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When even the most devout start to question their faith
Nice piece and interesting to see Lovelock realise that those like Gore and Flannery have been , to say the least over egging the pudding.
Cheers Comrades………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Related articles
- Lovelock admits to being ‘alarmist’ on climate (wnd.com)
- James Lovelock admits he, Al Gore and others over estimated the speed of climate change and were too alarmist (nextbigfuture.com)
- James Lovelock Finally Walks Back His Absurd Doomism, But He Still Doesn’t Follow Climate Science (thinkprogress.org)
The man who devised the pseudoscientific, collectivist theory of a Gaia/superorganism has conceded to being alarmist.
From MSNBC (of all places):
James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.
Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.
He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”
This is the man…
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James Lovelock has some interesting things to say about climate change.
I love it when I can find the Icons of AGW alarmism who agree with some of the points that I have been making for years about the subject of climate change. Find below some of the highlights
On Climategate:
I was utterly disgusted. My second thought was that it was inevitable. It was bound to happen. Science, not so very long ago, pre-1960s, was largely vocational. Back when I was young, I didn’t want to do anything else other than be a scientist. They’re not like that nowadays. They don’t give a damn. They go to these massive, mass-produced universities and churn them out. They say: “Science is a good career. You can get a job for life doing government work.” That’s no way to do science.
On computer modelling:
If you make a model, after a while you get suckered into it. You begin to forget that it’s a model and think of it as the real world. You really start to believe it.
The weakness of Climate science:
The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet. One of the chiefs once said to me that he agreed that they should include the biology in their models, but he said they hadn’t got the physics right yet and it would be five years before they do. So why on earth are the politicians spending a fortune of our money when we can least afford it on doing things to prevent events 50 years from now? They’ve employed scientists to tell them what they want to hear. The Germans and the Danes are making a fortune out of renewable energy. I’m puzzled why politicians are not a bit more pragmatic about all this.
About the “need” to suspend democracy
But it can’t happen in a modern democracy. This is one of the problems. What’s the alternative to democracy? There isn’t one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
On adaptation
I’ve always said that adaptation is the most serious thing we can do. Are our sea defences adequate? Can we prevent London from flooding? This is where we should be spending our billions.
On Carbon trading, India and China:
I don’t know enough abut carbon trading, but I suspect that it is basically a scam. The whole thing is not very sensible. We have this crazy idea that we are setting an example to the world. What we’re doing is trying to make money out of the world by selling them renewable gadgetry and green ideas. It might be worthy from the national interest, but it is moonshine if you think what the Chinese and Indians are doing [in terms of emissions]. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can’t really do anything meaningful.
Lovely stuff and even if you disagree with me or with Lovelock what he has to say is worth reading especially if you are a Warminista , perhaps the time has come for all believers in AGW to look at their beliefs without dark green goggles and the red frames.
Cheers Comrades
8)
“Carbon trading was an idea with potential but the danger is that it so rapidly develops into a scam,” : James Lovelock
With our government just about to try to get its legislation for our own emissions trading scheme through the parliament it is very sobering indeed to see that the father of Warminista faith denouncing the scam that is one of the models for Penny Wong’s awful scheme.
Gaia theory 's James Lovelock
Europe’s carbon trading scheme has proved to be “disastrous” and a “scam” in which companies have profited with no effect on emissions, a leading politician and a scientist said yesterday.
The environmentalist James Lovelock — who developed the Gaia theory of the planet as a “living organism” — and the former environment minister, Michael Meacher, said that market approaches to green issues, such as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), were destined to be distorted by business pressures. Lovelock described similar market mechanisms that attempt to put a price on “services” provided by the natural world as akin to “slavery”.
“In principle [carbon trading] is not a bad idea but in operation it’s been disastrous. Business has frankly made billions out of artificial reductions of what is called hot air with absolutely no environmental benefit at all,” said Meacher, singling out the ETS for being distorted by commerce. “Governments under pressure from industry – the worst example is Germany – gave away far more allowances than industry actually needed.”
As a result, he said, the carbon price collapsed and the ability for companies to claim carbon credits by investing in developing world emissions-cutting projects via the Clean Development Mechanism meant western economies had done little to de-carbonise their industries.
Lovelock said the scheme had failed. “Carbon trading was an idea with potential but the danger is that it so rapidly develops into a scam,” he said.
As the global recession begins to bite even across this wide brown land do we really need to have yet another useless gesture that will achieve nothing? Any ETS scheme will never achieve anything of substance “for the environment” all that it will do is enrich the unscrupulous. Heck if you really want to waste your money on such things then you may as well invest in this scheme run by yours truly It will be just as effective as the scheme in Europe or the one proposed by Ms Wong, and I can give you regular empirical measurement of the results.
As an afterthought:
A question to JM, the heroic Eco-warrior who has driven the “Gore effect” post to over 14o comments what exactly is your prescription for the “problem” of AGW?
And is that the sound of silence that I hear?
Cheers Comrades.
I love this truth about ETS from the father of Gaia theory.
My scepticism about AGW is a given and of late I have been arguing against the Warministas on the basis of the sheer impossibility of their prescription for the disease ever being politically possible.
So imagine my surprise to find that James Lovelock saying that ETS schemes are nothing more than a scam designed to make money for the Green spivs?
James Lovelock (Image: Eamonn McCabe / Camera Press)
Your work on atmospheric chlorofluorocarbons led eventually to a global CFC ban that saved us from ozone-layer depletion. Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change?
Not a hope in hell. Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside.
What about work to sequester carbon dioxide?
That is a waste of time. It’s a crazy idea – and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done.
There is a message here for the spotty faced and gullible AGW enthusiasts and it is the same one that I have been making for a long time: There is just no point in pursuing a course of action that will be expensive and will ultimately have no effect whatsoever. Now as the message has been enunciated by one of the prophets of The Green faith will you actually listen?
There are none so blind a he who will not see.
Cheers Comrades
😉
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