A rather unexpected story to appear in the mainstream press. From NBC news.
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 one of the bigger defections or walk-backs of pop scientists to date.
“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 climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he 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,” he added.
The article makes no attempt to discredit or attack Lovelock. Which is quite remarkable for a mainstream news article these days.
In 2007, Time magazine named Lovelock as one of 13 leaders and visionaries in an article on “Heroes of the Environment,” which also included Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Redford.
“Jim Lovelock has no university, no research institute, no students. His almost unparalleled influence in environmental science is based instead on a particular way of seeing things,” Oliver Morton, of the journal Nature wrote in Time. “Humble, stubborn, charming, visionary, proud and generous, his ideas about Gaia have started a change in the conception of biology that may serve as a vital complement to the revolution that brought us the structures of DNA and proteins and the genetic code.”
All in all a rather balanced article. Perhaps part of the beginning of the Great Walk Back.
In the interview, Lovelock said he would not take back a word of his seminal work “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth,” published in 1979.
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.
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“Perhaps part of the beginning of the Great Walk Back”
…an outcome devoutly to be wished.
As per, you get what you stand for!
As for your free will or the wish of freedom of the choice of you … of you… as desired… by you!!!
“[Lovelock’s] almost unparalleled influence in environmental science is based instead on a particular way of seeing things,” Oliver Morton, of the journal Nature wrote …”
That “particular way of seeing things” is the way environmental nutcases see things.
Lovelock is a very smart guy. But he is popular with the nutcase set for the same reason that Paul Ehrlich is popular with the nutcase set.
Like Ehrlich’s, Lovelock’s work is a moist, steamy appeal to enviro-nutcase sentiments.
MSNBC’s smarmy article goes on in its second half as a paean to climate disaster with some usual suspects saying that, no matter what, we’re going to fry. Just a bit later than we thought.
I read with cynical amusement Peter Stott’s remark that the present pause, “would need to continue for another 10 years or so before it could be considered evidence that something was missing from climate models.”
Where did we hear that before? Oh, yeah. It was used to explain away the previous embarrassing pause that started in 1999.
And “[Lovelock’s] ideas about Gaia have” not “started a change in the conception of biology that may serve as a vital complement to the revolution that brought us the structures of DNA and proteins and the genetic code.”
The ecosphere of Earth is not itself an organism. That pop idea has had no influence on the science of Biology, though it may have been embraced as a personal religion by the pathologically romantic among biologists.
Supposing the Gaia idea is of a stature with DNA, proteins, and the genetic code is beyond fatuous, entering well into hilariously levitated.
Didn’t whatshisface (Jones?) at UEA admit that there had been no statistical warming for 30 years? Didn’t that prove the whole CAGW hypothesis wrong, by their own criteria?
In a sane world yes, ZZW.
Lovelock’s last remark given in the above article:
This speaks volumes about the character of the man. With age he seems almost on the edge of stating he was young and foolish in his claims from younger ages, which led very many followers away from truth . . . but then he turns around a makes a quip to the effect that honesty back then was a trivial matter, that it would have “spoilt” his pontifications (and, of course, his fame).
If James Lovelock is now seeking redemption from me, he’s looking in the wrong place.
P.S. Hey, Jim, can you finally get a clue: of course “climate change is still happening” (on Earth) as it has for, oh, the last 4+ billion years or so. And at its natural pace.
This story was several years ago. Mainstream media totally ignored it. This is the actual problem-media are OWNED. They are controlled by those with a vested interest in perpetuating the FEAR campaign.
It is one of those fundamental defects of humans-a 2 month continuous fear campaign permanently alters the brain, making it difficult to program out of the false belief. As it is, humans behave irrationally when they are in fear.
The solution-take the Propaganda Vaccine. Refuse to live in fear. To quote Thomas Jefferson-“When injustice becomes law, Resistance becomes Duty.” It is our DUTY to resist the lies from our (controlled) overlords. From insane wearing of masks outside to being forced to be part of a (failing) medical experiment. From boycotting woke businesses and refusing to subscribe to green lunacy. It is our DUTY to resist.
