At the end of Part 4 in this series, I speculated that the authors of AR5, Chapter 2 may have dropped the ball when developing the manifesto for the declaration of a climate emergency. Having argued forcibly that the public perception of climate change risk is based upon unreliable intuitive thinking, the IPCC went on … Continue reading
Author Archives: John Ridgway
The IPCC on Risk, Part 4: Choose Your Weapon
When the IPCC outlined its so-called risk management framework in section 2.3 of AR5, Chapter 2, it drew a distinction between a descriptive analysis of decision making and a normative analysis. The former, subject of Part 3 of this series of articles, makes a great deal of the shortcomings of intuitive thinking when applied to … Continue reading
The IPCC on Risk, Part 3: Decisions, Decisions
In the previous article of this series I introduced the IPCC’s views on the landscape for decision making. This landscape was described in terms of climate policy choices, levels at which decisions are taken, and the categories of uncertainty that influence such decisions. Whilst I accepted that the IPCC’s taxonomy appeared fair and unbiased, I … Continue reading
The IPCC on Risk, Part 2: Framing the Framework
In part 1 of this series of articles I argued that the recent preoccupation with extreme weather events owed more to the IPCC’s desire to create a perception of risk that was amenable to implementation of its climate change policies than it did to any enabling developments in causal analysis or cognitive science. In this … Continue reading
The IPCC on Risk, Part 1: New Developments?
There can be no doubt that those who consider anthropogenic global warming (AGW) to be a problem worthy of the epithet ‘emergency’ have increasingly invoked extreme weather events in support of that view. It is not my intention here to argue whether or not such events confirm the critical level of risk posited for AGW. … Continue reading
Minecraft Mindcraft
Oxford University has recently sought to enhance its imperiously stated reputation for academic excellence by dabbling in the murky world of opinionology. I may have just made that word up, but it does feel like an apt label to apply to the pseudo-scientific number-crunching that one normally associates with the consensus-mongering intrigues of the likes … Continue reading
Penny Mordaunt’s Face
In November 2020 the UK government published its latest edition of the National Risk Register. The previous edition was published in 2017. There is an obvious before-and-after-Covid comparison to be made here, and so I sat down with both documents in front of me to compile some notes. This is some of what I came … Continue reading
And Now for Something Completely Familiar
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse… Well, when I say ‘not a creature’, I mean to exclude those that were stirring over governmental impotence in the face of an international crisis. I think I may also be ignoring those who were stirred … Continue reading
Birdageddon 2 — The Puffin’s Tale
Guest Post by Jit The following was a recent comment posted at my Birdageddon article. It is reproduced here in full, since it serves as a worthy article in its own right. —— The story goes like this. Puffins are stubby little cute things. They eat tiny fish called sand eels. The eels are declining … Continue reading
We’re Walking in the Air
In keeping with much of the country, our neighbourhood had a goodly fall of snow last week. Of course, to maintain my climate denial persona, I should now be saying, ‘So much for global warming’. But the reality is that it hasn’t been particularly cold for the time of year. I’d say instead that it … Continue reading
