Matt Ridley on How Fossil Fuels are Greening the Planet 

Ive worked in forestry for 50 years and ive noticed over the years the rings on trees are getting bigger each year

Joe Rogan should interview this man

OMG, I am so happy for this video. I try to tell to my people these truths, and this lecture is a big support.

Greenhouse growers could have told you that, They release extra CO2 into their greenhouses to bring their plants on.

how dare youuuuu Matt, how dare youuuuu - Greta sends her regards

Oh thank god, I'm not crazy... I was teaching science at a middle school, and made a point of putting environmentalism into my classes throughout the whole year and not just during the environmentalism segment of the book - but the way I teach, I encourage my students to ask "why" and help them find the answer... so our pursuits led us to biomass, and I taught them what it is and asked them why it might be useful to know how much biomass is in and area or in total... kind of a diversion, but why not. Well, that forced me to do my own research, and I found the records of CO2 in the atmosphere from ice cores, and I also found some info about the spread of deserts. So, over time, it looks like desertification spreads in tandem with drops in CO2 levels. And yes, the first surprise was that CO2 was falling over a long period before our machines debuted. So the heretical thought came into my head... maybe we need the CO2... maybe more CO2 would turn into plant biomass and reverse desertification. This is exactly the opposite of what I was taught. And yeah, correlation isn't causation and all that. My next question was (and still is), if it was that easy for a middle school science teacher to figure it out... wtf?

"Ten years ago I simply parroted what the IPCC told us. One day I started checking the facts and data - first I started with a sense of doubt but then I became outraged when I discovered that much of what the IPCC and the media were telling us was sheer nonsense and was not even supported by any scientific facts and measurements."--Klaus-Eckart Puls

Yet, even when I was 15 I knew from very basic chemistry and biology that animals 'excrete' CO2 and consume O2, whilst plants consume CO2 and 'excrete' O2. More CO2 means more plant 'food,' which means more plants. Problem, environmentalists?

I’m surprised RU-vid hasn’t taken this video down yet.

Hey RU-vid. Your algorithm is recommending videos to me that fall outside the climate-change doom narrative. You might want to get an engineer to look into that ;)

I am a small grain farmer. Tremendous yields are possible for many reasons. But I cannot believe the incredible results we have been achieving. C02 is a large factor.

Sounds great and all, but I'm not seeing any sources.

From visual experience in my area, it is confirmed on "completely uncultivated" slopes of our hills and mountains of northern Italy, (that is over my lifetime, and I am now 83 years old), and these have become more dense with healthy vegetation. Thus had come to a similar deduction. Recently, the government published that the green area of the country has also increased by around 15%.

Holy cow. my wife and I really liked, and were encouraged by this video. What was shocking was that, when I went to click on 'like' afterwards the number was only 75 (as of early August 2023). You would think such valuable and encouraging info would be shouted from the rooftops, and there would be hundreds of thousands of views. But no. Probably because he did NOT spew out unfounded scary alarmism. He spoke about data, about facts, about rational cause and effect, and he challenged conventional thinking. We call that science. I wish more people would respect and listen to real science on issues of real importance. Thank you sir for this talk, and for your work.

and when the non-industrialized world advances to the stage the US was in around 1950, we'll probably have to use even less land than we do now. Dad took over the family farm when he was 12 or 13. A county agent advised him that nitrogen fertilizer was commercially viable, and suggested he put it out at the rate of 100 lbs/acre of corn. Being an experiment, Dad only sowed 1 acre of corn under this system, and the other 19 acres was done as they had been doing it forever. Average yield without the nitrogen fertilizer was about 15 bushels/acre. His fertilized acre produced about 100 bushels. And by today's standards, even 100/acre is paltry. Normal across the farm belt in the US these days is about 200 bushels/acre. Anyway, under the new system, and assuming he wanted to maintain status quo ante, he'd only need to plant 3 acres of corn, not 20 - an 85% reduction in land use. They could grow other cash crops and so forth on that spare 17 acres, or not use it.

I've been saying this for years. Good to see more details coming out.

makes sense. If you grow MJ, often times people will hook up a C02 tank to their rig, to feed the plants.

Excellent talk. Slowly but surely the insights of wise men like Ridley will displace the unhinged projections and vivid imaginings of those intent on scaring us witless about our impact on climate.

