MSNBC reports that the lack of temperature rise in the last 12 years has convinced environmentalist James Lovelock ( The Gaia Hypothesis) that the climate alarmism wasn’t warranted.
From his Wikipedia entry: Writing in the British newspaper The Independent in January 2006, Lovelock argues that, as a result of global warming, “billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable” by the end of the 21st century.
He has been quoted in The Guardian that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. According to James Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. Indeed “[t]he people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain”.
What he has said to MSNBC is a major climb down. MSNBC reports in this story:
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.”
However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far”…
…
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.
…
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.”
This won’t sit well with many. McKibben has a whole movement based on alarm for example. Watch the true believers now trash him in the “doddering old man” style we’ve seen before.
hat tip to Steve Milloy at junkscience.com
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Allan MacRae says: @ur momisugly April 23, 2012 at 9:57 pm
….It appears the CAGW tide is turning, Not only is the world refusing to warm, but it may soon cool. I predicted imminent global cooling in a 2003 article, but I really hope I am wrong. Global cooling will not be good for humanity or the environment.
If global cooling is severe, mankind will suffer greatly, and ironically, we will be woefully unprepared – just one more legacy of the CAGW fraudsters.
_____________________________________
I am afraid I agree with you. I never believed CAGW but then I paid attention to the Global Cooling scare of the 1970’s and its debunking.
The Little Ice Age was about 400 yrs ago If you look at Dr. Richard Feynman’s sister’s work NASA Finds Sun-Climate Connection in Old Nile Records
Many such as Dr Lief Svalgaard, do not think the Sun has much to do with the climate at least short term. I think the jury is still out on the subject and the next few decades will tell us much. Hopefully we will have enough civilization left to be able to actually study the sun and climate interaction. The jury is still out on that subject too. (ample Energy = Civilization)
”wmconnolley says:
April 24, 2012 at 7:40 am
HenryP says:> Technically we are cooling, if I look at it averaged globally, actually already since 1994
Only if you have a truely weird defn of “cooling”: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1994/plot/wti/from:1994/trend/plot/uah/from:1994/plot/uah/from:1994/trend
”’
You did not read how HenryP came up with his values. he is correct, your link refers to a different data source. Try reading the original post first before making your conclusion which basically says that ‘Apples are not oranges’
HenryP says:> wmconnoley says: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/23/breaking-james-lovelock-back-down-on-climate-alarm/#comment-965838
Henry says> so, in your graphs, where are the red and blue trendlines?
Err, they are the green and pink lines. But the page is very easy to use – you can redraw it for yourself.
> Are you saying my sample was not random? http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
I’ve no idea. But its clearly a very small sample of the world’s met stations. You might have deliberately mis-sampled; you might just have happened to pick a bad sample. I shouldnt’t have to guess: you should have clearly stated why you picked those stations, and why you’d used so few. It hardly matters, if what you’re interested in is global temps, then what you’ve done is clearly wrong. If you happen to be interested in the local temps at those stations it might be right.
Notice how none of the so-called “skeptics” here bothered even to look at your stuff. After all, you told them there was cooling not warming, so they aren’t going to care about the details.
Gail Combs says:> the Global Cooling scare of the 1970′s
You want http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling or just search my blog.
Gail Combs quotes
Since that is the case, then 1997 is a year of climate fluctuation and a drop of global earth air and sea temperature is predicted soon similar to that happened during similar circumstances around 1800 and 1900,
Henry@Gail
You might find this interesting..
http://www.letterdash.com/henryp/global-cooling-is-here
My sample shows that warming turned to cooling somehwere during 1994.
RE
Gail Combs says:
@ur momisugly April 24, 2012 at 6:13 pm
Thankyou Gail. I always learn a lot from your posts. I keep a scrap-book of information-rich posts/material from WUWT/ other sites/ published and unpublished works. Pieces under your name appear consistently. So please accept my gratitude. Your efforts are much appreciated.
WMConnoly says
I’ve no idea. But its clearly a very small sample of the world’s met stations.
Henry says
You clearly have no idea. You only have one measuring station, and it refers only to the lower tropical mean where it measures constantly, presumeably always at the same spot or range. Your method is heavily dependent on calibration.
With the method I used I don’t rely much on calibration because I looked at the differences in temperature compared to its average measured over a certain time period…
I have 44 measuring points all over and I sampled in such a way that I balanced my table by latitude as well as 70/30 sea /land as much as possible. Longitude is not important as the earth rotates every 24 hour. Perhaps the only bias was in chosing weather stations that have a complete record or where the record was almost complete.
It is true that I am currently (still) the only one who is making the claim that global cooling has already started and that we dropped by 0.2 degrees C from 2000. – I fear there are perhaps too few scientists interested in climate change that finished their studies in Statistics….
HenryP says:> You clearly have no idea. You only have one measuring station, and it refers only to the lower tropical mean where it measures constantly, presumeably always at the same spot or range.
Sigh. The data I’ve drawn is global. The UAH stuff… well, you can look it up. Wiki will tell you about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_temperature_record You really need to get out more. Try upgrading to a better class of blog, perhaps, where you’ll get some more feedback? I’m out of this thread, though.
His doctors have finally found the right medication 🙂
Got to cause whiplash in the alarmist community.
Looks like it’s a hoaxer who wants to clear up his record, quick.
I’ll just parachute in here to mention that in addition to scientists like Connolley and Annan, the non-scientist climate hawk bloggers also called out Lovelock in ’06 as being full of it. See, e.g., me:
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2006/01/should-we-do-anything-about-lovelock.html
“exaggerations like his just get the environmentalists in trouble, even the people who don’t exaggerate. How do we rein him in? Is it through a bet offer?”
also Tim Lambert:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/01/global_warming_alarmism.php
Carry on….
Story hit the MSM here in Oz, with an editorial comment in The Australian newspaper today.
wmconnoly says
Try upgrading to a better class of blog, perhaps, where you’ll get some more feedback? I’m out of this thread, though.
Henry says
Well, when you do come back to honour us with your presence, do tell me how many measuring instruments you used to get to your quoted graph.