Settled science: there is a scientific consensus that humans are causing climate change

You probably think this topic has been done to death, however there are still people who won't or can't accept that there is a strong scientific consensus on climate change. Even people who accept the strong scientific consensus keep coming up with claims that it isn't. The science on the consensus is "settled science". (I say that to annoy science deniers who don't understand the difference between settled science and ongoing research.)

There are two new papers about the extent to which there is a consensus that humans are causing global warming. One is a rather silly comment by Richard Tol (who can't let it go). The other is a reply to Richard's comment by a team of heavy hitters, including many of the people who have already published papers quantifying the consensus, plus more. The reply is much more than a mere reply. It's a synthesis of the consensus papers and something that you'll no doubt find useful the next time you come across a climate science doubter.

Will the real Richard Tol please stand up?

At the Carbon Brief, there's a full transcript of an interview of Richard Tol by Roger Harrabin of the BBC. Readers of HotWhopper won't recognise him. The Richard Tol who was interviewed by Roger Harrabin is a completely different man to the person who has behaved in an unhinged obsessive manner when he has visited HotWhopper in the past (see below). He is quite a different person to the man who for more than two years has been obsessed with fatigued abstracts, date stamps and 97 per cents, trying to find flaws in the research study by Cook et al, and failing.

Adverse effects of climate change are about to outweigh any benefits

The newly emerged Richard Tol says things like adverse affects of climate change will very soon outweigh any benefits of warming (within months, not years):

• According to my latest calculations, it’s sort of around 1.1 degrees of warming relative to pre-industrial, so that’s … referring to the boundary between net positive benefits from warming, and negatives, which means we are at the boundary.

Double Trouble: For Whom the Tol Bells: and What 2014 El Nino is that?

For Whom the Tol Bells

Greg Laden asked on Twitter "is this the end of Tol?  Shall he ask for whom the Bell ...".

It's really hard to resist making bad puns about tolling, isn't it, when you think of Richard Tol (if you've ever heard of him. If you haven't read on.) The remarkable thing is that the bell isn't Toling. Normally as soon as someone mentions Richard Tol's name "somewhere on the internet", up he pops, relishing the attention. Not this time however. Or not so far.

Collin Maessen of Real Skeptic has written a devastating take-down of Richard's latest swipe at the 97% consensus. You'd think he'd have given up by now wouldn't you. But he hasn't. Instead he's broadened out to misrepresenting not just the Cook13 97% study, but most of the other research papers that have gauged the level of scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming.

The Evolution of a 97% Conspiracy Theory - The Case of the Abstract IDs

Update: OMG! If you can believe it, even after all this, Richard Tol, in the comments below, is still indulging in a Recursive Fury of Gish gallops. He's taken the new (to him) facts and, instead of letting go of his wacky ideas as he should, he's gone and woven still more new conspiracy theories. (Has Richard not got any friends to have a quiet word in his ear? No-one who cares for him? How sad.)

[Sou 6:17 pm 31 March 2015 AEDT]

---

If you've been following this blog for the past few days, you'll have noticed the fine illustration of denier-weird in action, including a Gish gallop evolving live (here and here).

This article is more by way of a post-script. An extraordinarily long post-script. As you probably know, I don't normally repeat a theme over consecutive days. The reason I'm writing this up as a separate article is because it is a wonderful chance to see how a conspiratorial notion was developed over a few short hours, at the tail end of a Gish gallop.

It's a conspiracy. I just know it!

The fall and fall of Gish galloping Richard Tol's smear campaign

A short while ago I wrote an article demolishing Richard Tol's latest demonisation of Cook13, the well known 97% consensus paper. (Update: there's still more to the saga - see here.)

"The consensus is of course in the high 90s" - Richard Tol

As you know, Richard agrees that of all the scientific papers that attribute a cause to global warming, the percentage that attribute it to human activity is "in the high 90s". Here is his confirmation at ATTP's blog:

Richard Tol says (my emphasis):

June 14, 2013 at 11:44 am
The consensus is of course in the high nineties. No one ever said it was not. We don’t need Cook’s survey to tell us that.

Cook’s paper tries to put a precise number on something everyone knows. They failed. Their number is not very precise.

So why does he think Cook13 failed, even though it "put a number" that "everyone else knows"? He doesn't say - anywhere.

Deconstructing the 97% self-destructed Richard Tol

If you're a mediocre academic who yearns to be in the spotlight, what do you do? If you've burnt your bridges academically and cemented a reputation as a bit of a hack who isn't too fussed about accuracy.  If you aren't too worried that you'll end your lack-lustre career on a third-rate public speaking circuit, talking to a handful of doddering deniers in seedy back rooms of government buildings, then you might consider a career as a climate science denier.

That's the image that comes to mind when I consider the antics of Richard Tol over the past few years. Richard managed to snag a position as Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex in the UK. He specialises in the economics of climate, sort of, though he's had mixed success. That's mainly because he's not a detail person. He isn't too fussed when he lets mistakes slip through - unless, that is, someone catches him out.

How WUWT missed the memo about the IPCC WG2 report

I suppose it's because deniers don't like the UK Guardian and don't follow the right people on Twitter. Whatever the reason, Anthony Watts at WUWT missed the memo.

Today he's got an article (archived here) about how the Final Report of the IPCC AR5 WG2 is now out. Someone noticed how some changes, which were inserted into the Final Draft without advising expert reviewers, have been dropped.

Bob Ward wrote about this at the Guardian the other day. By his account, it was Richard Tol's chapter where some words were added into the Final Draft after the last but final went to reviewers. So nobody saw them until the Final Draft was released. The changes that were made were reverted, once it was acknowledged by all that they were in error.

If you are still confused, go and read what Bob Ward has to say about it. It's been discussed publicly ever since the final draft came out. I'm surprised that WUWT didn't know about this.

Ridiculous Richard Tol sez 12,000 is a strange number...

Anthony Watts has put up another promo for Richard Tol (archived here, latest here). Richard is an economist who agrees there is an overwhelming consensus among the experts that global warming is real and caused by human activity. Over the last year or so, however, he's been on a crusade to try to argue that 97% isn't 97% or something.

I've already written how Richard's "arguments" range from the idiotic to the preposterous and have been well and truly demolished. For a more orderly, less snarky and highly readable account, see the paper by John Cook and co where they identified at least 24 major blunders in Richard's silliness.

This time, because there have been a number of articles in the UK Guardian about Richard, his errors in his economic papers and now his "verging on the lunatic" crusade against John Cook and SkepticalScience.com - the Guardian allowed him an article of his own.

Richard contradicts himself

Richard doesn't start off his article too well, contradicting himself right up top, writing:

I show that the 97% consensus claim does not stand up. 

At best, Nuccitelli, John Cook and colleagues may have accidentally stumbled on the right number.

It gets worse from that point onward. (If you're on the home page, click here to read on...)

BUSTED: How Ridiculous Richard Tol makes myriad bloopers and a big fool of himself and proves the 97% consensus

Update - see below.


Anthony Watts is all excited (archived here, latest here) because economist Richard Tol finally found a journal to publish a paper he's been trying to get someone to publish for nearly a year.  Anthony wrote, mischievously and wrongly a headline and opening comment:

BUSTED: Tol takes on Cook’s ’97% consensus’ claim with a re-analysis, showing the claim is ‘unfounded’

A new paper by Dr. Richard Tol published today in ScienceDirect, journal of Energy Policy, shows that the Cook et al. paper claiming that there is a 97% consensus among scientists is not just impossible to reproduce (since Cook is withholding data) but a veritable statistical train wreck rife with bias, classification errors, poor data quality, and inconsistency in the ratings process. The full paper is available below.

Anthony Watts is wrong, and wrong and wrong again - he's busted!

Firstly, Richard Tol didn't do any reanalysis. He didn't categorise all the abstracts himself. He just did some wonky sums and got the wrong answer, based on flawed assumptions and more. And he threw in a large number of unfounded speculative statements. Not only did Richard not show the claim was "unfounded", he wrote that he accepts the main finding of Cook13.