Well why do you think you can buy carbon dioxide generators for greenhouses?? The whole carbon dioxide debate is shameful. Absolutely shameful

Not only is it making the earth greener, in turn that means it`s making it CLEANER!!

Bloody amazing!!! Probably the most important video I've seen in a long while!

Stunning 🙂🇬🇧 This eloquent message MUST be got to a larger audience…….. 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

This video deserves millions of more views than it has!

Ocean acidification and heavy metals from air pollution is still a problem.

Al Gore has painstakingly demonstrated (using Mann's hockey-stick graph) that more CO2 makes plants (trees) grow better.That graph had as much to say about warming as the cobblestones in the street outside my house. True, warmth is one of the factors that enable trees to grow better (so a warmer world is a greener one, whether that warmth is the result of increased CO2 or not; so Al Gore has made it clear that more CO2 is better.

NASA reports a study that says:: From a quarter to half of Earth’s vegetated lands has shown significant greening over the last 35 years largely due to rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on April 25. [2016] An international team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries led the effort, which involved using satellite data from NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer instruments to help determine the leaf area index, or amount of leaf cover, over the planet’s vegetated regions. The greening represents an increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States. And this study only looked at the land surface, not the oceans that cover 70% of the planet. NASA reports, "Carbon Dioxide Fertilization Greening Earth, Study Finds" www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/carbon-dioxide-fertilization-greening-earth

My farming relatives used to pray for the corn to be “knee-high by the Fourth of July.” Now it’s shoulder- high, or more, by the 4th of July.

Has the research mentioned around 4:30 been released? If so anyone have the link?

Plants require CO2 for photosynthesis. Increased CO2 in the atmosphere is causing more plant growth. Who would have guessed? Proof that all these people who accuse others of being “against science,” actually have no understanding of science themselves.

- Global warming also results in higher global rainfall which can help plants grow. - Higher atmospheric CO_2 levels also impair cognitive function in humans. - Higher CO_2 levels also result in more carbonic acid dissolving into the ocean, making it more acidic. - There are tons of additional effects... It is generally not good to approach the raw data with strong optimism or pessimism, save that for way down the road after digesting all the variables. Yes, high CO_2 levels do increase plant growth, this is well-established. The greening of parts of the globe is a result of increased CO_2 levels in the atmosphere, this is also true. In most areas though, water or soil nutrients are the rate-limiting factors to plant growth, not atmospheric carbon. It is worth noting that the degree to which plants benefit from a higher CO_2 to Oxygen ratio is proportional to the amount that animals (like us) suffer by lower oxygen concentration, it is just moving the natural cycle to slightly plant-favorable. Rather than looking at this interaction as us "helping" the plants grow, it is better to look at the plants as part of the restoring mechanism that gets activated to drive CO_2 levels toward a constant value (240 ± 50ppm over the last million years). We are forcing that mechanism quite rapidly, and its ability to respond in kind is on a >50,000 year cycle. There are absolutely bad actors participating from all angles in the climate change debate, so it makes sense that we all feel lied to. This lecture is a nice dose of anti-sensationalism, but it is ultimately very narrow-minded. He is right about some things though, like bio-fuel being a bad idea at scale. If you want to get some base-line understanding about atmospheric carbon science without being preached to, check out The Global Carbon Cycle (2010) by David Archer, it's the best reference I've come across on the topic. It gets fairly technical in some parts, so my carbon dioxide-rich and oxygen-poor brain took a while to get through it. Here's a pretty good article on carbon dioxide direct effects on humans: www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200421090556.htm

Love this. I like his ability to put two and two together and explaining the give/take or cause/effect. I was shocked by the .6% ethanol replacement of petroleum and using 40% of the maize stock. Ethanol is damaging to fuel systems and is why mixed gasoline is only shelf stable for about 6 months but I am a proponent of biofuels. I like the idea of growing my own diesel from peanuts or some other seed crop. So yeah, plants eat co2 and give us o2........ Cheap energy directly reduces poverty. Until fusion nuclear and molten salt nuclear is the main-stay, petroleum is king. Venus is only hot because of greenhouse gases, take away the co2 and it's an iceball.

Man, the planet, and wildlife is doing perfectly well, and BETTER than it was 50 years ago! SO why change what we are doing?

