Richard Black Sees The Light
Rejoice all ye faithful! Warmist Extraordinaire, BBC News environmental expert journalist Mr Richard Black has started to grasp all that is wrong with AGW messages such “the planet is burning”, “humanity is in peril”, “climate change is a bigger threat than nuclear war”.
I would have never expected to read Mr Black (with whom I have a long list of past disagreements) write statements such as
Climate change is projected to become a major driver of biodiversity decline […] but at the moment, the major factor is habitat loss as the human footprint expands. When it comes to fisheries […] the single biggest driver is undoubtedly over-consumption […] And underlying it all is the growth in the human species
[…] if climate impacts are at present largely reversible but the loss of a species self-evidently isn’t, does that make biodiversity loss more important than climate change?
[…] if the fundamental drivers of all the trends are the swelling in the human population and our expanding thirst for raw materials, why aren’t these the things that politicians and environmental groups are shouting about and trying to change?
The blog in question is titled “Does climate cloud the bigger picture?“.
Mr Black goes as far as to admit that
some of the policies being considered as a response to climate change […] could exacerbate other environmental problems
Perhaps he (and some among my twelve readers) will now understand why I simply cannot bear the constant barrage of absurdist climate change claims (shrinking sheep included). AND the BBC’s own fixation with all things global warming.
IMNSHO, anybody that cares about the environment should be wary of overshooting remarks about any particular environmental issue: those will not help solve anything, and likely will make things worse overall.
The Unbearable Nakedness of CLIMATE CHANGE 
I think what he meant was that if governments follow the protocols as they should and if we can work together to help reduce pollution in the environment and the like, the expected change would take longer to happen.
I cannot really accept the word that “the climate change is projected”.I do not really think this is projected.
please explain?
A couple of small points:
How many desert species will be impacted by solar installations in the Southwest.
Not many. Solar installations will still cover a tiny portion of the land area even if we build them as fast as we can. And I don’t know of any desert species in that area that engage in long-distance migration.
Couldn’t nuclear power (preferably some type of breeder reactors, such as the LFTR solve the problem?
Yes, I have a lot of optimism about the potential of nuclear technology to provide us with lots of energy. Sadly, the political problems and perceptual problems far outweigh the technical problems.
RoyFOMR: Huh?
Erasmussimo (01:37:12) :
Thus, managing habitat loss is like piloting a tugboat where managing climate change is like piloting an oil tanker.
A neat aphorism but still a meaningless sound-bite. Piloting tugboats or oil-tankers are everyday and clearly defined tasks.
Managing habitat loss or climate change are, in general, meaningless terms and bring too much hand-waving and opinion to the table.
Yes, you can quote specific examples where habitat management has proven invaluable. Flood barriers, better insulation etc can be held up as examples of climate change management.
What you are really saying about Climate Change is this:
A-The climate is changing because of mans activities.
B-The changes are for the worse.
C-If we control mans activities we can prevent those changes.
These are simple messages, easily conveyed and digested to form opinion.
Forget the details of scale, complexity and uncertainty. Dismiss the arguments of the sceptical as irrelevant, non peer-reviewed and cherry-picked. Ignore the politicisation process that has besmirched the name of climate science. Create an arsenal of cliched responses whenever the reality of data interferes with the purity of the playstation models.
Do some, or all, of these things and I get a feel for what its like to be a true believer.
Sean Wise (01:41:39) ponders: “I suspect that many environmentalists will soon discover that old greek curse, where the ultimate punisment from the gods is from granting you exactly what you wish for.”
A very compelling suspicion, Sean… I’ll join you there. (Maurizio Reader #10)
Maurizio,
(and some among my twelve readers)
You now have a Bakers Dozen of readers!
Cheers
😎
one never stops learning curious expressions in the English language…
I think that Roger Black is beginning to notice, that the E of Environmentalist has been politically hijacked by the E of Economist, where AGW is concerned.
He’s getting uneasy and rightly so!
I believe that he and countless others who genuinely can be classified as sincere Environmentalists have been blinded by the AGW Bubkists who have treated them as “useful fools”
Their fury will know no bounds once the wool falls from their eyes.
(PS -Sorry about the Bubkist snark but that oxymoronic site, RealClimate, started it)
In the long run, economic forces will resolve the matter by driving the cost of the Western life style beyond the reach of everybody. But in the meantime there will be lots of nasty conflict and serious environmental degradation while people fight to retain a lifestyle that cannot be sustained.
Couldn’t nuclear power (preferably some type of breeder reactors, such as the LFTR solve the problem?
I have to strongly disagree with the concept that climate change policies “COULD exagerate other environmental problems”. It already IS exagerating them. When tillage for corn crop increased dramatically in the last few years to make biofuel ethanol, the size of the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico doubled. Rain forests in Indonesia are being converted to palm oil plantations threatenting Orangutan habitat. How many desert species will be impacted by solar installations in the Southwest. I suspect that many environmentalists will soon discover that old greek curse, where the ultimate punisment from the gods is from granting you exactly what you wish for.
I agree that we have a great many environmental issues to worry about, and that climate change is not the issue that we can deal with most effectively immediately. For example, habitat loss is taking place right now and is having its damaging effects right now; climate change will wreak its damage much further into the future. The flip side of this coin is that habitat loss can be responded to in the short term: so long as we don’t destroy whole species, we can reverse the damage fairly quickly. For example, the wolf was pretty much wiped out across large stretches of the American West by ranchers; recognizing the error, programs to re-introduce wolves into the American West have begun and we are now well on the way to restoring a wolf population in the wild. Climate change isn’t so easy; the longer we wait, the harder it will be to reverse the damage. Thus, managing habitat loss is like piloting a tugboat where managing climate change is like piloting an oil tanker.
And yes, the underlying problem is the expansion of human material welfare. The earth could cope with a few hundred million Westerners driving big cars and hogging all the resources, but now that the rest of humanity is getting on board the wealth wagon, the problem has become much more serious. The earth simply does not have the carrying capacity to extend the Western life style to six billion people. In the long run, economic forces will resolve the matter by driving the cost of the Western life style beyond the reach of everybody. But in the meantime there will be lots of nasty conflict and serious environmental degradation while people fight to retain a lifestyle that cannot be sustained.
Does anyone here think that the droughts in Africa which the media often blames on AGW are more likely caused by deforestation (caused by the need for firewood)?
Indeed, recent increases in rainfall in the Western Sahel have been linked to a better management of the wooded areas…
If heating costs rise a lot in order to combat AGW, people will turn to wood burning and the forests around here will disappear. Some people have already done so and have these large smokey outdoor furnaces that pump heat into the house.
Cap and trade may have more unintended consequences than people have thought of.
So true. For instance, by pushing US industry into China, where much more CO2 and REAL pollution is produced per unit of GDP, CO2 restrictions could easily make even the “problem” they intend to solve worse. Not to mention that nasty brown cloud (I hear that contributes to global warming now!).