Secondly, thirdly and fourthly etc, John Cook isn't withholding any data. He provided more than just all the data anyone would need to repeat the analysis (here and here), he even provided a web tool to help people who wanted to to categorise abstracts for themselves. John Cook provided all the data needed to reproduce the analysis. Richard Tol didn't even try to do so. As for the quality of the data - it's a complete set of around 12,000 abstracts returned using a Web of Science search of key terms. So I don't know if Anthony is trying to say that Web of Science isn't any good.  Anthony probably doesn't know either. He just likes blowing hot air.

Anthony's wrong on another point, too. The full paper isn't available at the site Anthony linked to unless you're a paid up subscriber or are willing to pay for the privilege.  (You can read one of Richard's earlier rejected versions here, which I got from Richard's own blog. It's not much different to the final paper.)

This is a very long article, although it barely scratches the surface in the myriad flaws in Ridiculous Richard's paper. If you're on the home page, click here for more.

Anthony Watts' bombshell goes pear-shaped. 82% of WUWT-ers aren't interested!

In a burst of unfettered excitement, Anthony Watts has uncovered yet another bombshell (archived here,  latest update here). He wrote his shocking headline:

John Cook’s 97% consensus claim is about to go ‘pear-shaped’

About the shape of a pear

Anthony began by spending some time explaining to his readers the meaning and origin of the term "pear-shaped". Or one supposed origin - a military one. There are several other possible origins.

The top-ranked ERL paper of 2013

Most readers will be familiar with Cook13, the 97% consensus paper, which got deniers in such a tizz without them even reading the paper. Many of you will remember how Anthony Watts blew a gasket at the Presidential tweet.

What you may not know is that the 97% consensus paper was the most read of all the papers published in Environment Research Letters last year. And not just last year - it's the most read paper in ERL for all time. In fact it's the most-read paper in all (80+) Institute of Physics Journals - of all time, ever. Or that it was awarded the "Best Article of 2013" by the Editorial Board of ERL.

Is it any wonder that some devious deniers will not stop at anything - not just lying but also stealing - to try to discredit this solid piece of research.

Pears or nuts, anyone?

Anyway, once Anthony got his "pear-shaped" explanation out of the way, he copied part of a blog article by Richard Tol. Richard has been going nuts (acting nuts?) for months trying to find a flaw in the paper he accepts as having correct results, writing in one of his silly and wrong protest drafts (trying to prove the researchers got tired. Yes, really!):

There is no doubt in my mind that the literature on climate change overwhelmingly supports the hypothesis that climate change is caused by humans. I have very little reason to doubt that the consensus is indeed correct.

Despite his certainty that there is an overwhelming consensus, Richard said he's finally got someone to publish his "comment" of protest at Cook13.  This is after almost 12 months and four failed attempts with three different journals. And that's somehow going to prove - just what exactly neither Anthony nor Richard say! (Most likely that Richard doesn't know what he's talking about, going by his early attempts at knocking the paper.)

Anthony also quotes Brandon Shollenberger, who apparently lacks ethics (like Anthony) and has no sense of proportion. Brandon, remember, is the same person who buries his long nose in trivia looking for misquotes and tiny glitches and then yells for weeks about it, long after his alleged errors, where they exist, have been corrected or at least acknowledged (where correction is either not possible or seen as too trivial to matter in the slightest). Brandon, being a true blue science denier, bypasses the very real and grievous frauds and deceptions. Disinformation about climate science itself doesn't bother Brandon, the "denier".

According to this latest WUWT article there must have been nefarious activity afoot, or ahand or asomething-or-other. This as yet un-identified nefarious activity is based, not on any analysis of scientific papers, but on a hack of a private forum (where apparently SkS authors discuss blog posts to make sure they are correct and readable before posting them to the main SkepticalScience blog, or whatever).

It's quite possible that Brandon himself hacked his way into the SkS private forum, which is what his tweets suggest, when he writes - "I just made a really cool discovery" and "Too bad there's no way to sell it. That'd be cool" and "I've posted a teaser of my recent discovery. I wonder how many people can figure out what the image is".

On the other hand, Brandon might have just been the willing receiver of stolen property from the thief who hacked the SkS forum in 2012.

Upstaged! (What a shame shambles)

Poor old Richard Tol, having finally attained his moment (half second?) of glory in deniersville, he's been upstaged by Brandon Shollenberger, of all people! With Anthony Watts doing his best to get in on the action, of course.  And all of them completely missing the fact that if they wanted to do their own analysis of scientific papers on climate change they could have done so ten times over in the past twelve months, or at any time.

The deniers could have done their own Web of Science search. If that was too much like hard work (after all, they might get tired), they could have used the data all packaged up for them by the hard (tiring) work of John Cook and his co-authors.  The Cook13 researchers have already provided them with all the data they need in the form of 11,944 papers written by 29,083 authors and published in 1,980 journals from the past 20 years! SkepticalScience even has a tool with which you can rate the abstracts yourself. And anyone interested can download the details and see the researchers ratings as well as download the ratings of the papers' authors by year and rating.

The mugger politely asks his victim for more ...

So who has the nefarious intent?  Brandon Shollenberger, Anthony Watts and Richard Tol are sorely lacking in the ethics department. Anthony Watts quotes Brandon writing quite openly and without a hint of the shame any decent person would feel if they were tempted to steal:

I’ve sent John Cook an e-mail alerting him to what material I have, offering him an opportunity to give me reasons I should refrain from releasing it or particular parts of it. I figure a day or two to address any potential privacy concerns should be enough.

His response will determine how much information I provide. No obligations were placed upon me regarding any of the material I have, but I don’t see any compelling reason to provide information about how I got it either. I’d need a better reason than just satisfying people’s curiosity.

That's a bit like a mugger asking their victim if there is any good reason why the mugger should give her back her wallet. And then graciously offering to not publish her love letters immediately, giving the victim time to dwell on the privacy implications.

Maybe if Brandon got a sharp knock on his door from someone in blue waving a badge, they should be able to give him a very good reason for "providing information" about how he "got it".  Being a thief or a receiver of stolen property is a much better reason than simply "satisfying people's curiosity", don't you think?

What is the startling new information?

There is no new information that would change the results of Cook13.  Brandon says he has information that will show which people rated which papers and how - or at least that's what I think he's saying. This information is going beyond "need to know" and I don't know of any scientific publication that would provide that amount of detail. The most that climate science papers normally show is who did the data collection, who did the analysis and who wrote the paper or similar, not normally the details of who collected which precise tiny bits of information.

In any case, to demonstrate the accuracy or otherwise of the Cook13 findings, you'd have to either categorise scientific papers the Cook13 team used or do another study from scratch. At a pinch, you could ask the authors of the papers to categorise their own papers though I think an independent categorisation is preferable. To my knowledge, no denier has bothered doing any of these options, or if they have they haven't come up with any different results.  (The Cook13 researchers categorised the abstracts and validated their findings by asking authors to categorise their own papers.)

Laughably, Richard Tol, in his befuddled brain apparently thinks that "only" twelve people completing the ratings is somehow or other something or other (archived here). Never mind that it's eleven more people than did the ratings in Naomi Oreske's study published in Science several years ago. And eleven more people than did James Powell's unpublished works, the most recent of which came up with only one out of 2,258 recent articles, written by a total of 9,136 authors, which rejects the human influence of global warming.

Richard Tol's cause clause

What's even sillier (if possible) and shows just how far into conspiracy thinking Richard has gone, is the second part of the sentence where he wrote:

There were only 12 raters (24 at first, but half dropped out), picked for their believe (sic) in the cause. 

Seriously? He thinks that the ratings were skewed by a belief in "the cause"! What "cause" that would be Richard doesn't say. Remember, he is already on record, as writing that he accepts the scientific consensus that humans are causing global warming. Not only that, but the Cook13 study showed that the researchers were slightly more conservative than were the scientists who rated their own papers!

From the WUWT comments - how Anthony's bombshell goes pear-shaped

This one is classic. Anthony was in such a rush to print his bombshell (devoid of any bomb) that he spelt Brandon Shollenberger's name three different ways: Brandon Schollenberger, Schollenberg and only writing it correctly in his pastes from Richard Tol as Brandon Shollenberger. At least Brandon now knows how he's regarded (or not regarded) by Anthony. Brandon Shollenberger says:

May 10, 2014 at 9:42 am
My last name was spelled three different ways in this post. I don’t think that’s enough. We should see how many different ways we can spell it.

