Saturday
Nov162013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Matt Ridley in Oz
Nov 16, 2013 Climate: Sceptics Matt Ridley gave a lecture in Australia a couple of days ago. Matt is always worth a listen, so here it is for your delectation.
Update on Nov 17, 2013 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Matt was on the Andrew Bolt show as well, talking about Haiyan and global warming. There's a transcript here.
Reader Comments (56)
I imagine readers already know and adore Ridley's line in half-truths. Why is this one so interesting? Does he say anything new? Recant for example?
Come on then Chandra - give us the other half of the truths that Matt expanded. Just a couple would do for starters.
I always have to remember that there's 'Oz,' and then there's Oz... but I'd rather not have alarmists in Either one.
Mind you, I meant the likes of chandra, not Matt.
Recant? That's what heretics are meant to do, isn't it?
Still, it's better to have that sort of attitude out in the open, for all to see.
'Chandra' does not seek to refute anything that Matt Ridley has said, but merely indulges in invective. That is unsurprising. Would Chandra be the son a railway engineer, perhaps?
Hi Chandra! May I ask you a question: Did you watch Matt Ridley's presentation? If you did, can you point to any arguments he made that are 'half-truths' - then we can debate them? If you didn't watch it are you not open to the - legitimate - accusation that you are an ignorant troll?
Cheers.
I say ignorant troll.
Will he prove me wrong?
One post from a drive-by troll generates eight responses in reaction but nothing about Matt's terrific presentation?
Gentlemen, really.....
Phil D: I agree; I don't know why anybody responds to a troll who brings nothing of value to this site.
DNFTIT
apologies, not for the first time has the troll hijacked the thread. On Matt, pay attention to his depiction of the prophecies of the 50's & 60's. I was there and can give witness testimony. The end of the world was a good excuse not to do your homework, though we hedged our bets and did it anyway. The most depressing thought was immolation before we had got laid. The Cuban missile crisis was a close call there. The "other half" of Matt's truth was that the optimists weren't any better. It was all flying cars and colonies on Mars - pity they were wrong we would have somewhere to send our Cassandra would-be's.. NOBODY came even close to predicting the world as it is now - that is the core of Matt's presentation and the thematic comment on the whole CAGW narrative. One thing you can be sure of -when the climate catastrophe arrives, it will be the wrong one.
Not wanting to feed the troll, but I'm really interested to learn exactly what "half-truths" Ridley was supposedly saying… I assume the accusation is unrelated to his involvement in Northern Rock.
Having grown up in the 60s and 70s, I'm fully aware of the pessimism he describes and am familiar with the arguments in ‘Limits to Growth’ and the 1992 follow-up ‘Beyond the Limits’, which I read at the time and was entirely convinced by… until I started to look around and ask questions!
Why is Ridley’s optimism so wrong and why should he and the likes of Hans Rosling be ignored?
Of all the points Matt Ridley made, two stood out for me: That we should live in hope rather than despair - and allow those who would bring us down to live in despair when all about is hope; and secondly, his final point: fossil fuels are greening the earth. That should get the trolls gunning for him.
Finally, Matt gave me an idea about how we should teach our children to be optimists. He quoted from the infamous Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth", a copy of which I still own and which I read when in my 20s. He points out that so little of what was predicted in that book has come to pass. I would suggest it as a text book for children: to let them see how fruitless is the life of the pessimist when everything predicted by them can be seen, empirically, 30 years later to be a load of garbage. By learning from such an experience we may hope that children will not take quite so long to see the debunking of "An Inconvenient Truth". (/rant)
@Snotrocket.. I would suggest it as a text book for children: to let them see how fruitless is the life of the pessimist when everything predicted by them can be seen, empirically, 30 years later to be a load of garbage.
In the same vein I'd suggest introducing them to some of the writings of Paul Erlich FRS to let them know how wrong someone can be and still be considered for Fellowship of that (once) august society!
An excellent talk, complemented by this from Bjørn Lomborg:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU-LTKOJY9M
The troll isn't worth the time - DNFTT.
Matt Ridley as brilliant as ever. Thank you Sir.