Industrial hemp when the seed is pressed for oil gives 30% yield and you get human consumable grade flour so no ether or problems exist. You also get fiber for cloths, ropes, high quality paper and replacement for fiberglass in body panels. The cellulose from the center of the stalk is used in building materials of high IR value and plastics of all kinds. And if you want to get high off it you need to smoke a telephone poles worth in under an hour.

Give those facts and thoughts a round of applause. Tell it like it is. All of us!

How about the ocean acidification resulting from more carbonic acid with the dissolving co2? How is that a good thing?

This guy is great his is a gift that keeps on giving .

Why would this be devastating to greta and Co? It's good news. But you still have to take into account that a runaway greenhouse effect could have longterm bad consequences.. If all insects die off we still have a huge problem.

Is it possible that the earth is both getting greener AND warmer? So water levels will still rise?

Why isn’t this on main stream media.it’s an eye opener for sure.

Great reality check, well done.

So this one guy knows more about climate change than 99% of scientists?

Alot of the "credit" goes to Western Civilization!

Plants don’t “breathe” CO2, they eat it. Al the carbon in plants, which makes up the most of the plants mass, comes from investing CO2. It matters because when we breathe O2, that mass only adds to body as inert water which usually excreted. For plants, investing CO2 is like a human eating a steak. Little wonder then that more CO2 equal’s more plants.

The increase in vegetation does not disprove the problems causes my climate change i.e. Extreme weather events such as droughts and hurricanes

Almost every scientist who talks about NDVI refers to the term 'greenness' which most lay people interpret as vegetation coverage. Is the phenomenon of 'increase in greenness', as measured by the satellite sensors, an indication that vegetation coverage has increased or is it that existing vegetation has a greater chlorophyll content? I feel the onus should be on scientists to clearly define what 'greenness' means to the lay person. For example when Dr. Ridley refers to the Amazon Basin getting greener, is the existing vegetation getting greener while rain forest clearing still continues. Loss of vegetation/habitat cover may be just as important in the overall equation.

Shipping and burning wood for green energy. That got an audible chuckle out of me

ReasonTV, where do I go to see his citations?

They will never say "look we're doing great" because there is no money in that.

Don't think of it as 'fossil fuel consumption', think of it as a 'forest growth stimulant release'

You mean if I put more CO2 in the atmosphere which plants eat we get more plants? Well I'll be damned.

Pressurized co2 has been used in the planted aquarium trade for some time you couldn't grow half the species in the trade without it.

The two largest freshwater lakes on the planet are in the Sahara Desert currently bone-dry but the Milankovitch cycles make it come and go as it has done for way longer than we've been around to notice or you would have known about it already. Look around Chad it can be spotted from orbit to Elevation changes rather than water on the surface but it's under there still I don't think it ever dries up completely it just comes and goes at regular intervals and when it's not there it's retreated below the surface ready to return again with the Rains when they come back and the favorable conditions to facilitate that return

Agriculture could be even productive through permaculture enriching the soil.

No one ever talks about the fact that "cold weather deaths" kills SEVEN TIMES more people than warm weather deaths including hurricanes etc. Isn't the whole point to reduce human death?? Considering this fact and the greening of the planet then "global warming" or climate change is a good thing overall.

The major difference I see between alarmists and sceptics- The sceptics have wit and candour. Oh- and the sceptics actually make arguments.

For over twenty years I've raged against over population and deforestation my latest source of anger is marine plastic pollution. Don't get me wrong I'm Scottish and I thrive on rage.

A scientist could probably tell you what was said here in more technical terms. What was actually said was that plants are growing more abundant, following the increase in carbon in the atmosphere. Which makes sense because plants "breathe" carbon dioxide for photosynthesis like we breathe oxygen. The Mesozoic Era saw an increase in green house gases and global temperature due to volcanic activity and plants grew to tremendous sizes then. This video was certainly interesting

So I guess conservation and the reduction of pollution are far more important than emissions reduction.

We farmers and gardeners know this. Anyone with a greenhouse knows this. Listen to THE expert on CO2, the physicist, William Happer.