REPLY: Apologies, fixed. – Anthony

Many people were more interested in colloquial expressions than they were in the boring topic of scientific consensus. Latimer Alder was first cab off the rank and says:

May 10, 2014 at 9:13 am
A rather more lively Brit expression is ‘tits up’. Means the same

Pamela Gray says:

May 10, 2014 at 9:34 am
That would be of USA, not British origin. It is either a vulgar version of “belly up” (most likely), known in the US and first captured in print in 1920, or a reference to WW2 (unlikely) aeroplanes and one of their dials, which when broken, turns upside down. The upside down lettering looks like breasts, and usually means enough damage to the cockpit that you had better bail if you still can.

 And then decides that breasts is a dirty word at WUWT, and corrects it to:

Oops. I should have said tits instead of br***ts.

There were several more comments about colloquialisms, such as from The Ghost Of Big Jim Cooley who says:

May 10, 2014 at 10:17 am
I don’t mean to start a pond war, but why do so many Americans think everything was started there? It reminds me of a conversation I heard a few years back. An American woman was talking to an English woman, and remarked on the Peter Rabbit books. “Do you have Beatrix Potter in England?” asked the American lady. The English woman just groaned.

One of the few comments that started off on topic, quickly went off topic and diverted to cricket or soccer or whatever the world cup is for at the moment. Auto says:

May 10, 2014 at 10:50 am
I would agree with Dr. Tol, and our host, that – as many here suspected – John Cook’s number resemble a crock of r*t s**t [no, not suet].
I continue to be disappointed in the media – the BBC today is pushing
“Scorching El Nino event could scupper England’s World Cup ”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-27343057

Absolutely nothing about England not having enough players who are good enough, unhappily – it might be a degree or three warmer when we play our matches than the long-term average.
I guess that means weather . . . . .

Auto

In fact, out of all the comments there were only a few that had anything to do with the 97% consensus.  Yep, I've even just refreshed the page and updated the archive. So far, after around four hours of prime time, there are only 38 comments. Of those:

• 58% (22 out of 38 comments) were about pear-shaped or tits up or similar
• 8% (3 comments) were about the spelling of Brandon's name
• 24% (6 comments) were random off topic comments protesting climate science in general or other meaningless waffle of an unrelated nature
• 18% (7 comments) were vaguely related to the consensus discussion

Here are six of the seven comments that were more or less on the consensus topic, some at a stretch. The other one, which devoted more words to sport than science, is already listed above. Very deep and incisive commentary as you can see :)

Matthew R Marler says:

May 10, 2014 at 9:39 am
My applause and thanks to Brandon Schollenberger. This should be interesting.

Jimmy Haigh says:

May 10, 2014 at 9:49 am
More proof – were it even needed – that, basically, Warm-mongers are pretty thick.

michael hart says, quoting Richard's meaningless comment:

May 10, 2014 at 10:51 am
Theirs was not a survey of the literature. Rather, it was a survey of the raters.

And they found that they agreed with themselves. It doesn’t usually require a survey.

Mike Maguire talks about the "known law of photosynthesis" and says:

May 10, 2014 at 11:01 am
In a world that gives Al Gore a Nobel Peace Prize and an Emmy for his movie “An Inconvenient Truth” and brainwashes the known law of photosynthesis out of people, while brainwashing in a theory on paper that has busted in the real world for 15 years……………..the 97% consensus of climate scientists paper fits right in.

John Whitman advocates forgetting ethics and petty things like the law of the land, and going for broke, and says:

May 10, 2014 at 11:13 am
{all bold emphasis mine – JW}
Shollenberger writes in comments at his blog:,
His [Cook's] response will determine how much information I provide. No obligations were placed upon me regarding any of the material I have, but I don’t see any compelling reason to provide information about how I got it either. I’d need a better reason than just satisfying people’s curiosity
- – - – - – - -
Brandon Shollenberger,
That turn of phrasing implies fairly reasonably that you got from a person(s) the “part of the missing data [from Cook’s consensus paper]“. It implies you didn’t just find the data.
After you duly consider any potential harm to the raters by making their names and IDs public, I do think it would be valuable in assessing bias if the names and IDs of the raters in the data you have were made public.
John

John F. Hultquist starts off with 97% and then launches into some unintelligible ramble about US history and says:

May 10, 2014 at 11:18 am
The 97% story just keeps going on and on and ….
… and speaking of rabbits, Ghost @ 10:17 asks why so many Americans think everything started there.
Many groups of people that become organized (a tribe?) and name themselves use a word or phrase that translates as “the people” and their beginning or origin story starts the history or timeline of what they know. For example, when Gouverneur Morris wrote the words “We the People … do ordain … the United States of America” – history began. It is that simple.

Anthony's big boast that a denier hacker stole private property from SkepticalScience went down like a lead balloon.  His bombshell went pear-shaped!

Beefed up or toned down? Judith Curry, David Rose, Anthony Watts spin on the IPCC

Judith Curry has an article about economists Richard Tol and Robert Stavins and the IPCC.

Professor Robert Stavins has a blog post complaining about how much text was deleted from WGIII SPM. He's posted an article with a letter he wrote to the IPCC Chair and the Co-Chairs of Working Group III.  He also posted selections from the Summary for Policy Makers from which text was removed, as Item a (before) and Item b (after). He was concerned that governments chopped out almost all of the explanatory text under the key headings. Most of you will have read about this already, but it's interesting to compare the versions side by side. For further comparison, you can get the final Summary for Policy Makers and the full report here.

Judith is spinning this as the IPCC process is flawed. In fact, it's flawed in the wrong direction for Judith (but she doesn't admit that). Robert is complaining that the report was toned down, not beefed up.

The other interesting thing is that Richard Tol has been taken to task by Brandon Shollenberger for replacing text with his own in WG2. (I noticed how that section of the report had almost no recent studies.) Brandon is very Tol-like in his obsession with trying to find something wrong in minute detail, so it comes across as two-of-a-kind locking horns. (Richard isn't exactly a science denier, though he behaves like one a lot of the time. Brandon on the other hand does fit the definition of a climate science denier.)

Judith Curry is, as usual, advocating we take the highest risk pathway. She wrote on her blog:

I am even more dismayed by public statements from the IPCC leadership that has spun the AR5 message into the usual alarmist meme.

What alarmist meme would that be? That we are causing global warming? That's not alarmist. It's alarming but true. In the past, Judith has made it clear that she would prefer the IPCC not exist at all. Her position seems to be against mitigation or at best "wait" till it's all too late.  It's a "those who survive will adapt" stance and for those who don't, tough luck.

Hyperbole plus from David Rose, tabloid political commenter

David Rose has picked up Robert Stavin's blog post and written about it in his own hyperbolic style (archived here), using words: sensationally, meddling, crucial, electrified, debate, astonishing. Those words were all in the headline and the first two short sentences!

Robert Stavins asks if the IPCC process is broken. Once you get past David's emotive language, what he wrote wasn't all that different to what Robert Stavins wrote.  David does pop in a plug for Richard Tol's dummy spit and Judith Curry's anti-IPCC stance. But he also puts in a plug for the IPCC from Bob Ward.

Too alarmist or toned down too much?

To sum up, it seems the contrarians are now complaining because the reports aren't sufficiently alarmist.  If only they would make up their minds.

Anthony Watts has copied from Judith Curry (archived here). He's gone further in his headline and claimed that "Two scathing reviews by scholars working with the IPCC show why the organization is hopelessly corrupted by politics". However it was only Robert Stavins who directly pointed to specific examples where government input resulted in a change to the report - and that was arguably on diplomatic grounds not political grounds (IMO there is a distinction). 

In regard to complaints about government input, Richard's article didn't say that outright. He merely insinuated. A casual reader might infer that the WG2 Summary for Policy Makers was beefed up because of the views of delegates. Yet Richard didn't point to any example of same. (The IPCC provides drafts and lists changes that were made to the report.)  Richard seems to be complaining that he couldn't get things all his own way. He was complaining that the Summary for Policy Makers focused on areas of high risk and didn't give sufficient space to any pluses, for example, the decrease in death from cold as opposed to the increased mortality from heat. 

