Quote of the Week: The cost of daring to write about climate

Matt Ridley: “I’ve written about many controversial issues during my career,” Ridley said.

“Never, have I ever experienced anything like what happens when you write about climate, which is a systematic and organized attempt to blacken your name rather than your arguments, and to try to pressure any outlet that publishes me into not publishing me any more.”

Ridley cited a 2016 study authored by scientists from China, the U.S., Britain, and several other countries that showed a 14 percent increase in green vegetation between 1982 to 2011; 70 percent of that lush growth is attributed to higher concentrations of CO2. Zaichun Zhu, one of the study’s co-authors explained that “the greening over the past 33 years reported in this study is equivalent to adding a green continent about two times the size of mainland USA and has the ability to fundamentally change the cycling of water and carbon in the climate system.” We have more croplands, grasslands, and forests now than we did in the 1980s. “Frankly, I think this is big news,” Ridley told the audience. “A new continent’s worth of green vegetation in a single human generation.”

From the National Review: Matt Ridley: Climate Change’s Rational Optimist

September 28, 2017 in Quote of the Week.