He’s noticed that without various government departments and agencies cooking the books, temperatures are not rising in lockstep with CO₂
Basically, Lovelock bought into a fantasy as imaginary as his fictional books. A fact that makes his Gaia revenge book just another fictional work.
Instead of Lovelock apologizing for his earning money scaring the public, he essentially doubles down and moves his goal posts.
May his winter weather be chilly.
God, is not Gaia…
It is as it supposedly to be,
God is not Gaia ..
cheers
…else we end up with G(i)G(i).
He subscribed to ‘the Noble Lie’ and now he’s trying to backtrack.
A well-composed bill of indictment, ATheoK.
One that can also be levied against any other of the purveyors of CO2 frenzy. Or against the field in its entirety.
I don’t believe that CO2 causes earth to warm but I do believe that we will run out of carbon-based fuel and that the planets human population is unsustainable.
You are a human ingenuity denier
Frankly I have little interest in any more unsupported beliefs on this subject. Beliefs are dangerous, especially when they lack any evidence.
We have hundreds and hundreds of years before carbon based fuels run out.
Asking how we will deal with that situation is like asking the people alive in 1021, how those who live in 2021 will adapt to their travails.
Given the fact that the rate of change has accelerated at a tremendous pace over the last 100 year, my analogy is way too tame.
Challenge to WUWT Readers. There is something called a Stirling Engine that uses a closed system to drive a piston. CO2 is claimed to cause a 1+ degree C increase when CO2 was increased from 300 to 400 ppm. It is claimed to cause 500 degrees C temps on Venus. If thermalizing outgoing LWIR can cause a temperature differential of 1 to 500 degree C, that temperature differential should be able to be harnessed and drive a piston. If CO2 can warm air to the degree they claim, why can’t CO2 power a Stirling Engine? All you need is a LWIR Transparent Cylinder, a LWIR Blocking/Absorbing Shield. Expose the CO2 to LWIR, it expands, Block the LWIR after the AIr has expanded, and it cools. That is a CO2 driven perpetual engine.
Know you were kidding. But a fun true story follows.
I know a great deal about Stirling engines. Dean Kamen of Segway fame tried to get Motorola to invest in his version when I head Ventures and New Businesses as part of my head of corporate strategy job. External heat source. But you still have to cool the internal working fluid. Unlike an ICE where about 85% of the internal combustion heat is removed by the exhaust, in a Stirling engine all internal heat has to be removed by the radiator. So even a very small weak one (1 HP) needs a relatively huge radiator. And the problem with Dean’s small 1HP version for India tube well pumps was his key mechanical Sterling trick had been developed and published in NZ, so his patent application was worthless. He really didn’t like that we invested neither in Segway nor the Stirling. His complaints to the CEO and Board went nowhere because I had a good track record and reputation.
I have another idea. Take a look at typical energy balance on Earth from climate guys: https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/energy
It’s only about 50 units of energy coming directly from the sun. Atmosphere with just a little bit of CO2 triple that amount. If you fill solar cell with pure CO2 you could multiply energy production by the factor of 10.
For some reason does not work for solar cell, only for the planet. /sarc
Never mind
Greta is not amused.
Greta is to today’s high school children what Farrah Fawcett was to my generation. This is why the world is in trouble despite this algoremaggedon stuff being a bunch of hooey.
These kids have no interest in sex or reproduction. They’re scared, humorless and glued to their smartphones like Joe Biden to his one remaining functioning brain cell. Even the Victorians were more fun than Greta.
Joe,
If Greta is today’s version of Farrah Fawcett, then there is very little chance of the world population rising much further! That kid could knock the excitement out of a Victoria’s Secret modeling show! Blah, blah, blah!
Today’s version of Farrah Fawcett is found on a porn website somewhere, easier than finding her 1976 swimsuit poster, sexy back then but tame now. Sorry, nobody, literally nobody gives Greta a second look.