This time around Richard's article (archived here) comes across as a mix of excuse-making and whining, but still isn't quite as ratty as some of his previous outbursts have been. He is wrong, too. He wrote:

The SPM, drafted by the scholars of the IPCC, is rewritten by delegates of the governments of the world

It's not rewritten by delegates. Delegates can suggest changes to the report but the authors have to agree to those changes. In other words, the final Summary for Policy Makers cannot be at odds with the full report.

Empty-headed fake sceptics

Richard also seems to think that fake sceptics aren't capable of doing science or economics, implying group think, writing:

Academics who worry about climate change are more likely to publish about it, and more likely to get into the IPCC. Groups of like-minded people reinforce their beliefs. 

Well, if fake sceptics don't have sufficient "like-mind" to do research into climate change, that's more a sign that their "like-mind" is "wrong-headed" and "empty-headed" than anything else.

Climate change in an imperfect world

As for Anthony Watts, he doesn't know the difference between the UN and individual nations.  It looks as if he has a tendency to adopt the wacky UN conspiracy theories and he certainly promotes them on his blog. He wrote:

This statement by Tol pretty well sums up the IPCC:

Many of the more worrying impacts of climate change really are symptoms of mismanagement and underdevelopment.

That’s systemic culture in the U.N. so it is no surprise to me.

After writing that, Richard foolishly drew the wrong conclusion, writing: "This message does not support the political agenda for greenhouse gas emission reduction."

Richard's wrong. Underdevelopment (whatever that means) and mismanagement (presumably of natural resources) makes greenhouse gas emission reduction even more critical. When you combine the impact of, for example, hillside deforestation with higher precipitation you get much worse floods. Both need to be tackled to reduce the harm. Re-forestation will help but it won't be enough to stop the heavier rainfall. It won't be enough to stop the flash flooding.  In any case, reforestation is a mitigation measure in itself.

Richard Tol advocates a carbon tax

The odd thing is that shortly after that Richard wrote:

A polarized debate is not conducive to enlightened policy in an area as complex as climate change – although we only need a carbon tax, and a carbon tax only, that applies to all emissions and gradually and predictably rises over time. 

So is Richard advocating reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or isn't he? It looks as if he is indeed advocating emissions reduction doesn't it.

Richard Tol was writing about Working Group II. You can download the Summary for Policy Makers and full report of Working Group II here. It's well-written but an absolute pain to navigate, not having a full consolidated report.

From the WUWT comments

Just a few today, because this article is long.

Latitude points out that Richard Tol is inconsistent and says:

April 26, 2014 at 6:23 pm
This statement by Tol pretty well sums up Tol…
‘– although we only need a carbon tax, and a carbon tax only, that applies to all emissions and gradually and predictably rises over time’

John F. Hultquist picked up on Anthony Watts confusing individual countries with the UN itself and says:

April 26, 2014 at 6:40 pm
First, I think we can thank these two, and others not yet named, for the work they have done and their public statements such as reported here.
The final line of the post is “That’s systemic culture in the U.N. so it is no surprise to me.” seems to reference the UN and I agree it is a massive waste – for the most part. However, the 2 lines attributable to Richard Tol seem to be a comment on the manner in which many countries operate. Since Prince Henry the Navigator and the Age of Discoveries not much has changed for many “countries” from A to Z as they remain underdeveloped and mismanaged. 

Streetcred isn't buying Anthony's spin either and says:

April 26, 2014 at 6:45 pm
Can’t say much about Dr. Robert Stavins’ benign letter of protest … half of it at the least is butt covering and brown-nosing. The process competence of the managers amounts to nought if the meaning of the body of research is transformed into political claptrap. 

ossqss says - well nothing at all it turns out, just vaguely arm-waves:

April 26, 2014 at 8:15 pm
This is just another example of the corrosion in climate science.
There are many lessons to learn here. 

---

Here are the links to the IPCC AR5 reports:

• IPCC AR5 Working Group I
• IPCC AR5 Working Group II 
• IPCC AR5 Working Group III

Who to believe - wattsupwiththat or WUWT?

It was only yesterday that Anthony Watts commented about the IPCC WGII report that it signalled:

Ouch. Game over for climate alarm.

That comment from Anthony was based on an article by Matt Ridley, which Anthony liked so much he made it a "top sticky post".  Matt Ridley wrote about the WGII report (that should be out tomorrow) that "Even while it exaggerates the amount of warming, the IPCC is becoming more cautious about its effects."

How opinions can turn in an instant.  Today Anthony is urging his readers (archived here):

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.

Anthony copied the article in which Richard Tol said: "The drafts became too alarmist,".  Richard has a different reaction to Matt Ridley when faced with reality. Matt denies, Richard hides.

The dumbo's at WUWT will be more confused than ever.  Which is it? "Too alarmist" or "game over for climate alarm"? The GWPF will be in a tizz, too.  Both Richard Tol and Matt Ridley are "academically advising" them!

If you want to read more about these contrarian contradictions, I wrote about them yesterday.

From the WUWT comments

There aren't many comments yet.  I'll post one which probably referred to this excerpt from the WUWT copy and paste:

He [Richard Tol] 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.”

bushbunny, who is probably from Australia, says:

March 29, 2014 at 10:59 pm
Oh, yes, like the suggestion Australians should dump sheep and cattle, and farm kangaroos.

On contrarian contradictions and the newest IPCC report, featuring Matt Ridley and Richard Tol

Anthony Watts on Nicholas Stern

On WUWT today, Anthony Watts reported a segment of the ABC Lateline interview of Nicholas Stern by Tony Jones.  I've already mentioned it a couple of times briefly. Anthony seems stuck for words.  All he said about the interview was a leading headline and a rhetorical statement (archived here):

Now even Australia’s ABC is asking questions about the new IPCC report and why Dr. Richard Tol asked his name to be removed from it

h/t to WUWT reader Pat. We are witnessing the crumbling of the consensus mindset. Stern looked like a deer in headlights.

Nicholas Stern is challenged by ABC’s Tony Jones on China/coal/renewables propaganda, and comes out looking very foolish indeed. The Richard Tol stuff is predictable:

Richard Tol spat the dummy - last September

While to Anthony Watts Australia might seem like a backwater, our current affairs programs rival most of what I've seen in the USA.  Richard Tol's dummy spit was mentioned by Peter Hannam of the Sydney Morning Herald and Matt McGrath at the BBC and a few other places.  There was no big fuss made about this in the US media. Even Fox News just reprinted the Reuters blurb, which makes him out to be a lone voice of muted dissent rather than a whistleblower.

Eli Rabett has more on the subject. Apparently Richard pulled out of the SPM core writing team last September, according to this press release and confirmed by Richard himself on Twitter.  He was still invited to the current Yokohama meeting.  I don't know if he went. His name will remain as one of the two coordinating lead authors for Chapter 10.

The second thing is that Anthony doesn't explain what he means by "the crumbling of the consensus mindset". As far as I'm aware, there hasn't been a major shift in thinking of anyone.  Richard Tol sometimes tries to argue "it won't be bad". His association with the GWPF says it all.  But that's nothing different.

Other people mentioned in the media lately have been Bob Ward and, now, Nicholas Stern. Both of them are with the The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and both are firmly in the camp with mainstream climate scientists that continued CO2 emissions is high risk.  "Business as usual" is extremely dangerous.

So whose mindset is "crumbling"?  Anthony didn't explain what he meant by that and there's absolutely nothing in the Lateline segment he provided that would suggest a crumble.

Nicholas Stern on coal and China

As for Nicholas Stern looking "very foolish" in regard to China, that wasn't how it would have appeared to the average viewer.  He was more knowledgeable about what's happening in China than was Tony Jones, since as he said, he'd just returned from a visit to China.  He'd had discussions with people in the know over there.  He didn't try to present anything other than his take on the situation - that China is rapidly adding energy generation.  That this means that a lot more coal will be burnt.  The use of coal is not growing as quickly as the growth in electricity generation.  In other words, coal is declining as a proportion of the mix of energy sources but is still increasing in absolute terms.  The powers that be in China are very concerned about a number of related matters including climate change and pollution.  Both of these are driving the push towards nuclear power and hydro-electricity.

