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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJames Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change
The problem is we dont 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 hasnt happened, Lovelock said.
The climate is doing its usual tricks. Theres 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 Gores An Inconvenient Truth and Tim Flannerys The Weather Makers as other examples of alarmist forecasts of the future.
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change?lite
Politicalboi
(15,189 posts)See it all works out in the end. We only had over 40 years to do something about where we're at now. Why start now. Until we are flooded throughout the US why should we worry.
Bake
(21,977 posts)in KENTUCKY.
Bake
Hugabear
(10,340 posts)And we ARE seeing its effects, firsthand.
One crackpot does not negate the sheer overwhelming number of scientists who agree that climate change is real.
Johonny
(20,851 posts)aren't doing that bad a job. Heck our model's from 20 years ago are doing all right. The only reason to think the world was going to be fried is if you totally disbelieved the most likely senario's. The name dropping of people who clearly aren't alarmist like Al Gore who's book relies on most likely senario's is just that, name dropping.
spanone
(135,844 posts)CJCRANE
(18,184 posts)for being one of the first to warn us about climate change.
I don't understand why he's back-pedaling now.
RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)of his backpedaling. From a PR point of view, this will have ramifications. And, of course, I personally find that every PR setback is an environmental one over time as well.
Snake Alchemist
(3,318 posts)Speck Tater
(10,618 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)or the degree uptick in world temps?
I gotta ask, what is going on here? You do not have this kind of back pedaling just because.
bananas
(27,509 posts)Ezlivin
(8,153 posts)N/T
edhopper
(33,587 posts)Where does he think the data is not saying it it getting hotter?
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bananas
(27,509 posts)I've said a number of times that Joe Romm has the most reality-based analysis,
here's some posts he's made about Lovelock:
James Lovelock turns everyone into a climate optimist
By Joe Romm on Oct 26, 2007 at 8:40 am
No, the profile of famed scientist James Lovelock in Rolling Stone will not give you renewed hope about humanitys fate in the face of global warming. It will make you or Al Gore or James Hansen or even me look optimistic by comparison:
<snip>
Anyway, I dont agree with Lovelocks projected impacts this century (it wont be THAT severe that fast and humans are more resilient than he believes) nor do I agree it is too late to avoid the worst, but it is definitely much later than people think. I dont think the engines are about to fail, but the ships out-dated coal-fired boilers may be about to blow if they dont get replaced by the next President with something much, much cleaner .
edit to add some more from climate progress:
Lovelock still makes me look like Paula Abdul, warns climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age
By Joe Romm on Jun 29, 2009
Lovelock: Malthus was right, and Climate Progress is way, way too optimistic
By Joe Romm on Mar 22, 2008
Phoonzang
(2,899 posts)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.-- I'm sure he's right. That's extreme and improbable, to say the least. But this will be used by the deniers unfortunately.
Raine
(30,540 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)And other of their ilk. I expect to see more of this as the change deniers get more desperate. "Nothing to see, it's all normal, forget the crops dying and the cities flooding, happens all the time...."
sibelian
(7,804 posts)Welllll... hm....
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)RadiationTherapy
(5,818 posts)For many people, it will slow or reverse realizations about the relationship between industrialized humankind and climate effects.
bananas
(27,509 posts)Much more at:
James Lovelock Finally Walks Back His Absurd Doomism, But He Still Doesnt Follow Climate Science
By Joe Romm on Apr 23, 2012 at 7:10 pm
<snip>
edhopper
(33,587 posts)would know how serious things are. The changes at the poles in the last 30 years has been dramatic.