Matt Ridley on Net Zero
January 10, 2022
By Paul Homewood
h/t Philip Bratby
Matt Ridley’s interview is well worth watching, especially between 18 and 30 mins:
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Matt Ridley, talking once again coherently and concisely about the problems facing the country. Does Princess Nut Nuts know her poilicies are “stealing a woodpecker’s lunch”?!!
My goodness, a common sense thinker in the party, If only there were more!
A worthy expression of his views. My only comment is that he mentions man’s effect on climate without given an indication of magnitude nor explaining that CO2 is a minute contributor to any heating. What if the planet starts cooling ? No reference was made to signs of this happening.
Matt has always been careful not to be alienated or cancelled, by calling himself a Lukewarmer. I suspect he no more thinks atmospheric CO2 is a problem than you or me, he just plays the game smarter than most.
Maybe because we’re still looking for these cooling signs?
Much here to be considered but why does he keep talking about carbon emissions? He really means CO2 of course which is NOT a pollutant, despite the implication. Surely the whole crux of the debate is that CO2 DOES NOT AND HAS NEVER DRIVEN THE CLIMATE !
So Net Zero is just a political fallacy to to raise taxes from people who can least afford it.
We lost at least one round in this fight when we didn’t call out the use of “carbon” as opposed to “carbon dioxide” every time it was used.
This was a deliberate ploy to associate climate change with the soot, grime, air pollution, smog that resulted from carbon emissions more than half-a-century ago — and we let them get away with it!
Now we’re having to play catch-up and even those on “our side” have fallen into the trap!
Big PLUS ONE. Mike
I have contacted newspapers radio and even local politicians for years to point out that carbon is an element and we are made of carbon on this planet but to no avail in New Zealand where it is not Correct Thinking. It leads to exclusion from the Group. ( News Media rely on information from the U S news sites of New York and California and Reuters in Canada as they cannot afford reporters overseas now , so we are just an appendage of the U S in many ways.)
And then waste said taxes on employing consultants who are friends of Carrie Antoinette
I don’t have this problem with the sloppy use of the word ‘carbon’ anymore than I’m overly fussed by the technically dubious term ‘ocean acidification’. Wish this side of the argument wasn’t so easily sidetracked by such issues. Everybody knows what these terms in common usage now relate to, and I don’t think it is deceiving anyone very much.
‘Carbon Dioxide’ is a long and clumsy thing to say repeatedly, so shortening is okay with me. Maybe ‘CO2’ is better, which is my way around it, but perhaps ‘COX’ (parallel with the use of ‘NOX’) might suffice – though I guess you’d then object to the confusion with CO.
Matt Ridley is a thoughtful lukewarmer/agnostic and is very wise not to be suckered into challenging anything which appears to challenge the basic physics. In fact he’s a very capable scientist in his own right. Like Lomborg, that gives him much better authority to challenge the catastrophist meme. Ridley is one of my favourite people on this planet.
I don’t think Bjorn Lomborg is a lukewarmer. From ‘The Deniers’ book the author suggested that he did not believe in the economic case for combatting global warming but was of the view while the climate change economists were wrong the ‘climate scientists’ were correct. He wasn’t the only one who disagreed within his own subject but was prepared to believe that in all other areas they were competent and honest. I suppose with global warming we are used to those with no expertise spouting nonsense and lies and being held in high regard as long as they agree. When you disagree your area of expertise becomes very important.
I am old enough to remember WW2 and the joy of it ending. I also enjoyed seeing the end of the Soviet empire. I am afraid in my old age I am witnessing a move towards a totalitarian state in many countries and a lack of empathy, with people with opposing views being ‘cancelled out’ or called ‘deniers’ or worse. Politicians in the four countries are taking more and more power despite them pretending they are democrats. I think The Informed Customer above is correct in his assessment and that in itself shows up a big problem we now have with what I would call ‘pretend democracy’. The World is getting nastier.
Here is one of many articles about the creeping in of totalitarianism in the climate discussions.
Read ‘Brave new europe’ by Mick Greenhough, a revealing insight into the Nazi inspired EU and its aim to rid nations of their democracy to be replaced by unelected Commissioners. It seems that any recipient of an EU pension found criticising said EU will have the pension withdrawn. Totalitarian.
It seems obvious that if in receipt of an EU pension that should automatically disqualify you from sitting in the house of lords or commons, a conflict of interest bordering on treason! Probably worth a petition to Parliament.
Does Nigel have an EU pension? Or don’t the MEPs qualify? I’m sure the Commissioners do. I’m too lazy to look it up.
EU Commissioners do such as Lord Sleaze Mandelson and Kinnock. And as a condition of their pension they are not allowed to criticise the EU.
Reality hits home
THE UK’S largest energy spenders are considering putting off their plans to achieve net-zero, owing to the pressures faced from the gas crisis
https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1547527/Gas-crisis-biggest-UK-companies-consider-delay-net-zero-plans-climate-change
As much as I can enjoy reading Lord Ridley, his writings – and more-so his video performances – are very much in the realms of preaching to choir. Even though he does the cop-out, ‘I’m not a Deni er’, he does not come across as someone who could cancel out the smooth propaganda of the likes of Attenb…. and the BBC.
If it wasn’t for fuel prices going up now and energy companies threatening to cancel their commitments to NZC we would be losing this bigly.
Yes – not exactly a hostile interviewer. If it was Kathy Newman, Maitliss or Harrabin they’d be straight in with ‘Don’t you own a coal mine?’ and ‘weren’t you on the board of Northern Rock when it collapsed?’. Also he concedes far too much ground to IPCC alarmists and their nonsense about carbon emissions being the climate control knob. Why sugar coat it? Especially when talking to a tame interviewer. Better to go in with all guns blazing and call out the whole scam for the steaming pile it is.
Isn’t reasoned argumentation likely to carry more weight than ranting? Leave the latter to the AGW numpties
I wish this could be sent to every MP
Fully agree with Ridley on the disaster of Net Zero, but he is dead wrong to call gas in UK shale “reserves”. Because of banning exploration we don’t know if any of the shale gas would qualify as “reserves” – meaning economically producible. As a geologist who has worked for a US fracking company I have serious doubt that UK shale geology will provide sustainably commercial rates. It ain’t Texas y’awl.