The problem for the pessimists is that they have always been wrong and are wrong now. That is not say there are no problems to come. It is a strange mind set I think that even someone like Ehrlich, who Dr. Ridley mentions, who has never been right about anything ever, is still lorded by the "movement". Amazing but there it is. They are not interested in facts and truth, just dogma. I find many that I come across are often still reading off the 10 year out-of-date hymn-sheet provided by Catastrophe Central Office. Sometimes the foot soldiers don't realise that the agreed story has changed - such as with bio-fuels where those who counselled against it were screamed at 10 years ago, but now even FofE understand they were right. But in the true nature of the beast they now deny (sorry) they ever thought it was a good idea and seek to blame the governments who acted on their demands for it.
I liken them to the "flock" told by their preacher in 2012 about the end of the world, who when it didn't happen accepted his excuse for being wrong ( the math I gather) instead of seeing him as a fool.
Having being an early member of FofE, I very quickly realised that they had a fixed view that neither had a basis in reality, nor a grasp of how unworkable the future they proposed would be. You see the same total disconnect in climate and energy policy today.
Well sorry to intrude on your hero worship, but for those who think that Ridley always speaks the truth, here are a few things that stood out for me.
At around 15 minutes he complains of green pessimists who think the world is perfect and cannot be improved. Well did you ever meet a green who thinks pumping gigatonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere is "perfect". Rubbish.
And the at around 29 minutes he claims that free enterprise in the 1960s gave black people the economic power to demand civil rights, while conveniently ignoring the fact that free enterprise in earlier centures condemned their forebears to slavery.
At around the 31 minute mark he claims that the market runs monopolies out of town and is always on the side of the consumer not the producer. But he conveniently ignores the role of regulators in breaking up monopolies. And the idea that the market always favours the consumer is just nonsense.
A little nugget tickled me near the end. Those of you, including AM, who are rooting for ex-prof Salby and his theory that increasing CO2 levels are down to rising temperatures, not our emissions, will have been shocked to hear that fossil fuels are making the world greener by raising CO2 levels.
I might have added that his claims that IQs are rising seems highly doubtful and in recruiting Prof. Ranga Myneni to his cause, in support of the greening world hypothesis, he might for balance have mentioned this (originated by the same prof): https://yourclimatechange.org/
So, the Bish reads Unthreaded, where this was linked a couple of days ago? :)
Ridley is a National Treasure. The breadth and depth of his thinking makes most politicians (and a lot of academics) look like the pygmies that they are. I don't agree with him about everything, but anything he says is worthy of very serious consideration indeed.
That he and Bryony Worthington sit as peers in the same house reminds us that the House of Lords today is like a school which caters for everyone from pre-schoolers to 18 year olds. All 745 of them, and rising. And each of them has an equal vote.
The fact that increased CO2 levels are greening the planet is an argument against the pointless and counter-productive efforts to reduce CO2 levels. Nice to see you finally coming round to understanding that argument.
Oh Dear Chandra - the "civil rights" comment was a reference to the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955/56 where use of market forces overthrew the practices of a monopoly provider of services. This refutes two of your quibbles. Your post seems to imply that you had not actually looked at Matts presentation before you rushed in and then had to spend time trying to find an angle. Even Prof. Myneni, in acknowledging the greening, is accepting that climate change may be for the better. You must try harder than this.
Chandra,
"I imagine readers already know and adore Ridley's line in half-truths."
Please can you elaborate on the 50% that is true?
Great lecture.
In an age where energy policy is dictated by unqualified, irrational, deluded, anti-capitalist idealists, it's refreshing to hear someone tell things like they are.
Hearing Cameron blame climate change on man has led me to vote for UKIP. They are the only major party reflecting the views expressed by Ridley.
If something is really worth saying, then it is worth repeating often.
Mat Ridley has, in my opinion, a penchant for chrystalising the obvious
(which is all too often ignore) and qualifying his facts in a very simple
and understandable fashion.
Mat Ridley is a very credible witness to what is really going on in this
world and deserves to be acknowledged as such. (in my opinion)
Thank you Chandra. Your "arguments" (accusations, really) are hollow and incompetent but, in the absence of critical response, they will have to do.
Mike Jackson, not incompatible? Yes they are.