Nicholas Stern didn't have the numbers at his fingertips. He spoke in generalities. What he said was not inconsistent with what you can find on the internet.

Fake sceptics up to their usual tricks...

The WUWT article followed on from a copy and paste (archived here) of part of an article by Matt Ridley from the Wall St Journal (archived here).

Matt announced that the impending IPCC AR5 WGII report would state that global warming will "overall cost at less than 2% of GDP for a 2.5 degrees Centigrade (or 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit) temperature increase during this century".

I don't know if that's a fact or not.  The report has yet to be released.  I will say that this breathless announcement by Matt Ridley is similar to what happened just before the WGI report was released.  The deniers try to get in early to control the message.

It didn't work then and it won't work now.  The main difference this time is that the earlier attempts to control the WGII message haven't got any traction.  And Matt Ridley has left his run a bit late.  The actual report will be released in a couple of days, so there's little time for him to make his disinformation stick.

Matt Ridley leaves out half of the equation

In Matt's article he makes the same mistakes he's made before.  I guess he's preaching to people who aren't too hot on critical thinking.  For example, Matt once again goes through some of the warnings of the past and claimed they were alarmist.  What he doesn't say is that because of the warnings, the world acted and changed direction.  He leaves out half the equation.  Matt lists a ragtag bag of issues:

Almost every global environmental scare of the past half century proved exaggerated including the population “bomb,” pesticides, acid rain, the ozone hole, falling sperm counts, genetically engineered crops and killer bees. In every case, institutional scientists gained a lot of funding from the scare and then quietly converged on the view that the problem was much more moderate than the extreme voices had argued. Global warming is no different.

The population explosion - it's real.  I can't believe that Matt Ridley doesn't know that the world population has increased rather a lot in the past few decades. It's been tempered to a great extent by education, family planning, emancipation of women and modern contraception.  There have been vast sums spent on family planning education and support throughout the world.  China took the drastic step of imposing a "one child" policy.  Without all these measures, the world population would have risen a lot more quickly than it has.  If no-one had sounded the alarm and there'd been no resulting action, we'd be in a fine mess struggling to feed, clothe and house many more people.

Pesticides - is Matt Ridley really ignorant about the harm caused by some agricultural chemicals that have since been banned or had their use strictly controlled? That's hard to credit. Just one example - the risks from and results of exposure to organophosphates has been well documented.

Acid rain - again, the warnings resulted in action.  One of the actions was to filter out SO2 emissions from coal-fired power plants.  According to the US EPA:

Since its inception in 1990, the cap and trade component of the Acid Rain Program (ARP) has reduced SO2 emissions from power plants by 10 million tons (more than 60 percent). The program is currently at full implementation, with a permanent cap on SO2 emissions at 8.95 million tons, or about a 50 percent reduction from 1980 levels.

Ozone hole - Again, I don't believe that Matt Ridley really believes that the ozone hole was not a clear and present danger. If not for the Montreal Protocol it would be growing with potentially disastrous consequences.

Falling sperm counts - that might be a problem particular to Matt Ridley.  I don't know much about it. Seems to me it would have helped counteract the population explosion.  If you're interested, here's an article on the subject.

Genetically engineered crops - I think Matt just threw that one in there for the heck of it. Genetic modification is still a fairly new field.  In many parts of the world genetically engineered plants are subject to regulation.  I don't share the concern that some people have but agree that genetic engineering does need to be monitored and in some cases regulated.

Killer bees - sounds like something from Hollywood.  However I think Matt is probably referring to Africanized honey bees, which are a hybrid of various Western honey bee species with African honey bees.  Apparently the hybrid bee is very defensive and can invade and take over hives of European honey bees. Matt probably doesn't take honey on his morning toast and isn't concerned about any ramifications for pollination.

I'm surprised that Matt didn't list the famed London smogs as something that didn't last (because of clean air regulations). He could have listed over-crowding of English prisons (solved by shipping prisoners off to the colonies and, ultimately, amending the law).  He might also have listed the spread of TB, smallpox, measles, whooping cough and other diseases (addressed by massive investment in medical research and development of immunisation programs). Or perhaps the threat of flooding in low lying areas (temporarily addressed in some regions by massive engineering works and relocating people).

In short, humans have so far responded to threats and acted.  In the case of global warming, Matt doesn't want people to respond. He doesn't want us to act to avert the climate change crises.

I'm reminded of moondoong at HotCopper.  When it comes to their ability to assess risk, there's not much difference between the ignorant mining employee in the Pilbarra (who thinks that getting AIDS from HIV is as likely as an invasion by aliens from outer space) and the financier from the UK whose bank collapsed.

Matt continues to push the CO2 is plant food line, too.  What a nutter!

Contrarian contradictions

In pulling together the bits and pieces it strikes me that there are some inconsistencies.

Matt Ridley: "...the actual report, known as AR5-WGII, is less frightening than its predecessor seven years ago." (Wall St Journal)

Richard Tol: One of the 70 authors of a draft U.N. report on climate change said he had pulled out of the writing team because it was "alarmist" about the threat...."The drafts became too alarmist," (Reuters)

Anthony Watts: "We are witnessing the crumbling of the consensus mindset. " (WUWT)

Did Anthony mean "we are witnessing the crumbling of the contrarian mindset", perhaps?  After all, both Richard Tol and Matt Ridley are associated with the denier lobby group the GWPF!

Anthony Watts thinks an asteroid catastrophe is more likely than rising seas!

Anthony Watts is a big brave man.  He's not scared of climate change.  He's especially not scared of storm surges or rising seas.  Today he wrote (archived here):

Oh my! Climate change threatens to cause ‘trillions’ in damage to world’s coastal regions

New research predicts that coastal regions may face massive increases in damages from storm surge flooding over the course of the 21st century.

Yes, and a asteroid could hit us, and some errant jihadist might get a nuke and set it off. I worry about those things more than I worry about coastlines and the affluent who build there, especially since Global Tropical Cyclone activity is at 33-year lows.

As usual, Anthony didn't link to either the press release or the paper itself.  HotWhopper readers are in luck, because I have.

First of all, the paper about which Anthony was putting on a brave face was written by Jochen Hinkel and others and was published in PNAS (open access). (Climate blog readers may be interested to know that one of the authors is Richard Tol, who has a bit of a reputation for acting up, acting out and generally acting oddly, to put it mildly).

The authors were attempting to estimate costs associated with selected strategies relating to the expected increase in coastal flooding over coming decades.  It looks as if there are no easy answers.  The estimates of flood damage and cost have a fairly wide range.  In the opening paragraph the authors wrote:

Without adaptation, 0.2–4.6% of global population is expected to be flooded annually in 2100 under 25–123 cm of global mean sea-level rise, with expected annual losses of 0.3–9.3% of global gross domestic product.

There are lots of unknowns which is one reason for the range to be rather broad.  It wouldn't just be the unknowns of how quickly we'll shift to clean energy and start to cut back CO2 emissions, or how quickly the ice sheets will melt.  There would be unknowns of just what would global gross domestic product be under a scenario of lots or little climate change.  I mean if we keep increasing emissions over the next couple of decades, by the end of the century GDP could be much closer to zero so 9.3% of global gross domestic product could be 9.3% of practically nothing.

The researchers were a lot more thorough than I and have spelt out their assumptions and scenarios.  They've obviously put some time into the "what if" part of the analysis.  They only consider sea level rise up to 123 cm by the end of this century, and of course seas won't stop rising on the 31 December 2099.

I'm sure this won't be the last bit of research attempting to work out the costs of adapting to sea level rise vs the costs of not adapting.  Here are more conclusions from the paper:

Damages of this magnitude are very unlikely to be tolerated by society and adaptation will be widespread. The global costs of protecting the coast with dikes are significant with annual investment and maintenance costs of US$ 12–71 billion in 2100, but much smaller than the global cost of avoided damages even without accounting for indirect costs of damage to regional production supply. Flood damages by the end of this century are much more sensitive to the applied protection strategy than to variations in climate and socioeconomic scenarios as well as in physical data sources (topography and climate model). Our results emphasize the central role of long-term coastal adaptation strategies. These should also take into account that protecting large parts of the developed coast increases the risk of catastrophic consequences in the case of defense failure.