Some arguments are really good, but here are some points he got wrong or failed to mention: -Bio-fuels are, in general, roughly carbon neutral. The carbon it produces when it's burned is, generally speaking, the same carbon it absorbed from the atmosphere as a plant in the first place. -While it is true that higher levels of carbon dioxide increase plant growth, and thus help keep the system stable, it also inhibits performance of all oxygen breathing creatures (us included). -While it is true that richer countries trend to become more environmentally minded in what nature preserves are considered. They also still emit a lot more CO2 per capita, an issue in itself. PS: sources in the description would be very welcome.

biofuels save .6% of our fossil fuels? I dispute that, as a gallon of ethanol takes a gallon of petroleum to produce, yet has only 70% as much energy as the petroleum products it replaces. So more likely, it is just the finished product that is replaced, therefore, it ADDS about 1% or more to our fossil fuel consumption to produce ethanol.

Thanks for not having listed any of the sources for your claims....

Good point, why aren’t the environmentalists shouting these statistics from the rooftops? They too deserve a credit. Unless of course the doom and gloom scenario sells more “green energy” which in turn makes more money for those who support it. We need to share this information as much as possible. Human beings need to know, so we can all be proud of our collective achievements. We aren’t killing this planet. We need to focus on making everyone richer. By improving everyone’s lifestyle we also improve the environment. Capitalism, open market economy and fossil fuels are not the issue here. Misinformation and mass manipulation are the main causes for concern.

Very good, although i don't like your chances of getting a slot on the 6pm news, keep up the great work

He didn't mention that because of drug laws,it is more profitable to produce things like heroin instead of wheat or corn. If you take the enormous profits out of drugs by legalizing them, then most people would choose to grow food instead.

This lecture should be made compulsory viewing in every school in the world. The stupidity of the current political class is incredible.

because Carbon Dioxide... That's what plants need..... (Idiocracy reference)

C02 is plant food, I learned this in grade school.

On the one hand the sect of the Apocalypse, world will end in 11 years, NY will be under water in 2010, the Maldives will have disappeared by 2007, there will be no polar bear in 2019, etc. On the other hand, optimistic people

Since the youtube algorithm is recommending this right now, if you come here it is important to understand the following which is quoted from someone else: This is for the anthropogenic climate change deniers: It's interesting that there is a global greening effect occuring around the world. However, this effect does not in any way justify the status-quo (i.e. increasing emissions for endless economic growth). Secondly, global greening does very little to mitigate the threats of climate change such as sea level rise, more intense storms and extinction of pollinators...etc. There is no point of having greener plants today, if the larger ecosystem will greatly suffer in the future... Thirdly, global CO2 increase has only shown marginal increase in greening. There are other critical factors that influence plant growth, such as nutrient,mineral and water availability which are independent of CO2 atmospheric concentrations

i've been saying this for years that if co2 is the problem, plant more plants! its literally basic science

Maybe little Greta should watch this before she gets emotional again.

This is SIX years old?! Why have I not seen this?? ...Yeah, silly question...

The real problem is water contamination, synthetic fertilizer, cleaning products and waste products are hard to remove from drinking water by the average person.

massive wind farms also disrupt natural weather patterns by changing winds and rainfall. and the turbines are replaced about every 20yrs, and the old ones are buried in massive landfills because they are made of unrecyclable composite materials.

Atmosphere contains only 0.04 percent CO2 (400ppm) Argon 9% Oxygen 21% Nitrogen 78%

Would be nice if he suplied some sources for his information.

I am surprised you never covered in your lecture the “amount” of CO2 that we are talking about. It is so minimal an amount in our air that it needs to be measure as a trace gas. That is ... it is measure in parts per million. (ppm) Composition of our air that we breath is as follows; Nitrogen gas. 78% ( more than 3/4 is pure Nitrogen) Oxygen gas. 21%. ( less than 1/4 is pure Oxygen ) Argon gas 0.9% ( less than 1% is pure Argon ) Trace gasses. 0.1% ( less than one tenth of 1% is made up of all the anther gasses combined. These include carbon dioxide, Methane, Helium, Ozone, water vapor, Sulphur Dioxide, Neon and others. Carbon Dioxide is approx. 0.04% or 4 parts in 10,000. (440 ppm). Now every tree, vegetation, seaweed, fruit and vegetable needs to feed off of this 0.04%. That’s why there is so little in the air because it’s gobbled up immediately by the plants. ... and by the way CO2 is a heavy gas so it likes to settle close to the earths surface and ins not found higher up in the atmosphere....which tends to defeat the greenhouse effect argument). All measurements of CO2 are made within 20 feet of the earths surface for that reason. A tree for example consists of tons of Carbon that it managed to grab from the air. It grabbed CO2 out of the air, split the molecule into Oxygen and Carbon, released the Oxygen back into the air but kept the Carbon to grow its enormous limbs and thousands of leaves that it sheds every year. I think you should include that in your summary of why we need MORE CO2 production today by any means possible.