Diogenese2, Ridley wants you to believe that free enterprise is a force for good. It can indeed be, but by highlighting the positive and ignoring the negative he engages in deception. You are doubtless so used to being deceived as a reader of septic blogs that you don't notice or care. And Myneni would not have created a petition calling for action to combat climate change if he accepted that CC might be for the better, as you assert.
Neil McEvoy, I gave an example above (civil rights).
Pesadia, Ridley has a penchant for omitting inconvenient aspects of what he discusses in order to mislead. You just don't see it because you want to believe what he says.
Please treat Chandra with respect. It is really useful tp to have a poster on this site who will test the arguments. When his response is as feeble as it is above, it strengthens confidence in the original thesis.
Nice to hear Ridley give the correct pronunciation of A'stralia.
Chandra: "Septic blogs" - Oh hohohohohoho! How original - not.
Anyway, what the heck is so wrong with "...highlighting the positive and ignoring the negative."? Did you not take anything away from what MR had to say? I guess you must be a pissimist.
Nov 16, 2013 at 3:21 PM | diogenese2
Your post put me back to a time long past when as a fit, yet callow youth, I was a spare time volunteer in Civil Defence Rescue, being prepared to save lives in a post atomic world.
That brought to mind an official lecture that I attended entitled " The use of small tools in confined spaces" - a source of no little amusement to us young uns in those tense and worrisome times.
Then I remembered the reference at the top of your post to the troll and somehow the two became conflated..............
Increasing CO2 levels are the result of increased temperatures AND are contributing to a greening of the planet.
How are these two things mutually incompatible?
The almost total lack of public awareness of the extensive experimental evidence confirming the beneficial effects of enhanced levels of atmospheric concentration of CO2 on plant vigour and main feed crop yields represents one of the clearest examples of mischievous suppression in the whole arena of political and media representation surrounding global warming/climate change. Even Richard Betts IIRC admitted a while ago on this blog to the effect that the IPCC tend to suppress it.
Logically, the explanation is plain in geological context. The Quaternary Ice Age Era plunged the world into geologically unprecedented low, even dangerously low, atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Modern plants evolved physiologically much earlier in the higher atmospheric CO2 conditions of the pre-Quaternary and need higher CO2 for optimum growth.
Chandra
how are the "economics for morons" classes going? Are you able to keep up?
i know DNFTT
but funnily enought i now revel in being called "denier"
nothing wrong with thinking for yourself & evaluating all data, unlike some.
Well. I never met a green who doesn't smoke.
It's hardly a secret, and doesn't require special investigation to find out except by paranoid conspiracy theorists who only seem to believe things when they are said to be secret then "revealed" to them by the anointed.
Ridley refers to his ongoing family history in coal frequently and publicly. It's also right there in his online biography which anyone can read.
Amen to that. "Denier" ,with its attempted Holocaust association, has got to be the most poorly-aimed of all insults thrown in environmental policy discussions.
I'm a proud old white left wing man, which was not something I had any say in (the white bit anyway; the lefty bit was possibly optional) whose life experience is just about exactly mirrored by Ridley's exposition of the last 50 years.Greeny apologist guilty modern day lefties have nothing in common with the working classes of sixty years ago and should stop pretending to be carrying some long extinguished torch for a movement they had no part in.
One depressing aspect of the presentation was that IQ is rising.I've noticed that people of high IQ have a way of reasoning which has them sitting around forecasting doom while the barrow boys get out and get on with making the world a better place. Zed and Chandra are doomed by their high IQ (are they one and the same, or twins?), which locks them in to a train of thinking which is justified by all their logic, but doesn't work out in practice. I feel for them- I was one of them thirty years ago.
Is it my imagination or is there a touch of desperation about in the warmist camp?
After Australia's move on closing down carbon taxes funding streams are looking threatened.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24975106
This seems to be headline news this morning, push the agenda while they still can?
......lot of troll-action about too.
meltemian
The rush is on to get CO2 reduction in place before global temps decline.
Chandra @ 8.53: "Ridley wants you to believe......".
What do you want me to believe Chandra , that a tiny amount of a trace gas will melt the ice and destroy the earth, that the IPCC is a detached, pristine scientific body, that the Climate Change Act 2008 is not evidence that the body politic is technically illiterate and innumerate?
