Matt Ridley on weather and climate

Matt Ridley has an op-ed in the Times, the gist of which can be seen here.

Like everyone else he's laughing at Dr David Viner.

Comments

[Phillip Bratby]

Meanwhile, another load of alarmist nonsense from Richard Black. Good old weather.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11903397

[H]

Right, so I started out feeling a bit sorry for the good Dr Viner, after all I am sure I said some things 10 years ago that I would rather not have hunt me (Well, it is Christmas time so let's have a reminder :o) http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html ) but then I found this more recent (January 2010) piece: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html . He just will not give up on this one, will he? :o)

[BBD]

Oh I am getting fed up with Oxfam.

Some more on disaster losses here:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/11/why-there-are-no-trends-in-normalized.html

And here (from the Grantham Institute, no less):
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/11/new-peer-reviewed-paper-on-global.html

And here:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/08/disaster-losses-and-climate-change.html

And here, showing how the insurance biz has cashed in alongside the pseudo-charities and catastrophists:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2010/11/82-billion-prediction.html

[BBD]

Sorry. My comment above should have included this quote from Matt Ridley's article:

Case in point: Oxfam’s shiny new £40,000-a-year `climate change press officer’ (I saw the ad) said this week that climate talks are urgent because `21,000 people died due to weather-related disasters in the first nine months of 2010 – more than twice the number for the whole of 2009’. This is blatant cherry-picking. Take less than one year's number, compare it with one other year's number and draw a trend? Seriously? Even though the events in question have – they admit – no proven connection with climate change, only with weather? And expect reporters to fall for it? (Oh: they did?)

[John Shade]

Truly, Napier-of-the-Met has succeeded in transforming the Met Office from being concerned with the weather, to being concerned not so much with climate but with pushing the 'CO2 is Really Scary' cause, just as he transformed the World Wildlife Fund from being concerned with wildlife, to being concerned with pushing the same 'CO2 is Really Scary' cause - to very lucrative effect for that organisation. I think the Met Office and associated institutes have also had a hockey-stick like surge in their finances. It would be good for a laugh, were it not for the poor humans, and the wildlife, who have to pay for it all in various ways.

[Paul Maynard]

I suggest you look at the tosh from Highfield, editor of the Non Scientist in today's Telegraph

[Phillip Bratby]

OT, BBC news covers the new climate change gallery at the Science Museum. Prince Charles and director Rapley talking BS again. Desperation is evident. According to the right Charlie, I am anti-science!

[Phil R]

I liked this part:

"This puts Oxfam’s trick into perspective, does it not? The risk the average human being runs of dying because of weather is just 2% of what it was 90 years ago."

Another "trick" to hide the decline?

[Phillip Bratby]

OT but Richard Black is pouring out propaganda at an alarming rate:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11912566

[John Shade]

Oxfam has downgraded caring for the hungry to a side-issue while it sets about saving the planet from human CO2. Very lucrative it has been for them too, I do believe. Who can blame such charities from jumping on a bandwagon of such righteousness when it means such a boost in income. Multinational corporations such as Greenpeace have faced the same dilemma: the science may be flaky, the observations unconvincing, but by golly that money looks good. When psychologists and other 'ologists pore over this past twenty years of orchestrated alarmism, they will need to keep the financial side in mind, even while examining our propensity to be scared, and to downplay data which conflicts with our convictions.

[David S]

If only Oxfam, ActionAid and the like used global warming scaremongering to raise money for alleviation of poverty. I fear it is the other way round - the money people give to help starving children gets diverted to moronic 10:10 style propaganda

[Pharos]

Phillip Bratby

Richard Black, so predictable its comforting. Harrabin at least has a modicum of panache. From your link I liked this quote, from of course our very own UK envoy:-

"John Ashton, the UK's special envoy on climate change, said the report could play a valuable role in persuading people and governments to take climate change more seriously; many, he said, were "not as scared as they should be""We need to find ways of forcing the evidence into the political imagination."."

Yet, I have to laugh. Black is actually hauled over the coals in some quarters for inadequately pressing the message-

http://www.123people.co.uk/ext/frm?ti=person%20finder&search_term=richard%20black%20bbc&search_country=GB&st=person%20finder&target_url=http%3A%2F%2Fclimateprogress.org%2F2010%2F09%2F16%2Frichard-black-bbc-bad-climate-reporting%2F&section=blog&wrt_id=261

[hunter]

This corruption of Oxfam is just one example of the costs of climate catastrophism. A perfectly respectable organization rightly famous for feeding the starving in the 3rd world is so eaten up by CO2 obsession that they are now forgetting about solving real problems in favor of chasing social manias.