Paris climate talks and Matt Ridley
Jan. 1st, 2016 10:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arganoidI posted this on Facebook during the recent climate talks:
As the Paris climate talks continue, you'll be hearing a lot in the media (esp. the Times and the Today programme) from (Lord) Matt Ridley - the go-to-guy for those who want to downplay global warming but have realised that Nigel Lawson has no credibility on the topic. Until 2007 he was the chairman of the collapsed bank Northern Rock, who were deemed by the Treasury select committee to have followed a "high-risk, reckless business strategy”. He also has coal mines on his estate. His scientific expertise is in zoology. Ridley argues that global warming is real but it will be a long time before it gets bad. He says that his claims are in line with those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The amount of warming he expects is in line the IPCC's best case scenario - a scenario that is considered highly unlikely, especially if we don't drastically reduce emissions - which Matt Ridley is trying to convince us not to do. It's one thing to crash a bank, it's another to pursue a high-risk, reckless strategy with the planet. By giving so much prominence to this man, the media are risking the lives of our children and grandchildren.
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Some further reading. I may have been too kind to Ridley. The only IPCC scenario in which warming has a chance of being as low as he expects, is the one where there is an immediate and aggressive global effort - far beyond anything we have seen or are likely to see - to cut carbon pollution. Under the business as usual scenario, which he advocates, he is not even close to the IPCC's range. So for him to suggest that his position is consistent with the IPCC is actively misleading. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/21/matt-ridley-wants-to-gamble-earths-future-because-wont-learn-from-past
As the Paris climate talks continue, you'll be hearing a lot in the media (esp. the Times and the Today programme) from (Lord) Matt Ridley - the go-to-guy for those who want to downplay global warming but have realised that Nigel Lawson has no credibility on the topic. Until 2007 he was the chairman of the collapsed bank Northern Rock, who were deemed by the Treasury select committee to have followed a "high-risk, reckless business strategy”. He also has coal mines on his estate. His scientific expertise is in zoology. Ridley argues that global warming is real but it will be a long time before it gets bad. He says that his claims are in line with those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The amount of warming he expects is in line the IPCC's best case scenario - a scenario that is considered highly unlikely, especially if we don't drastically reduce emissions - which Matt Ridley is trying to convince us not to do. It's one thing to crash a bank, it's another to pursue a high-risk, reckless strategy with the planet. By giving so much prominence to this man, the media are risking the lives of our children and grandchildren.
...
Some further reading. I may have been too kind to Ridley. The only IPCC scenario in which warming has a chance of being as low as he expects, is the one where there is an immediate and aggressive global effort - far beyond anything we have seen or are likely to see - to cut carbon pollution. Under the business as usual scenario, which he advocates, he is not even close to the IPCC's range. So for him to suggest that his position is consistent with the IPCC is actively misleading. http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/jan/21/matt-ridley-wants-to-gamble-earths-future-because-wont-learn-from-past
