James Lovelock (Gaia) distantieert zich van klimaatalarmisme

Onder de titel, 'Gaia' scientist James Lovelock: I was 'alarmist' about climate change', schreef Ian Johnston op de website World News van MSNBC dat James Lovelock, bekend van de Gaia-hypothese, afstand heeft genomen van het klimaatalarmisme.

Johnston:

British environmental guru James Lovelock,   admits he was "alarmist" about climate change in the past.

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 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. ...

Asked if he was now a climate skeptic, Lovelock told msnbc.com: “It depends what you mean by a skeptic. I’m not a denier.” He said human-caused carbon dioxide emissions were driving an increase in the global temperature, but added that the effect of the oceans was not well enough understood and could have a key role. “It (the sea) could make all the difference between a hot age and an ice age,” he said.

He said he still thought that climate change was happening, but that its effects would be felt farther in the future than than he previously thought. “We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said. ..

As “an independent and a loner,” he said he did not mind saying “All right, I made a mistake.” He claimed a university or government scientist might fear an admission of a mistake would lead to the loss of funding.

Lees verder hier.

De leidende figuren van het klimaatalarmisme krabbelen nu terug. En zoals gebruikelijk, laten zij de mindere Goden, de epigonen, in de kou staan. Triest voor hen. Maar dat is nu eenmaal het lot van epigonen.

Maar ja, volgens Jan Paul van Soest en de zijnen zal deze 'twijfelzaaier' of 'saboteur' van de klimaatdiscussie waarschijnlijk wel weer onder invloed zijn van duistere krachten, zoals de fossiele brandstoffenindustrie en Amerikaanse pro-markt denktanks. Hoe gek kun je het bedenken?

PS,

Een uitvoerig interview met James Lovelock is hier op de website van 'The Guardian' te vinden onder de titel: 'James Lovelock on the value of sceptics and why Copenhagen was doomed. Read the full transcript of James Lovelock's G2 interview with Leo Hickman.'

Voor mijn eerdere DDS-bijdragen, zie: