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
Pardon me if I really don’t pay any attention at all to the latest ‘revelation’ of someone who honestly believed six years ago that the only inhabitable place on Earth in 2100 would be the Arctic.
As soon as I see words like “breeding pairs” applied to human beings, I know exactly the sort of person I’m up against. The curiosity is that they don’t realise how revealing it is of their loathing of mankind.
In passing, a shameless plug, because it’s becoming increasingly obvious to me that there’s a health issue and a real eco disaster in train that ordinary people simply aren’t aware of.
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2012/04/21/theres-a-killer-in-your-house-2/
Pointman
I met Jim Lovelock in the early 80’s. He is a wonderful person and brilliant scientist in an esoteric kind of way. His life work was heavily influenced by the likes of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. Most of you probably do not know, but it was his invention of the electron capture detector that allowed the measurement of DDT and other pesticides, etc., at such low levels that it helped spur the environmental movement via Silent Spring, etc.
I always always thought his Gaia was a little fantastic and his position on Global Warming not that surprizing. It gives me great peace and joy to hear of his change of heart.
Good for James Lovelock. There is nothing more noble than a man who humbly admits his error.
It was only two years ago that Lovelock told The Guardian,
“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.”
Lovelock, while I do not subscribe to much of his metaphysics or prognostications, is an honest actor and there really was no gain for him in reporting what the leaders of the “great climate centers” said privately to him. Yes, it does appear that clouds and aerosols are running the show, or at least represent forcings missing from the IPCC calculations. More than missing, they’ve been kept out by ideologues who didn’t want the boat rocked.
But the climate scientists tell us that temperatures have not stayed flat for a decade! You see, it’s not just a single year that matters, but all the years around it. 2009 was warmer than 1999, 2007 was warmer than 1997, 2010 was warmer than 2000, 2011 was warmer than 2001, etc. Therefore the warming hasn’t stopped. Even if temperatures stayed where they are now for 20 years, the warming still hasn’t stopped, since the trend since 1979 would still be positive.
Lovelock disappoints. – gavin.
Monty in denial I see…
@Monty says:
April 23, 2012 at 11:12 am
By the way, 12 years is too short to identify a climate trend.
=======================
Yale would tend to disagree, they think one winter/summer is sufficient to establish a climate trend.
Give him his due – it must have taken quite a lot of courage to say, effectively, I was wrong. I don’t expect that any of the supposed climate ‘scientists’ would do the same.
But of “Revenge of Gaia,” published in 2006, he said he had gone too far in describing what the warming Earth would see over the next century.
“I would be a little more cautious — but then that would have spoilt the book,” he quipped.
—
Well, we mustn’t ruin a good book with the facts, especially when it might reduce revenues.
Icarus62 says:
April 23, 2012 at 10:16 am
“Unfortunately the evidence from sea level rise, global ocean heat content, ice melt and global temperature series all show that there has been no decline in the rate of ”
Yeah ice melt, like arctic sea ice AND antarctic sea ice above normal right now… Icarus, I know you are 100% fact resistant… What’s your agenda? You can’t be as stupid as you pretend. WUWT has a sea ice reference page and everyone uses it. It makes no sense to spread such obvious untruths here. It just doesn’t work. So why are you doing it?
Icarus62 says:
April 23, 2012 at 10:16 am
Unfortunately the evidence from sea level rise, global ocean heat content, ice melt and global temperature series all show that there has been no decline in the rate of anthropogenic global warming, so this story seems to be rather premature. Also, greenhouse gases are accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever, so there is no reason to be complacent.
Hugh Pepper, 2012. Boy, quoting a quoter is gonna convince us, bigtime.
com·pla·cent/kəmˈplāsənt/
Adjective:
Showing smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements.
I’d say, Icarus62, the only thing missing is the achievement.
Some of what he says is very true. Before the end of this century, billions of us will die. Life expectancy is still in the 80s, so even someone born today is likely to be dead by then. I’m in my 50s. I know I’ll be dead by then.
Again, that was just a silly prophesy. The second part, of course, that only a few breeding pairs in the Arctic is strange in that it is so NH-centric. (Ignoring the unlikelihood of global warming killing the rest of the population.) Wild writer. I’m surprised anyone paid him any attemtion. This sounds sillier than Gore’s predicitons.
Its quite shocking as to how someone so brilliant in many ways could be quite so daft in many others.
tonyb
Monty says:
April 23, 2012 at 11:12 am
“Well, Dr. Lovelock isn’t a climate scientist”
Next you’ll call him a denier. That’s how quick warmists throw people under the bus…. It’s getting lonely in your corner, Monty…
How refreshing to see a pronouncement on how science should be done: We thought we knew – more evidence doesn’t support what we thought – we were wrong.
Well done sir, and may you yet receive that telegram from the Queen.
integrity
brave
open minded
vs
lacking in judgement
jumping to conclusions
scaring the children
@MattC
I don’t think he would be seen as a heretic, more likely an apostate.
bladeshearer: If he wasn’t credible in 2006, what makes him credible now?
We the people are heterogeneous. He was credible to some then, and to some now. Equally important, he is an example to others: they will now re-examine everything that they thought they knew 6 years ago. Winning a long-term political campaign is usually more like erosion than like blowing the opponents to smithereens. This isn’t that important in the “great scheme of things”, but it is welcome.
Still a long way ahead. As these graphs have fluctuation theories too, will change. People come and go. What remains is the universe, but not so that we can imagine. Our Childish joys today are of our helplessness. Lovelock initially thought he had reached the possible perfection.
Reading the MSN story the last sentence is interesting:
“But of “Revenge of Gaia,” published in 2006, he said he had gone too far in describing what the warming Earth would see over the next century.
“I would be a little more cautious — but then that would have spoilt the book,” he quipped.”
I don’t think he has come over to the skeptics position just yet.
Sigh.
And MSNBC are absolutely sure they were interviewing Lovelock, and not an imposter?
Icarus62 says:
April 23, 2012 at 10:16 am
“Unfortunately the evidence from sea level rise, global ocean heat content, ice melt and global temperature series all show that there has been no decline in the rate of anthropogenic global warming.”
I would like to point out the logical fallacies in your argument, but what kind of logical fallacy constitutes outright falsehoods?
No, the rate of sea level rise has decreased, global ocean heat accumulation has stalled (“where’s the missing heat?” Trenberth, “10^27 Joules missing”, Pielke). Global temperature series ALL show there has been a decline in the rate of global warming, anthropogenic or otherwise – that’s why people are arguing whether the rate of warming of the last 12 years is statistically significant or not – probably not.
However,perhaps you are referring to some as yet unpublished dataset of anthropogenic temperatures in place of actual ones – you know, just add back the cooling effect of natural cycles to get the adjusted anthropogenic temperatures.
Monty: By the way, 12 years is too short to identify a climate trend.
Someone ought to have informed James Hanson of that when he concluded that the earth was warming again after a long spell of non-warming.