Brilliant articulate and humours man ,enjoyed earring a sensible take on how thing really are !👍

Nice to hear. Honest and brave scientists are almost extinct these days.

Why are the plants breathing pollution ? Those poor oppressed plants ! My heart bleeds for you GIA !

ok, but what about raising sea levels and the pollution of water and air?

Good talk. More and more people are waking up to the realisation that there is no climate emergency, and we are actually doing a great job of caring for our planet

It’s “astonishing” that greenhouse gas is green.

More plants doesnt actually mean climate change is being reversed, the temperature is still going to rise, infact planting trees is not enough now.

"Because we use fossil fuel the earth is getting greener" this must be the quoute pf the decade

This video should be on the mainstream curriculum for all educational institutes in the whole of Europe if not the world! The most productive period in the planet's history had CO2 levels of 7000ppm., we currently have slightly more than 400ppm., and during that time there was an explosion of plant and animal life forms!

Interesting lecture and may be true to a certain extent but more astonishing is that Ridley did not consider the pollution, illness and deaths caused by burning fossil fuels, whether it's from particulate matter from car exhaust, coal-fired power stations etc or other types of activities, including using chemical fertilisers that, if I were to use Ridley's approach and logic, we have seen an increase in autism, Alzheimer's and cancer globally proportionate to the increasing use of chemical fertilisers. The few positives that can be derived by purposely skewing certain figures to make burning fossil fuels look like a planet saving device is obvious. The facts are that climate change is causing more extreme weather events, some flora and fauna is dying out due to salinity, erosion, etc and we can't keep on growing the economy. How much population do you think planet Earth can sustain? 10 billion, 20 billion, 50 billion or 100 billion? Ridley says: "Economic development is part of the solution and not part of the problem". Is this guy for real? I watched part of Ridley's climate change drivel. Like a politician or CEO of an oil company, he only focuses on the positives - not the negatives or the reality. For example, on another channel he claimed that despite an increase in severe weather events, less people die globally. If true, imagine if there were NO severe weather events, then even more people wouldn't die. I think he's a crackpot, someone employed by the fossil fuel lobby, and if not, he's deluded if he actually believes what he spruiks.

Very educative wonderful lecture

One of my favourite authors, the rational optimist is a masterpiece. Thank you

Interesting talk I enjoyed it. I do have a question, In the beginning of the talk you talked about how we were using 1/3 the land to produce the needed crops to feed the world. At the end of the talk you cited that due to biofuels we were pushing people into starvation. This is inconsistent, did I misunderstand something? Does that addition of the biofuels into petrol cause it to burn cleaner and if so reduce the CO2 output which is a good thing . The data you cite would seem to indicate that plants can/are helping with CO2 reduction, that is great. but, we should still reduce the CO2 production, plant growth is the only matrix when CO2 is concerned. I am NOT a climate alarmist by any means and question a lot of data that is "Out there". Thank you for your time.

Very interesting lecture, but 2 key points not addressed: • what about the ozone layer being depleted from C02? • biofuels were the only “renewable” mentioned. I agree they aren’t good, but what about solar?

Great lecture!

Well that's a red pill for the green dill.

Well done I try to bring the same material to people's attentions all the time but I don't have the soap box that you do so thanks for your efforts and for introducing everybody to another very Inconvenient Truth that being everything is fine and we have just all been lied to now we have to ask ourselves so hard questions like why... and press for the answers and hold these narcissistic parasites feet to the fire otherwise they'll just continue to do it and do it again and again and again

You are 100 percent correct with EVERYTHING that you said.

Thank you.

I’d be curious to know if plants will evolve to the new level of co2 and become more efficient over time.

6 years later and this guy got it very wrong

OMG. Everyone knows that there was a period of time in the Earth's past where the atmosphere contained a lot more CO2 and plants thrived. This is no supposed to be something amazing? Just wow....