Can we hold back the rising seas?

It reads as if the authors are urging nations to try to stem the rising seas by building dykes and barriers etc. On the other hand, see the last sentence, particularly with the sort of talk that's been going on in England with the flooding there.  (Many people are saying that in some parts of England the best strategy is to let the sea come in rather than try to stop it).

Anyway, the scientists are urging nations to take action of one kind or another.  From the press release:

"Countries need to take action and invest in coastal protection measures, such as building or raising dikes, amongst other options," urges Hinkel. With such protection measures, the projected damages could be reduced to below $80 billion per year during the 21st century. The researchers found that an investment level of $10 to $70 billion per year could achieve such a reduction. Prompt action is needed most in Asia and Africa where, today, large parts of the coastal population are already affected by storm surge flooding.

Whatever nations decide, it's going to be costly.  Whether it's costs of relocation or costs of trying to hold back the water. Neither choice will be easy or cheap. Holding back the water will be a temporary solution at best.

The paper touches on a few other points that can't be predicted easily - though they could be "directed" by policy decisions.  These include questions around how people will respond to rising sea levels.  Will they relocate and to where, particularly as there are expected to be another two billion people in the world by mid-century.  Will people keep building in areas that will be inundated this century?  It's reasonable to assume that the trend to urbanisation in countries most at risk will continue.  What about the impact of groundwater depletion?  The paper points out:

Another major source of uncertainty is human-induced subsidence as a result of the withdrawal of ground fluids, in particular within densely populated deltas, which may lead to rates of local relative sea-level rise that are 1 order of magnitude higher than current rates of climate-induced global-mean sea-level rise.

The paper probably raises more questions than providing answers.  They are important questions.  While I'm not necessarily persuaded by arguments to build and maintain dykes etc, it's good to see issues like this being addressed and attempts made to cost different strategies - even at the broad-brush level of this particular study.

Likelihood of an asteroid strike vs likelihood of rising seas and storm surges

Back to Anthony Watts denial.  He's being very silly and showing his lack of knowledge of the world around him when he writes:

Yes, and a asteroid could hit us, and some errant jihadist might get a nuke and set it off. I worry about those things more than I worry about coastlines.

That's what I call alarmist.  How much and how many times since the likely asteroid impact 65 million years ago, have seas risen and fallen compared to the number of catastrophic impacts by asteroids hitting Earth?

Anthony Watts is more worried about something that currently has only a very remote (miniscule) chance of happening, while not being concerned about something that is a dead cert.  He lives a fair way from the coast and a much longer distance from coastlines in the most vulnerable countries.  And he has no talent whatsoever for assessing risk.

Now if Anthony Watts had said he was more worried about the worst drought in California in 500 years, or a massive earthquake, I would have understood.  The biggest worries are closest to home.

The question about sea level rise is not how much it will rise - it's virtually certain that the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are going to eventually melt with this episode of global warming, raising seas by more than ten meters. The main question is over what period they will melt and how suddenly.   (If all Antarctica and all Greenland melt, seas will be something like 60 meters higher - but that would probably take thousands of years.)

You may also have noticed by now that Anthony didn't bother reading the paper he wrote about, because he talked about "coastlines and the affluent who build there".  The researchers on the other hand made it quite clear that it's the poorer nations and people who are most vulnerable to rising seas, sinking land and storm surges.

One of the more hypocritical and offensive memes of science deniers is that mitigating climate change will hurt poor people.  Anthony can't afford to let on to his readers that if we don't mitigate climate change, poor people will be hurting way more than people who live in more affluent countries like the USA and Australia.

From the WUWT comments

There wasn't even a faint spark of insight or knowledge of the wider world in the comments I read.  Admittedly I didn't make it through all of them.  They are archived here.  Below is a small sample.


Bob Greene doesn't seem to think that we should plan for dead certs and says:

February 4, 2014 at 4:40 pm
Wow, what glittering generalities! I missed a prediction of how much the sea level will rise sometime in the distant future. One of the things they seem to ignore is the fact that humans have adapted to real climate change for 200,000 years. If the worry is the water rising over the next 86 years, I bet even a fat old man like me can walk or wheel his way ahead of it.

What do you think? More than 6,000 people couldn't "walk or wheel" their way ahead of this storm surge. Could Bob Greene do it?

Donna Quixote doesn't know that the seas are going to rise and societies will need to adapt and says:

February 4, 2014 at 4:45 pm
This is the religion of could, might, maybe, if.

Chris4692 has a simple(ton) solution and says:

February 4, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Want to stop weather related damage along the coasts? Stop building by the coasts.

Les Johnson thinks the scientists overestimated global population and GDP for 2100 and for some odd reason thinks the IPCC estimated zero growth in population over the coming century and says:

February 4, 2014 at 4:48 pm
Interesting numbers they have. 60,000,000 people affected? 5% of the population? Thats 12 billion people.

100,000 billion damages? Thats 20% of total GDP by then.

The IPCC, in its projections (which Castles and Henderson showed to fatally flawed), had global population at 7 billion in 2100. GDP is 522 trillion.

Wow. Talk about inflation. These guys need Bernanke to control it.

(That's not to say that global warming won't kill off huge numbers of people this century.  It might indeed do that, directly or indirectly.)


Curious George asks why the Netherlands isn't alarmed and says:

February 4, 2014 at 5:03 pm
Why aren’t Dutch people alarmed?

They probably are very concerned.  Thing is, because they are way up north the seas won't rise there nearly as much - see this video to find out why that is so.


ilma630 indulges in circular thinking and says "sea level won't rise because there is a low bridge somewhere":

February 4, 2014 at 5:24 pm
Flew into SFO yesterday and noticed that the San Mateo bridge is mostly a causeway at just above sea level. If the US gov’t or CA state were that worried about sea level rise, they would be raising it up well above sea level.

There are quite a few comments from people who have not got the first clue about human settlement beyond the beachfronts in Florida or California. For example, Speed says:

February 4, 2014 at 5:37 pm
In 1870, 70-80 percent of the US population was employed in agriculture. As of 2008, less than 2 percent of the population is directly employed in agriculture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States#Employment

When people realized that there was no future in agricultural rural America, they moved away. If people see no future living near the ocean then sometime in the next 100 years, they will move away. Problem solved and no taxpayers were harmed.

ossqss is another one who has not the first clue about the world we live in and says:

February 4, 2014 at 6:35 pm
Ummmm, did I miss any reference to susidence and or building in flood plains or landfill construction on the water?

What percentage of the population lives near the water (any water) globally. Is it really 80%.

Perhaps I dont see how one can complain when most water threats are really an elective choice made by those who made that choice in the first place.

Just sayin……….

Ignorance and greed is no excuse.

I don't know about greed, but the people who inhabit WUWT sure have a lot of ignorance.

---

J. Hinkel, D. Lincke, A. T. Vafeidis, M. Perrette, R. J. Nicholls, R. S. J. Tol, B. Marzeion, X. Fettweis, C. Ionescu, A. Levermann. Coastal flood damage and adaptation costs under 21st century sea-level rise. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2014; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1222469111

Matt Ridley in Australia tells more of his fibs, but gives Andrew Bolt little joy...

UPDATE: Anthony Watts has just posted the transcript at WUWT. Only three comments so far - see below.  I'll update if I see any more choice comments in the denier playground. (Archive here, updated here.)
(Sou: 10:45 am Tues 19 Nov 13)

---

As I said in my last article, UK failed banker, politician and GWPF adviser, Matt Ridley is in Australia.  Seems he was bought by the IPA to quell the fears of fake skeptics.  He did alright with his IPA meeting reported yesterday by keeping all the bad news from them.  He didn't do quite as well today.

This morning he appeared on Andrew Bolt's little Sunday television program.  Andrew Bolt is an Australian right wing blogger with the Herald-Sun, a widely circulated Melbourne daily newspaper which is a subsidiary of News Corp Australia (Murdoch).  A while ago Andrew also managed to snag his own half hour show on Sunday Television - Channel 10. It's not much of a program.  I don't know who wastes their time watching it except for a few right wingers keen to have their ideas reflected by him.   (It was rated way, way down at number 320 here in May this year.) I think I've only watched one other episode.