Greta is most assuredly not amused because Greta was refused an official invite to the Copfest. Frankly Greta is incandescent with rage, stomping around and claiming the world leaders are afraid of her. Yeah, right.
But it’s true!
I believe that the only reason that I haven’t been invited too is because they are afraid of me.
I wonder how many people realise climate models are pure crap based on fictional beliefs.
Whatever that number is, Rick, it’s not enough.
“Perhaps part of the beginning of the Great Walk Back.”
______________________________________________
Don ‘t hold your breath.
Gaia has created humankind to relief some carbon stranded in fossils for life. But the alarmists try to spoil it.
Were humans created to save Life from extinction?
You don’t have to be a Ufologist to answer the question; if an alien species wanted a nice water planet, devoid of life to colonize, what would they do differently from GangGreen!?
I have also the feeling like if I lived in a sci-fi, in which ETs instigated our apoptosis to grab our planet. The Green climatic cult shall convert us to a global suicide sect.
Steve MacIntyre at Climate Audit is continuing to report, bravely and meticulously, a growing culture of fraud in the climate alarmist movement across the media, academia and further.
https://climateaudit.org/
The BBC forged screenshots of Macintyre’s site, subtly distorting information in an attempt to deflect attention away from climate alarmist scientists’ malpractice.
And the PAGES 2019 project is shown in instance after instance to be so egregiously selective of proxies in a transparently biased way, that the whole project becomes a joke with zero credibility.
Lovelock is all used up, as Edgar Poe showed, even if he endorsed nuclear,
THE MAN THAT WAS USED UPA Tale of the Late Bugaboo and Kickapoo Campaign
https://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/POE/used_up.html
The sheer science incompetence is easily demonstrated by Vernadsky :
The Biosphere
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4612-1750-3
The length the blob go to greening Vernadsky shows their trepidation.
Meanwhile the Pope wrote (or Sir John Schellnhuber CBE) a paean to Gaia, Laudato Si.
Presumably his confession with Biden just now was not in Latin…
Anyway Lovelock probably cannot understand at 90 the Davos Great Reset and $150 trillion green new deal on Gaia’s alter.
Even more so, he’s 102.
Try explaining that to a tweenie, or Greta the ever-15 year old!
wow, I remember how rabid he was. To hear him say this is a bit of a shock, but it’s nice to see he’s capable of reassessing his outlook based on factual observations.
Peter,
Many people feel regret for the sins of their youth as they get older! Most of them don’t get into their nineties before realizing them, however!
Is that an old article or a mistake ? Lovelock is 102
The walk back is a long one. Some will not make it.
For anyone who didn’t notice, this story is approaching it’s tenth birthday as Lovelock has passed his 102nd. In fact it’s referenced below the story in the “Related” line up from April 2012.
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing'”It is doing precisely what it has always done, f**king moron.
It looks like this story is from 2012.
At least, in comparison with many alarmists out there, he is capable of acknowledging that he made a mistake. That is a positive point that distinguishes him from many others.
I looked at the majority of comments in this thread at this time, they’re missing several key points:
1) The article is posted on MSM: NBCnews.com
2) UK Met Office head of climate monitoring and attribution, Hadley center, agrees with Lovelock
This is a double whammy of public climate alarmist figures walking back the extremist rhetoric. There is even mention that the models are too warm.
As someone pointed out in comments, this article is dated 2012. Maybe it was a transposed 21? Apparently not, since he’s now 102 years old (weird, that) rather than the 92 cited in the article. The date of the article should be prominently noted in the introduction.
It’s interesting to note how much NBC News has changed, however. They’d never print a story like that today, which should have been a clue, I suppose.
When hype clashes with reality, reality prevails. Eventually.
I have it on good authority that Lovelock’s new book will be co-authored by Emily Litella . . .
“Jim Lovelock has no university, no research institute, no students.”
He also has no sense or ability. The man is a complete idiot.