James Lovelock Top Climate Alarmist Says He Was Wrong

By Ian Johnston, msnbc.com
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 new book, due to be published next year, will be the third in a trilogy, following his earlier works, “Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity,” and “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can.”
The new book will discuss how humanity can change the way it acts in order to help regulate the Earth’s natural systems, performing a role similar to the harmonious one played by plants when they absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

Climate's 'usual tricks'
It will also reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.
“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.

He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.

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.”
NYT: Most tie extreme weather to global warming, poll finds

Lovelock also won the U.K.’s Geological Society’s Wollaston Medal in 2006. In a posting on its website, the society said it was “rare to be able to say that the recipient has opened up a whole new field of Earth science study” – referring to the Gaia theory of the planet as single complex system.
However Lovelock, who works alone at his home in Devon, England, has fallen out with the green movement in the past, particularly after saying countries should build nuclear power stations to help reduce the greenhouse gas emissions caused by coal and oil.

top climate scientist is like the #2 job in al-qeada, seems like a lot of turnover

Top alarmist is an understatement. This guy was so far out there. I think he once said the world pop would drop to under 500 million by 2100. No one took this senile old man seriously.....

The pollution has to go somehwere. We live in a closed system, millions of tons of toxic gasses blasted into the air do not disappear.

"In a study spearheaded by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) in collaboration with Commonweal, researchers at two major laboratories found an average of 200 industrial chemicals and pollutants in umbilical cord blood from 10 babies born in August and September of 2004 in U.S. hospitals. Tests revealed a total of 287 chemicals in the group. The umbilical cord blood of these 10 children, collected by Red Cross after the cord was cut, harbored pesticides, consumer product ingredients, and wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage.

Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied."

http://www.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php

confession is good for the soul

"There's nothing new under the sun" ~ baby Jesus

We need to take care of the pollution. That shit is killing us. CO2 not so much.

When Yellowstone blows it wont matter anyway so smoke em if you got em.

Whah? So when a volcano spews metric tons of sulfur, co2, and other noxious gases into the atmosphere, they don't break down or dissipate?... Yep... Gotcha. You need to get a science lesson from non-internet sources.

Which toxic gasses or toxic chemicals does a volcano spew?

Well from the begining of the article

"the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism."

Ok we can stop there.

It is worth repeating 97% of active climate scientists working int he field say it's happening and it's co2. This guy isn't one of these people.


In any case his argument that there's been no warming for 15 years is thoroughly discredited. So not sure what his motivation is. Whether he has bought the denialism, or what. If he had something to say other than spouting a thoroughly discredited claim. It might be worth listening to him. It's just kind of sad otherwise.


When in this 15 years you have 10 of the warmest years on record. 9 happening since 2000. I don't think it's quite accurate to say the planet has stopped warming.
Anyone can look at the graph below from NASA and see the warming trend. They can see ups and downs. How at many points you could take a small section and claim temperature is stable or cooling ect. The long term trend is what matters. Why decide right now is the point point where the trend will be broken? There's no reason to.

Republicans don't like this-it's not simple enough. It's easier for their brains to just determine that there's no problem and not give it a thought.
It's simply easier to deny science and reality.

I'm really not sure why people are concerned about the current weather patterns in the U.S. We experience this type of temporary warming and mild winters every 4 to 5 years. It's the La Nina effect. Why do the GW Alarmists make like this never happens? I remember multiple warm winters in the late 70s due to this, and then again in the late 80s. What's the fucking mystery?

Uh.... mainly Sulfur, Sulfur Dioxide
Natural reactions will also produce Hydrochloric acid, Hydrofluoric Acid, Sulfuric Acid, Hydrogen Sulfide, just to name a few.

All mixed in with H2O and CO2, which are not toxic.

Wouldn't you consider those toxic?

I'll take my chances with the volcanic ash: "the incidence of childhood cancers around the vicinity of the Limerick nuclear plant are “92% higher than normal”."

Real pollution is bad, no one wants to breathe chemicals or have polluted water. The Al Gores of the world go after co2, which is pretty much plant food. The only reason they do it is so they can tax the world for breathing. They don't care about real pollution. Obama is closing down coal plants which are very clean in todays modern world and he wants to open up more nuclear power plants.

I think for once I agree with you. It reminds me of Canadian writer Margaret Atwood; a super granola running around like a hero but a wind farm in Pelee islands? No can't have that, apparently it kills too many birds. Or is it really that fact that she and all of the residnets there are using that as a pretext; they do not want the wind mills to ruin the views from their cottages.

Plant food thing is just spin. Bad spin at that. It's one of those arguments that when made is a clear indicator the person making it is a dumb shit. Or at least knows so little on the issue and is so unaware of how ignorant they are, that until they can make an actual proper argument they aren't worth listening to.

I'm sorry but that's the truth.

Yeah...plant food...who needs/wants to feed all those stupid trees and stuff...let them fend for themselves !!!!!!!!!!!!