Global Warming Chorus Discord Rising To Feverish Pitch
By Larry Bell in Forbes
Some leading voices in the Global Warming Gospel Choir are now abandoning the old climate crisis hymnal. One is James Lovelock, the father of the “Gaia” theory that the entire Earth is a single living system who predicted that continued human CO2 emissions will bring about climate calamity. In 2006 he claimed: “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 climate remains tolerable.” Time magazine featured Lovelock as one of 13 “Heroes of the Environment” in a 2007 article (along with Al Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Redford).
Recently, however, he has obviously cooled on global warming as a crisis, admitting to MSNBC that he overstated the case and now acknowledges that: “…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 pointed to Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other alarmist publications.
The 92-year-old Lovelock went on to note, “…the climate is doing its usual tricks…there’s nothing much happening yet even though we were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.” He added, “The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time.” Yet the temperature “has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising…carbon dioxide has been rising, no question about that.”
Fritz Vaherenholt, a socialist founder of Germany’s environmental movement who headed the renewable energy division of the country’s second largest utility company, has recently coauthored a new book titled “The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Disaster Won’t Happen”. In it he raises a man-made blizzard of criticism charging the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) with gross incompetence and dishonesty, most particularly regarding fear-mongering exaggeration of known climate influence of human CO2 emissions.
Dr. Vahrenholt’s distrust of the IPCC’s objectivity and veracity took root two years ago when he became an expert reviewer for their report on renewable energy. After discovering numerous errors, he reported those inaccuracies to IPCC officials, only to have them simply brushed aside. Stunned by this, he asked himself: “Is this the way they approached climate assessment reports?” He came to wonder: “…if the other IPCC reports on climate change were similarly sloppy.”
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You are a truth seeker, that is all we care about. Depending on your definition of an “environmentalist”, I dare say, most of us are environmentalists. How can we not be? Everyone cares about our environment. How we achieve proper balance is where disagreement arises. Most here are realistic environmentalists or rather environment realists. Follow the data that’s all anyone can ask. GK
The climate scientists who predicted doom will now have to find a way to “ease” out of what they said while still maintaining their title of “scientist”. If I was one of them, I’d say something like this: “At one point the science was telling us that things were looking very bleak for the Earth’s future environment. However, new data is telling us something different. Does that mean we were engaged in hoodwinking the public? Absolutely not! We were simply following the science. The fact that we’ve changed our minds now, based on the new scientific data, means that we are indeed “true” scientists. That’s something our denier friends never understood. This has been a wonderful 25 years for science and our most shining example since we discovered that Piltdown Man was a fraud”.
rstritmatter says:
May 8, 2012 at 5:56 pm
As unpopular as it might make me in some present company, I’m still an environmentalist — although sobered by the fallacies that have infected the movement. To me one of the biggest follies of the global warming movement is that the backlash may cause us as a species to ignore *real* environmental crises, like overfishing of the oceans — which unlike global warming is a real and present danger with potentially catastrophic implications.
————–
Many of us here are environmentalists and share your sentiments, and share your dismay that so much money has been squandered on fake science whilst real problems abound. I’m always glad to see recognition of overfishing as a major environmental problem. It’s a travesty that whilst climate scientists have been given money to scare people with, underfunded fisheries biologists are trying to grapple with huge issues in fish population fluctuations. Illustrative of their problems are the facts that the supposedly well-managed Pacific haddock stocks are plummeting; yet the Sockeye salmon, which were hovering on the endangered list for commercial species, experienced a record run in 2010. Like climate scientists, fisheries biologists simply have not got a handle on how the natural systems work, let alone how human activities are affecting fish populations. Unlike climate science, however, the issues they are dealing with are not bogus.
The word “environmentalist” has become a dirty word. Too many political quacks have sullied the once pristine topic. I mean, once you speak of your fellow man as “vermin,” you are going to have a hard time winning any sort of sainthood. When I get to the Pearly Gates, I doubt I’ll confess I ever called myself an “environmentalist.” Instead I’ll call myself a “naturalist.”
Regarding the side-topic of fisheries, I’ve noticed “fisheries biologists” can have the same problems “climate scientists” have, though the funding hasn’t bred the same degree of corruption. They have a bad habit of looking down their noses at fishermen, when the fishermen actually have hands-on experience no college classroom can give a man.
If “fisheries biologists” want to do something other than alienate fishermen, they ought do something that works. Unfortunately all they have done fails to work. They blame over-fishing, and fishermen, but cut-backs on cod fishing haven’t made the slightest difference in cod populations. Not even a blip. So, do they then confess they had it wrong? And maybe shouldn’t have blamed (and disregarded) the fishermen? Nope.
Why not? I imagine they fear they might lose their funding, if they confess they haven’t a clue why cod fish populations don’t recover.
They ought try out some new idea, like floating ocean hatcheries. After all, a female cod fish lays four million eggs. The first week of a codfish’s life has them the size of plankton, getting eaten by fellow plankton. If “fisheries biologists” could get a couple batches of four million eggs through that first week alive, and uneaten, then they might actually make a difference in fish populations, for a change. Fishermen might even like them.
It sure would do more than hopelessly whining about fishermen all the time. I think it the hopeless whining that defines “environmentalists” as defeatists, and unhelpful, and in some cases headed straight to hell.
Zac, BBC Radio 4 WAS the best radio station to listen to, but it’s become a joke in so many ways. They’re obsessed with sport, religion, Anne Atkins, Ian McMillan, Bejamin Zephrenia, oh and climate change.
Did my last comment get grabbed by the spam filter? If so, what bad word did I use?
[ Fished it out. My guess would be the hades reference. -ModE ]
Interesting to note that despite LoveLock’s status as the godfather of green, the way the Guardain and other environmental friendly media have totally failed to mention his recent views , well the BBC have just picked up on this but very quietly. Does anyone think if he gone the other way and pushed the panic button the same press would have been this silent?
Yet all the environmentalists can’t stop the imminent extinction of the Rhino. Pathetic.
Yes of course our stewardship of the Earth leaves a lot to be desired, yes we should do better/try harder. But in doing so we shouldn’t overlook the fact that some earth-raping activities are not quite as disastrous as is often presented – exhausted mining areas can be restored; trees having been felled, does not mean a new forest cannot be grown etc etc. And while we should be wary of the wickedness of big oil/mining/timber, we shouldn’t forget that they do what they do always with the connivance of local governments. The more the eco-loons overstate their case, in respect of climate as well as other environmental issues, the more likely they are to create perverse outcomes. An atmosphere of hysteria is not a solid basis for good stewardship.
The comments by James Lovelock DID make it into the Toronto Sun and other places. See
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/04/27/apocalypse-postponed
“Apocalypse postponed
The godfather of global warming says he, and Al Gore, have been ‘alarmist’ about its effects”
It is called “saving face”.
Who will be the first to take the Japanese solution to dishonour and where will they get the samarui sword ?
No comment.