Andrew Bolt prides himself on his ignorance, claiming that it makes him "objective".  In reality it only makes him look pretty darned stupid most of the time.

I transcribed the video from this morning and have inserted comments of my own.  (PS I just visited Andrew Bolt's blog about today's television program and was a bit surprised that of 115 comments, I'd say there were only about four or five about climate.  Most were about other segments of the show.)

On typhoons...

Andrew Bolt: Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines last week and killed perhaps 4,000 people. The Greens couldn't wait to exploit it like they exploited last month's fires and even accused Tony Abbott.

Sou: There's a cut to three separate very short snippets of Adam Bandt talking to the press:

Adam Bandt:  He can be expected to be referred to as Typhoon Tony.

...Many people are saying that this is the worst typhoon that they've ever seen. 

...This is what we're in store for unless we get global warming under control.

Sou: Then back to Andrew Bolt introducing Matt Ridley - my hyperlink:

Bolt: Matt Ridley is a member of Britain's House of Lords and a science writer who's latest best seller is "The Rational Optimist". He's here on a speaking tour for the IPA. Matt Ridley, thank you for joining me.

Ridley: Thank you for having me on the show.

Andrew Bolt: The typhoon in the Philippines er er what do you make of the attempts to make that evidence of the great global warming catastrophe awaiting us.

Sou: As you've seen from what Adam Bandt had to say, Andrew Bolt couldn't find anyone saying that Typhoon Haiyan was caused by global warming.  The best he could come up with was Bandt saying that "this is what is in store for us unless we get global warming under control".  Bandt's statement accurately reflects the science.  But Matt Ridley thinks even that is "ridiculous".

Matt Ridley: Well this is ridiculous. I mean storms and weather events happen.  They've always happened. There have been much stronger typhoons in the past. This isn't the strongest one that's ever recorded or anything like that. They're gunna happen whatever and to blame this on climate change is a bit like Shamanism.  It's witchdoctery. It's going back 10,000 years to try and blame every weather event on mankind.

And we don't have to just know this from basic data.  If you look at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, they say there's been no trend in increasing frequency of typhoons or cyclones or hurricanes. In fact this year's been an unusually quiet one globally and even in that part of the Pacific it's been quiet. So the idea that you can stop typhoons happening by cutting carbon dioxide emissions is just absurd. We've got to tackle typhoons as an issue whatever happens to the climate.

Sou: That's what's called a strawman fallacy.  Reducing emissions won't stop typhoons from happening.  The aim is to reduce emissions so that global warming doesn't cause as much harm as otherwise.  Some of that harm may well be an increase in the ferocity of super storms and an increase in the damage they cause.  For example, even mild storms will be more damaging because of the impact of rising seas on storm surges.

Matt Ridley thinks rising seas are the main worry with global warming

Andrew Bolt: What do we have to worry about if global warming continues. I know there's been a pause in atmospheric temperature rises for fifteen years but should it continue what have we got to fear?

Matt Ridley: I personally think that we are seeing benefits from climate change.  Sorry, that's not my personal view that's what the data says.  [Sou: that's a misrepresentation. There are many more negatives than positives.]  

We're seeing benefits from climate change slightly.  Greener vegetation in the world, slightly fewer winter deaths. [Sou: many more summer deaths, more catastrophic fires, hotter droughts, heavier rains etc etc.] Things like that. Longer growing seasons. [Sou: longer bushfire seasons.] And that's likely to continue for another six or seven decades. After that, if the projections of climate change are right and on the whole they've been too warm for the last 30 years so they may not be right. [Sou: ha ha - Matt's nose grew about four inches right there!] But if they're right we will then start to see net harm.  And the one harm that really would hurt civilisation would be rapidly rising sea levels.

Fortunately the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that sea levels are not rising, are not gonna rise that fast in this century. [Sou: oops, Matt's nose grew another four inches!] Not much faster than they did in the last century.

Greenland's losing ice at the rate of two billion tonnes a year which sounds a lot but it's actually half a per cent per century. So the collapse of ice sheets, that sort of thing has now largely been ruled out by the IPCC as a risk.  [Sou: huh? Collapse of ice sheets is expected in the medium to long term.]

But we are, you know, we do have to get our act together to be ready to deal with some disasters if they happen towards the end of this century or the beginning of the next.

Sou: First up, Matt tells a big fat lie about the IPCC projections for sea level rise this century.  Except for the lowest possible under the virtually impossible to achieve RCP2.6 emissions scenario - every projection is for a substantially higher rate of rise than over the twentieth century.  Here is Figure TS.22 from page TS-122 of AR5 WG1 IPCC report (click to enlarge):

Sou: In my last article I wondered what Matt thought would happen after his 70 years "benefit" runs out.  This time he's given us a clue as to what he thinks, even going so far as to say "we do have to get our act together".  Andrew Bolt picks up on that:

Andrew Bolt: Well, when you say get our act together to be ready.  Um, we're.. obviously the world is spending trillions of dollars on various ways to so-called stop global warming. Does ..is that a sensible use of our resources?

Matt Ridley: No. I think rolling out immature and fourteenth century resources like wind power all around the world which are extremely expensive, don't cut carbon emissions very much and er on the whole keep people unable to afford the measures to adapt to climate by being so expensive ah is not the answer.

 Sou: I wonder has Matt Ridley been ordered by the GWPF (or maybe by the raving ratbag blogger James Delingpole) to run with that particular fib?  In fact the cost of electricity from wind power is very competitive in many parts of the world, as Oklahomans' recently discovered.  Even in Australia, wind power provides a lot more electricity than many people realise.

Matt Ridley thinks Japan will go back to nuclear energy?

Matt Ridley: Um Japan interestingly has just said that it's not gonna try and keep emissions as low as it was hoping by 2020.  Instead it's gonna put a lot of money into research into new energy technologies.  And that's the answer.  If we can get cheap fusion energy or cheap thorium power or even cheap ordinary nuclear power and some of the solar power developed ah by the end of the century we probably won't even need fossil fuels if we can give them up long before they run out um that's a much better approach than trying to roll out immature energy technologies now cos we've tried that and it's just not working.  We're trying it all over the world it's it's disastrously bad for people's living standards.

Sou: Oh boy! Matt Ridley has rocks in his head if he thinks that the Japanese are going to be rolling out more nuclear power plants.  Sheesh.  The aftermath of the Fukishima catastrophe is why it shut down all its nuclear power plants and is switching to gas, and the main reason why it's wanting to change it's emission reduction target.  As for Matt thinking that the Asian smog is preferable to clean energy for "people's living standards"...

No joy for Andrew Bolt's "reason"

Andrew Bolt: So when Tony Abbott gets elected on a platform of scrapping the carbon tax, is that seen as the Green's would suggest as a world-wide embarrassment or is it seen ..er ..as something perhaps ..er ..or the return of reason?

Matt Ridley: Well, I think that until now it's been assumed that you had to pay lip service to dangerous climate change.  I mean, most of us I believe that that human beings do affect the climate and probably have caused some of the warming in the past.  That's not at issue.  What's at issue is a forecast of dangerous warming which is only going to come true if certain positive feedback amplifiers happen. And if that's likely to be the case, it's always been assumed that you had to show real alarm about this in order to get elected in a western democracy.  I think  Tony Abbott has shown that's not the case and a lot of elected politicians around the world will have noticed that and will have noticed that not only was the carbon tax ah something he was ah determined to repeal, but that it was front and centre in the election campaign. So you can't say it was just a peripheral issue. So for example the Canadians have ah commented on that. And I think western European politicians will notice that and will say actually you can take a relatively rational, relatively sober approach to climate change and be elected despite what the extreme greens will throw at you.

Sou: Poor old Andrew Bolt can't win a trick.  Matt Ridley fudges and fumbles a bit, but he doesn't come out and agree with Andrew that scrapping the carbon tax is a "return of reason".  Matt avoids answering that part of Andrew's question altogether.  Instead he grudgingly says that humans do affect the climate.  

