Since William F. Buckley's demise National Review has moved ever further away from the conservative center it claims to hold by adding to the political polarization of science rather than redressing it
What sort of editor relies on the energy policy advice of a science writer without bothering to weigh his views against the literally millions of tons of coal that have provided his family fortune for five generations or more ?
Viscount Ridley's Northumbrian estates span some of the most productive coal seams in the UK.
And willful indifference to fail to state where NR writers are coming from as well:
THE CORNER
National Review
Matt Ridley: Climate Change’s Rational Optimist
Viscount Ridley's Northumbrian estates span some of the most productive coal seams in the UK.
And willful indifference to fail to state where NR writers are coming from as well:
THE CORNER
National Review
Matt Ridley: Climate Change’s Rational Optimist
by JULIE KELLY September 28, 2017 4:00 AM
The irrational pessimists leading the international climate-change crusade consider Ridley a heretic. He calls himself a “lukewarmer” on climate change. The author of several scientific books — including The Rational Optimist, his paean about how human grit and ingenuity have historically prevailed over a harsh natural world — Ridley acknowledges that the greenhouse-gas effect is real and humans have caused most of the warming over the past 50 years: “I just don’t think it will ever get dangerous, and if it does, by that time, we will have had plenty of time to adapt to it with new technologies,” he told me from his home in northern England.
While most reasonable people would agree with his logical and hopeful approach to potential global catastrophe, the irrational pessimists leading the international climate-change crusade consider it heresy. Many have smeared Viscount Ridley, who is also a Conservative-party member of the House of Lords, as a climate “denier” and targeted him for professional destruction. “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.”
A group of activists and scientists is urging the Times (U.K.) to stop publishing a regular column authored by Ridley because his views often challenge the climate tribe’s reigning dogma. Fortunately, none of this seems to have dampened Ridley’s good humor or self-effacing manner. Quite to the contrary: This rational optimist is now talking about the benefits of rising carbon dioxide emissions.
In a speech last year at the Royal Society of London, Ridley presented the evidence on global greening, which is the spread of green vegetation around the world over the past 30 years. It is called the “CO2 fertilization effect” ...
Climate scientists, environmentalists, and politicians here and abroad could use a healthy dose of that kind of rational optimism. Instead, they will no doubt continue their scare tactics, push their unattainable and punitive zero-emissions goal, and bully any “denier” who doesn’t capitulate to their political agenda. Too bad we don’t have more Matt Ridleys on this side of the Atlantic.
READ MORE: Climate-Change Activists are the Real Science Deniers The Religion of Climate Change Climate McCarthyism
— Julie Kelly is a writer from Orland Park, Ill.
