotees under its wheels.” Nit picking and pin pricks, slings and arrows, have no effect. Or so it seems.
Ivor Ward, please write more.
Damn fine summation.
Only 70 experts now? What happened to the 2500? Or was that 0052 and 70 is really 07 as per IPCC numerical dyslexia.
I am still looking for the killer sound bite.
CAGW created, promoted and protected from investigation, by our kleptocracy.
As an intelligence test it has been superb, the fools and bandits who currently infest our bureaucracies are exposed. As failing this simple test.As being fools or thieves.
What is the solution?
Parasites protecting ever more odious parasites, does not enhance or maintain civil society.
Can one “negotiate” with a parasite?
Mike Maguire;
That’s the right idea but no need to do anything different than we have been doing. Trend line corn yields since 1940 have quadrupled. Hybrids today are much more drought tolerant than a few decades ago and improvements continue.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I’d like to support that comment and double down on it. Few crops we have today could reach their currently levels of production based on nothing but nature, many of them would not survive at all. Not only have we engaged in selective breeding and genetic manipulation, we also fertilize, pest control, irrigate and even greenhouse our crops. We’ve been evolving our food production methods at a rate that climate change does not and cannot keep pace with.
Add to this a declining birth rate as poverty levels decline, and the only humane course of action to ensure the health and well being of as much of the population as possible is to do what we’ve been doing for centuries.
Richard Tol Pulls Out, Says IPCC Draft Report Alarmist
That’s a pretty small grain of salt, actually. Better bring a microscope.
Magma says:
March 30, 2014 at 10:15 am
Richard Tol Pulls Out, Says IPCC Draft Report Alarmist
That’s a pretty small grain of salt, actually. Better bring a microscope.
————————-
so is the level of co2 in the atmosphere, according to alarmist accounts a small amount goes a long way in its effect.
JimS says:
March 30, 2014 at 6:47 am
Venality.
==============================================================
Hmmmm…that does make one wonder just how many others of those involved in this report don’t fit the definition of “climatologist” and just who and how long ago was “climatologist” defined?
If he was never a “climatologist”, why was he ever involved at all?
(Are railroad engineers “climatologist”?)
Thanks, andrewmharding, for linking to the Flammarion Engraving, as an astronomer it is a picture I enjoy seeing. I hoped you new of the filial relationship there.
On the other hand, the IPCC I hope will not be able to procreate more monsters, itself a sibling of the UN.
Seems the IPCC-naughts esp. El Commadante Si Camarlingus Pachauri need a Western History lesson. No doubt that El Si knows a lot of Hindu history, but he’s not making proclamations to the hindi now is he.
Just look at all the European Wars (including the American Revolutionary War and the Colonial campaigns with natives) that were fought during the Little Ice Age !
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_1500–1799.
And the American Civil War and several conflicts between U.S.A. and Mexico were fought near the end off the Little Ice Age.
If increase global near-surface air temperatures lead to civil conflicts, i.e. wars, then even Western History shows the IPCC-naughts have got it all ass-backwards, again.
LOL. 😀
First I would like to echo the calls of well done, to Ivor Ward. An excellent post sir which I intend to cite often, if you don’t mind.
Secondly, I think Village idiot has hit the nail on the head, unwittingly, by pointing out how the 98% consensus can be shown to be so wrong, by just one man with a bit of integrity and nothing to gain by his action, unlike those he has embarrassed and left behind.
So how much do higher temperatures hurt food production? It is not a hard question to answer because we are running a great natural experiment. Brazil, which lines on the equator and is almost entirely in the tropics, is already experiencing high temperatires and a complete lack of sub freezing weather. How has that affected their ability to produce food?
Here is the answer:
==============================================
Brazil’s Main Agricultural Products and Exports:
Sugar: the world’s largest producer and exporter.
Coffee: the world’s largest producer and exporter. It controls about 30 percent of the international market in the bean.
Orange Juice: the world’s largest producer and exporter. It accounts for roughly one in every two glasses of orange juice consumed in the world today.
Beef: Brazil has the world’s largest commercial cattle herd of around 200 million head, and is the largest exporter of beef.
Poultry: With a fast expanding grain belt, Brazil has leveraged its corn and soy production to become the world’s largest exporter of poultry meat. Feed accounts for about 70 percent of poultry production costs.
Soybeans: the world’s No. 2 soybean producer and exporter, and one day will likely overtake the United States as the leading producer of the oilseed.
Corn: No.3 world exporter of corn. Until recently it has been only a marginal corn exporter, keeping 95 percent of the 55 million tonnes-plus of corn produced at home to feed its booming pork and poultry industries. But in the past several years, Brazil has exported around 7 to 11 million tonnes a year.
Cocoa: Brazil ranks sixth among the world’s cocoa growers.
Timber: With abundant rain, sun and land inside the tropics, Brazil is the world’s lowest cost producer of pulp from timber.
Cotton: ranks no.4 in world exporters of cotton fibre. Brazil produces close to 2 million tonnes of high grade long fibre cotton lint.
=============================================
My conclusion is that higher temperatures will not adversely impact food production. Heck, they might even expand it.
I love the way the IPCC grades people according to what they say. He is not “Dr Tol”, or “Professor Tol” (both of which he is, but “Mr” Tol.
The odds of them naming people who agree with them including full titles and regalia are unbackable.
Yes johanna, exactly. Professor Tol is backing down, with his last words, “Farmers will adapt”. They will have too, won’t they? As if in Australia we haven’t over the two centuries of trying to adapt! I don’t like kangaroo meat personally, but my dogs do. But that Gonaught told farmers to get rid of sheep and cattle and farm kangers instead. What about our wool production, stupid man! Did he forget that roos are marsupials and defy domestication including jumping fences.
Near as I can tell, “too alarmist” means chock-a-block with faeces.