Matt doesn't answer the implied question of whether Tony Abbott's policy is the best one or not.  He doesn't come right out and contradict Andrew.  But instead of answering the question he sidesteps like the politician he is - responding in terms of the impact on politics.  

Given Matt Ridley's ideological viewpoint, it's possible that he would favour a carbon price, which is a market-based system and a charge on polluters, over the socialist approach proposed by Tony Abbott - making taxpayers cough up all the money needed to pay for emissions reductions.  And hiding the real cost in consolidated revenue.  (Tony Abbott doesn't favour transparent government).

Andrew Bolt: And er is there any other government then that er will be the next to follow us do you think? 

Matt Ridley: I'm not the one to predict ah political trends. Ah I don't think it's going to happen in a hurry in Europe. Ah um ah sorry in Britain. Um but ah there is huge disquiet in the UK about energy prices. And they're about to go up even more because of green levies and that I think is going to make politicians rethink this agenda.

Carbon is being priced around the world

Andrew Bolt asks longingly if other government's will "follow" Australia.  Follow them in what?  Getting rid of a carbon pricing scheme?  Not very likely.  What places have one and what places are planning one?  Below is a list compiled by SBS (Australia) a couple of weeks ago:

CARBON TAXES AROUND THE WORLD

CHINA (state-based action)

The Chinese Government plans to develop emissions trading schemes in seven key cities and provinces from 2013. These schemes will cover around 250 million people. The Chinese Government aims to work towards a nation-wide approach after 2015.

UNITED STATES (state-based action)

There is no nationwide carbon tax levelled in the USA, although a few states have introduced the tax. The United States Administration has not been able to secure support for legislation to set either a price or a limit on greenhouse gas emissions. However, emissions trading has operated in the power sector in nine states since 2009. California's emissions trading scheme will start in January 2013.

CANADA (province-based action)

Canada does not have a federal carbon tax, but two Canadian provinces have existing carbon taxes (Quebec and British Columbia). Alberta implemented emissions trading in 2006 and Quebec's scheme will start in 2013. A further two provinces, British Columbia and Ontario, are considering emissions trading schemes.The Canadian Federal Government has no immediate plans to implement national emissions trading.

INDIA (tax on coal)

In July 2010, India introduced a nationwide carbon tax of 50 rupees per tonne (less than $A1) of coal both produced and imported to India.

NEW ZEALAND

The New Zealand Government set up an emissions trading scheme in 2008. The scheme covered forestry initially, and was then expanded in 2010 to cover stationary energy, transport, liquid fossil fuels and industrial processes.

SOUTH KOREA 

The Republic of Korea passed legislation in May 2012 for an emissions trading scheme to start from 1 January 2015. The emissions trading scheme will cover facilities producing more than 25,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – expected to be around 450 of the country's largest emitters.

JAPAN 

In April 2012, Japan legislated for a carbon tax of approximately ¥289 per tonne ($A3.30) by increasing existing taxes on fossil fuels (coal and LPG/LNG) with effect from 1 October 2012. Half the revenue will
fund low-emissions technologies. Japan has emissions trading schemes operating in the Tokyo and Saitama regions, covering 20 million people.

EUROPE (national-based action)

The European Union emissions trading scheme began in 2005 and now covers the 27 countries of the European Union, and three non-European Union members: Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. Their current target is a 21 per cent cut of 2005 emissions by 2025 (Australia's is a 5% cut of 2000 emissions by 2020).

A carbon tax was proposed by the European Commission in 2010, but a carbon tax has not been agreed upon by the 27 member states. The current proposal by the European Commission would charge firms between 4 and 30 euros per metric tonne of CO2.

Several European countries have enacted a carbon tax. They include: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

FINLAND

Finland introduced the world's first carbon tax in 1990, initially with exemptions for specific sectors. Manly changes were later introduced, such as a border tax on imported electricity. Natural gas has a reduced tax rate, while peat was exempted between 2005 and 2010. In 2010, Finland's price on carbon was €20 per tonne of CO2.

THE NETHERLANDS

The Netherlands introduced a carbon tax in 1990, which was then replaced by a tax on fuels. In 2007, it introduced a carbon-based tax on packaging, to encourage recycling.

SWEDEN

In 1991, Sweden enacted a tax on the use of coal, oil, natural gas, petrol and aviation fuel used in domestic travel. The tax was 0.25 SEK/kg ($US100 per tonne of C02) and was later raised to $US150. With Sweden raising prices on fossil fuels since enacting the carbon tax, it cut its carbon pollution by 9 per cent between 1990 and 2006.

NORWAY

In 1991, Norway introduced a tax on carbon. However its carbon emissions increased by 43 per cent per capita between 1991 and 2008.

DENMARK

Since 2002, Denmark has had a carbon tax of 100 DKK per metric ton of CO2, equivalent to approximately 13 Euros or 18 US dollars. Denmark's carbon tax applies to all energy users, but industrial companies are taxed differently depending on the process the energy is used for, and whether or not the company has entered into a voluntary agreement to apply energy efficiency measures.

SWITZERLAND

A carbon incentive tax was introduced in Switzerland in 2008. It includes all fossil fuels, unless they are used for energy. Swiss companies can be exempt from the tax if they participate in the country's emissions trading system. The tax amounts to CHF 36 per metric tonne CO2.

UK

In 1993, the UK government introduced a tax on retail petroleum products, to reduce emissions in the transport sector. The UK's Climate Change Levy was introduced in 2001. The United Kingdom participates in the European Union emissions trading scheme and is covered by European Union policies and measures. The United Kingdom has put in place regulations requiring all new homes to have zero emissions for heating, hot water, cooling and lighting from 2016.

IRELAND

A tax on oil and gas came into effect in 2010. It was estimated to add around €43 to filling a 1000 litre oil tank and €41 to the average annual gas bill.

COSTA RICA

In 1997, Costa Rica enacted a tax on carbon pollution, set at 3.5 per cent of the market value of fossil fuels. The revenue raised from this goes into a national forest fund which pays indigenous communities for protecting the forests around them.

BRAZIL

The state of Rio de Janeiro is exploring options to implement a state-wide cap and trade system.

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa introduced a carbon tax on new vehicle sales in September 2010. South Africa is planning to introduce a carbon tax from 2013, starting at R120 ($A15) per tonne for emissions above a threshold. Each company will have 60 per cent of its emissions tax exempt, with higher exemption thresholds for cement, iron, steel, aluminium, ceramics and fugitive emissions as well as trade exposed industries. Agriculture, forestry, land use and waste will not be taxed.

From the WUWT comments

Added 10:55 am Tues 19 Nov 13
Anthony Watts was a couple of days late to Andrew Bolt's party.  Here are a couple of WUWT comments on the Matt Ridley monologue (archived here, updated here).


Kev-in-Uk says Matt Ridley caved in too much to the "pig-troughing climate scientists":

November 18, 2013 at 3:42 pm
IMHO, Dr Ridley was a bit too soft and concilliatory – a bit too lukewarm? It’s ok to try and get your point across by appearing calm and reasoned but the fact of the matter is that all the money spent on carbon reductions schemes have been a massive waste of time and effort as well as cash.

I for one do not believe in the ‘AGW is significant’ meme – but the pragmatic view (and incorporating the oft warmist favourite – the Precautionary Principle) the best way to stop carbon emission is to invest in renewables and nuclear ‘properly’. Put it another way, a hundred billion bucks into development of non-carbon energy would have gone an awful long way into helping – instead of producing a sh$tload of useless models, adjusted data and feeding many thousands of pig-troughing ‘climate scientists’……..

Robin says "it's all a communist plot":

November 18, 2013 at 3:43 pm
Those of us who believe based on the evidence that Sustainability is merely an update of the old Marxian need for a crisis to justify the desired structural and institutional changes will keep watching and listening for the next calamity. I spent part of the weekend reading the beginnings of the ecological Marxism theories in the 70s (as its creators called it) and their justifications that more than an economic crisis would be needed.

IPCC is holding true to the social theories regardless of the facts. Matt is a rational optimist because he believes in innovation. We need to get back to societies that foster genuine innovation of the type he describes in his book instead of sociological innovations in how we are to organize ourselves in the future. Most of us can organize ourselves far better than any bureaucrat or theorist or politician