"you are doubtless used to being deceived"
You have got that right. After 70 years experience of being sold snake oil (and selling a fair bit) I should recognise the product. The history of failed prophecy is huge and long. I expect you will tell me "this time it is different - well it always is. Show me a man who has no doubt and is never wrong and I will show you a girt fool.
"you just don't see it because you want to believe"
Burns has the answer to that;
"I would some power the gift would give us
To see ourselves as others see us
It would from many a blunder free us
And foolish notion"
I watched Ridley on the Bolt Report, in Australia, on Sunday morning. Had I not known he was from the UK, the text of his interview would have told me. There are so many climate morons in the UK that even the deniers are a little hesitant about it. I would not define him as a denier; more a "luke warmer". In strong drink terms, the drink you are having when you are not having a drink.
I suggest he grow a pair ...
McD. That would be some sort of Irish invader posing as a Scot. Bugger off ya poonce.
Why aren't the 'political correctionists' all up in arms about the liberal use of the word 'denier' by the warm-mongering classes?
I like Andrew Bolt, I like Matt Ridley, but they fall into the trap of validating AGW, when. Bolt says:"What do we have to worry about, if global warming continues?"
There is nothing unprecedented about today's climate. Why wouldn't it be warmer now, than 150 plus years ago, when we started coming out of the LIA? Why wouldn't we want it to be warmer now, than that desperately cold and tragedy-laden period, that lasted several centuries?
As Harold Ambler says on his site, Talking About The Weather, ""Climate change" is based on a tragic misunderstanding: that climate used to be both stable and gentle. Nothing could be farther from the truth."
"Earth was rebounding from the recent temperature nadir of 1687, by about half a century Celsius per century, long before meaningful emissions of carbon dioxide. To argue, as climate alarmists do, that the continuation of the warming is either worrisome or due to human emissions is an extraordinary claim."
http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2013/10/10/you-dare-to-question-the-great-los-angeles-times/
Snotrocket, do you have to ask what is wrong with "highlighting the positive and ignoring the negative"? Well, if your intention is to mislead or deceive, there's a lot wrong with it. If I said look at my shiny wind turbines, they generate many megawatts, last for years and have no fuel costs, you might be among the first to complain that I was ignoring the fact that they are intermittent sources of power, etc. But if Ridley makes a big deal of enterprise playing a small role in the civil rights movement without mentioning that it played an huge role is the crimes that led to the enslavement of millions, do you see nothing wrong?
Mike Jackson, your answers have no integrity. First you say:
And when challenged, now you'd like people to think that is the same as:
There may be some here who you can't fool.
For those who can't be fooled I commend this 1974 Commencement Address by Dr Richard Feynman, which is posted up at WUWT - coincidentally, today - (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/16/a-view-of-science-worth-reflecting-upon/#more-97589) in which he discusses Cargo Cult Science. He ends with this very perceptive take on how science works:
Sorry, Chandra, but I'm not sure whether "troll" or "brainless prat" is the more appropriate turn of phrase.
"Increasing CO2 levels are down to rising temperatures". You may disagree but history is against you so, for the sake of argument: fact 1.
"Fossil fuels are making the world greener by raising CO2 levels". Fossil fuels are raising CO2 levels, at least according to your hypothesis. Raised CO2 levels are making the world greener: fact 2
The second statement is independent of the first and is therefore a non sequitur.
Both statements are or are potentially correct. Therefore they are not mutually incompatible.
You seem to have a sort of ongoing problem with the English language( as well as economics).
Don't be stupid. How can two assertions that contradict one another be mutually compatible? More skeptic new-speak. You live in your own little world....
I agree.
How these reactionary snobs became associated with the Left is a story that needs to be told.
I think the explanation is at least partly in what the late Australian politician Kim Beazley Snr said about changes in the Australian Labor Party "When I joined the Labor Party, it contained the cream of the working class. But as I look about me now all I see are the dregs of the middle class"
Chandra
This is getting silly.
Explain, please — as opposed to bluster — in what way the two statements 'warming causes a rise in CO2' and 'increased CO2 greens the planet' are contradictory.