Previously, you may recall that Lovelock threw global warming under the bus. Now, he’s got another zinger the greens will be none to happy to hear in the middle of Rio+20. That “disturbance in the force” felt earlier today was the wailing and gnashing of teeth heard from eco-followers worldwide when they heard the father of Gaia say the much hated and maligned fracking process is “OK”.
I can’t wait to see how the Rommulans and McKibbenites spin this one.
Excerpts from the Guardian article by Leo Hickman:
Given that Lovelock predicted in 2006 that by this century’s end “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 new laissez-faire attitude to our environmental fate smells and sounds like of a screeching handbrake turn.
Indeed, earlier this year he admitted to MSNBC in an interview reported around the world with somewhat mocking headlines along the lines of “Doom-monger recants”, that he had been “extrapolating too far” in reaching such a conclusion and had made a “mistake” in claiming to know with such certainty what will happen to the climate.
But Lovelock is relaxed about how this reversal might be perceived. He says being allowed to change your mind and follow the evidence is one of the liberating marvels of being an independent scientist, something he has revelled in since leaving Nasa, his last full-time employer, in the late 1960s.
…
Having already upset many environmentalists – for whom he is something of a guru – with his long-time support for nuclear power and his hatred of wind power (he has a picture of a wind turbine on the wall of his study to remind him how “ugly and useless they are”), he is now coming out in favour of “fracking”, the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from the ground. He argues that, while not perfect, it produces far less CO2 than burning coal: “Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.”
…
The reaction in Germany to Fukushima – which announced within weeks of the disaster that it was to shut down all its nuclear power plants by 2022 – particularly infuriates Lovelock: “Germany is a great country and has always been a natural leader of Europe, and so many great ideas, music, art, etc, come out of it, but they have this fatal flaw that they always fall for an ideologue, and Europe has suffered intensely from the last two episodes of that. It looks to me as if the green ideas they have picked up now could be just as damaging. They are burning lignite now to try to make up for switching off nuclear. They call themselves green, but to me this is utter madness.”
Nestled deep into an armchair, Lovelock brushes a biscuit crumb from his lips, and lowers his cup of tea on to the table: “I’m neither strongly left nor right, but I detest the Liberal Democrats.”
He delivers his mischievous bombshells with such rapidity and meekness that there is a danger one can miss the all-important clarification and context.
“They are all well-meaning, but they have mostly had little experience of power,” he adds. “The coalition has behaved disgracefully on environmental and energy policies. It would have been much better if they had been properly rightwing. I don’t mean something like Thatcher; that was a revolutionary Conservative government. Just a regular one. Our political system works because they tend to self-correct each other.”
…
The greens use guilt. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting CO2 in the air.”
He displays equal disdain for those who do not accept science on climate change: “They’ve got their own religion. They believe that the world was right before these damn people [the greens] came along and want to go back to where we were 20 years ago. That’s also silly in its own way.”
…
Read the full Guardian article by Leo Hickman here and his complementary article:
James Lovelock on shale gas and the problem with ‘greens’
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Nice photo they used of him to go with the interview. Makes him look like he’s one sandwich short of a picnic, but that’s not what the Guardian would do, right? /sarc
Nice to know Lovelock is not a complete fool.
Born 1919 I hope I Look like that at 92. He is 93 next month. Never too old to change your mind on what you once perceived to be the truth. If only I had that trait I would know that I was a true skeptic.
Expect him to endorse coal next year; hemp the year after that. Different business model than GISS – they’ve been stuck on pro-nuclear since 1972 when Schneider wrote a paper warning of global cooling through smog, suggesting nuclear as the solution.
No fracking way!
Who says old people are not smart.
A bit late……
Reblogged this on reality paradigm and commented:
Well I never!
“He displays equal disdain for those who do not accept science on climate change”
The guy’s still off the deep end about CO2, just not quite so deep as before. Maybe he’s starting to worry what Gaia will say when he finally becomes one with her. 🙂
“He displays equal disdain for those who do not accept science on climate change: “They’ve got their own religion. They believe that the world was right before these damn people [the greens] came along and want to go back to where we were 20 years ago. That’s also silly in its own way.””
This is a hit on skepticism. This gentleman has gone from ultra-warmist to luke-warmist.
That’s better than nothing.
It is clear that when EVERYONE has fully bought into the Green mantra, even your neighbor and your neighbors neighbor, then, if you want to remain a “rebel” then there is only one thing to do….
a massive U-turn.
People like James Lovelock are just attention seeking trash with no principles and no credibility.
If he could get heavy media coverage by pronouncing credibly that the “moon is made of cheese” then this scoundrel probably would be the first to pronounce it.
Leo Hickman must be turning in his journalistic grave!
(That is not a death threat)
Proof that it’s never too late to be an enfant terrible. Much amused, and looking forward to some interesting interviews with James Lovelock on the BBC – if they ever invite him back, that is!
Sometimes you read things that make you feel as if you’ve gone to sleep and are still dreaming, or that you’ve woken up in some alternative universe. Someone pinch me please!
Ah, the great problem of the environMental Green culture.
I hugely agree with Lovelock there. They call themselves scientists but that could not be further from the truth! The Green land, where proper science skeptism has been banned and consensus rules no matter how wrong that consensus may be. This world has seen that ugly head raised over and over again throughout history, and, it is always found hanging from the politicians’ coattails.
I don’t know much about waht he’s said in the past. It sounds like he’s realized that the CAGW theory he had believed in is severly flawed and that Man is not here for “Gaia” but earth for Man. Maybe he’s taking an honest look around him?
“People like James Lovelock are just attention seeking trash with no principles and no credibility”
Sorry, but you’re the one with no credibility. You have no clue as to Lovelock’s motivation. It’s a man’s reputation you’re trashing apparently without the slightest hesitation. He’s in his 90’s. How old are you? Do you really think it’s likely that at that age as he prepares to meet his maker, his primary thought is to get more attention?
Of course, in the end you might be right. But it would only be by accident and wouldn’t excuse the disrespect for a man who’s done quite a lot in his life.
What have you accomplished?
strange how we are supposed to attach more weight to the views of Gaia-man than say my old mama. Only this morning she told me to get on with the fracking job. At least that’s what I think she said
JUst to add for the moderators…I can’t see how Jeremy’s comment in any way enhances the discussion. Surprised you let it through.
kwik says:
June 15, 2012 at 2:10 pm
A bit late……
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No doubt, there’s no amount of clarification, pontification, and reversal can undo the damage what that idiot damaged. His buffoonery has warped the minds of nearly every child in western society. How many years did he sit idly by watching his vapid Gaia theory get twisted into a religion? Now we’ve got a bunch of nuts running around in woods crying about trees and rocks and things.
And, even after all these years and then changing his mind he still doesn’t understand the depths of his idiocy and how he was a tool for the totalitarian Marxists.
I’m just waiting for the warmistas to pile on ad hominems like they did to Freeman Dyson.
‘strange how we are supposed to attach more weight to the views of Gaia-man than say my old mama.’
One sinner who repenteth etc …
Think of Gaia cracking her knuckles.
Too little too late. Nothing this man will ever do will even begin to compensate for the suffering his fearmongering and distortions have caused.
These people are criminals of the highest order and deserve no more mercy than they’ve shown their victims.
The warmists are going to say “He has gone fracking mad!”