Matt Ridley: ‘Saving the world with fossil fuels’

Saving the world with fossil fuels

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/3/14/saving-the-world-with-fossil-fuels.html

The must read article this morning is Matt Ridley in the Wall Street Journal, who points out that little-mentioned but rather critical point about fossil fuels – we can’t do without them. As a teenager’s bedroom generally illustrates, left to its own devices, everything in the world becomes less ordered, more chaotic, tending toward “entropy,” or thermodynamic equilibrium. To reverse this tendency and make something complex, ordered and functional requires work. It requires energy. The more energy you have, the more intricate, powerful and complex you can make a system. Just as human bodies need energy to be ordered and functional, so do societies. In that sense, fossil fuels were a unique advance because they allowed human beings to create extraordinary patterns of order and complexity—machines and buildings—with which to improve their lives. The result of this great boost in energy is what the economic historian and philosopher Deirdre McCloskey calls the Great Enrichment. In the case of the U.S., there has been a roughly 9,000% increase in the value of goods and services available to the average American since 1800, almost all of which are made with, made of, powered by or propelled by fossil fuels. I don’t think the greens are going to like it.

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AMS Associative Executive Dir. slams colleagues for partisanship: ‘We’ve chosen sides politically, largely abandoning any pretense at nonpartisanship’

Top weatherman slams partisanship among scientists

http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/3/17/top-weatherman-slams-partisanship-among-scientists.html

William Hooke, an associate executive director the American Meteorological Society has written an excoriating critique of his colleagues in Eos magazine, taking aim at scientists’ constant demands for funding, the nannying of the public that pays their wages, and the jettisoning of political non-partisanship. The complexity and costs of science have been growing. Urgent societal challenges (in education, environmental protection, foreign relations, maintenance of aging critical infrastructure, national security, public health, and more) demand quick fixes even as they compete with the funding for science. Society has asked scientists for more help, even as research budgets have remained relatively constant. Relations have been strained on both sides. How have we faced these new stresses? Unfortunately, many scientists have responded by resorting to advocacy. Worse, we’ve too often dumbed down our lobbying until it’s little more than simplistic, orchestrated, self-serving pleas for increased research funding, accompanied at times by the merest smidgen of supporting argument. At the same time, particularly in Earth OSS, as we’ve observed and studied emerging natural resource shortages, environmental degradation, and vulnerability to hazards, we’ve allowed ourselves to turn into scolds. Worse, we’ve chosen sides politically, largely abandoning any pretense at nonpartisanship. When people like Mark Maslin are telling the public that their research shows that collectivism is right, it’s hard to argue with Dr Hooke.

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Claim: Vanuatu cyclone due to ‘climate change’

Vanuatu cyclone due to “climate change”

http://joannenova.com.au/2015/03/vanuatu-cyclone-due-to-climate-change/

So far 24 are confirmed dead in Vanuatu, a figure that seems likely to rise. About 100,000 are homeless, according to the local Oxfam director, which, if accurate, is an awful lot in a country of 270,000. There is no doubt the country needs a lot of help. But how many journalists will bother to check the history of cyclones in Vanuatu? Accuweather lists a lot, including one in 1951 that killed 100 people when CO2 levels were just 311ppm. In 1987 another storm killed 48. Despite the pressing need to solve immediate problems, the predictable claims are already starting. President Baldwin Lonsdale is blaming “climate change”. Pacific nations regard themselves as at the frontline of climate change, given many are low-lying islands dangerously exposed to rising sea levels, and Lonsdale said changing weather patterns were partly to blame for the destruction. “Climate change is contributing to the disaster in Vanuatu,” Lonsdale told reporters in Japan, saying rain had been unusually heavy this year. Even President Hollande, host of the Paris UNFCCC later this year, is milking this disaster: “…the cyclone “is a new cry for the international community to take seriously its responsibility in the […]Rating: 10.0/10 (1 vote cast)

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