Climate Change VI - Warmists and their Demise

[Mucha Man]

Regarding Lovelock:

When such high profile people make these kinds of pronouncements there is so much agenda/funding/lobbying/ennui behind them you might as well dismiss their statements out of hand. When the world's sober dull and well trained climate scientists and scientific bodies start saying something different then I will listen. So far they haven't.

Lovelock is a 92 year old man with a background in medicine and chemistry. He was a climate change alarmist and extremist and now has turned on himself. He isn't denying AGW by the way, just some of the extreme outcomes that he himself was one of the major proponents of not so long ago . The world should pat him on the head and ask him to say "I have a lovely bunch of coconuts" over and over again.

[Petrichor]

Sure. It's OK to be offensive on the flob...

Fred doesn't offend me...

Anyway... have a look at this:

The godfather of global warming lowers the boom on climate change hysteria

(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal.

As Lovelock observes, “Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.” (Kandeh Yumkella, co-head of a major United Nations program on sustainable energy, made similar arguments last week at a UN environmental conference in Rio de Janeiro, advocating the development of conventional and unconventional natural gas resources as a way to reduce deforestation and save millions of lives in the Third World.)

(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion.

“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,” Lovelock observed. “I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.”

(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines.

As he puts it, “so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.”

(4) Finally, about claims “the science is settled” on global warming: “One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.”

This is the final nail in the coffin and I'm not surprised it isn't being discussed. The "godfather" of the movement himself says this stuff was waaaaaay overblown and that they were WRONG. But naturally that doesn't stop the proponents of the naturalistic religion from driving that ideologic train.

If you read the actual article that the Toronto Sun selectively lifted quotes from you can see that this is utter bullshit.

Here it is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2 ... aia-theory

After criticising the Green movement as behaving like a religion (what an insult that must be!) he then goes on to say:

He displays equal disdain for those who do not accept science on climate change: "They've got their own religion. They believe that the world was right before these damn people [the greens] came along and want to go back to where we were 20 years ago. That's also silly in its own way."

Nowhere does Lovelock say, either in the article you quote nor the original article in the Guardian, that climate change scientists have got it wrong.

[Deuce Dropper]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/04/ ... latestnews

The above link is all you need to know, follow the money, the rest of this thread is just the same old slanted babbling from the same VW Bug full of circus clowns that troll these forums with their 'well thought out' (read: copy/paste) arguments.

Click the link and the truth will set you free.

/End thread

[cfimages]

I find this description of Lovelock as "Godfather of Global Warming" quite amusing. I've never heard him called that before, and distinctly remember one of my university professor's in climate back in the early 90's (who incidentally is one of the world's leading atmospheric scientists) saying that Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis needed to be taken with a grain of salt. He's definitely not considered the Godfather of Global Warming among climate scientists.

Out of interest I googled the term "godfather of global warming". Every result on the first 10 pages of Google refers to the article linked above. Based on that, one can draw the conclusion that the label "Godfather of Global Warming" was given to him by the journalist who wrote the original article.

While it may create a better soundbite to say "Godfather of Global Warming lowers the boom..... " considering he has never previously been referred to as "godfather" and climate scientists already take some of his theories with a grain of salt, I wouldn't draw any conclusions regarding the science based on the report or any of those based upon it. In fact, anyone who does do just that is just showing their ignorance of the science behind it.

[fred smith]

04teacherlin is right. It would be equally accurate to say nature, left alone, "produces" no CO2 at all. Google "carbon cycle". There is a baseline level of CO2 in the air that is continually being removed and augmented - but it's not the same CO2 from moment to moment because it's being circulated through living organisms, the earth, and the sea. The state of the system is stable and self-maintaining, even with a certain level of disturbance.

A disturbance like a volcano erupting? a disturbance like forest fires?

Measuring atmospheric CO2 is therefore a bit like a doctor measuring blood cholesterol levels.

NO IT IS NOT. The earth is not a human being. It does not have a fever. We are not hurting its feelings. Mother Nature does not cry.

It's not an indication of how much cholesterol you're putting into your body, but a measure of how well your body is maintaining a sensible circulating level (cholesterol is used by, and synthesized by, your own body, principally as a raw material for steroid hormones, so it's under active management). If the levels are "off", it's because your body is unable to cope with something you're doing to it - and not necessarily excess cholesterol going in.

Nonsense.

That's why I think Steviebike has a better approach - focus on pollution in general, and its negative effects, and see what we can do to reduce it considerably. Understanding the earth's interlocking control loops, and then setting some arbitrary limit for anthropogenic emissions, seems like a slippery task, at best.

A better approach than whose? climate change alarmists?

In fact, who cares what the limit is? Does it matter if it's 2GT/year, 20, or 50? Are we seriously considering polluting simply because we can? Is nobody interested in whether we need to? Whether we are getting something of benefit in return? The bizarre thing about the modern world is that we've achieved what the pundits said we would: freedom. Provision of everything a human could need, for a relatively low labour input. And what did we decide to fill our leisure time with? More work!

No one is suggesting that we are polluting because we can. This is about setting limits on development. Many of us think that is stupid. Many don't really care about the issue of global warming. They want to control development.

How much of what goes on in the world is done in the name of "creating employment", I wonder? Pick a random middle manager in the local government, or Cargill, or IBM, or Asia Pulp and Paper - would the world stop turning if they stayed at home this year? If the corporation folded entirely, would humanity crumble?

It would for that person if he or she was out of a job. Given that we have 8 to 15 percent unemployment in the developed world, I would suggest that greater concern for those who want to work and cannot might be in order. This is not just about creating a bunch of crap that suburban housewives IN THEIR SUVs go buy becuase they are bored. How AWFUL!

An awful lot of the pollution and waste that goes on is 100% unnecessary, and it would be 110% unnecessary if people would learn how to stop doing things. Fred's fulminating about money-wasting NGOs is really just the edge of that big picture.

I am not sure that you have understood my point, but... if you understand the futile blandering bloviating blundering of so many of these organizations and their "efforts," then we can agree.

[fred smith]

I find this description of Lovelock as "Godfather of Global Warming" quite amusing. I've never heard him called that before, and distinctly remember one of my university professor's in climate back in the early 90's (who incidentally is one of the world's leading atmospheric scientists) saying that Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis needed to be taken with a grain of salt. He's definitely not considered the Godfather of Global Warming among climate scientists.

So which one was the leading atmospheric scientist that YOU studied with?

As to the labeling in grandiose but inaccurate fashion, you have no further to look than Jimmy Carter, Our Best Ex-president. He may not have done well but he meant well. He is and was our Human Rights President. He was not about making America Strong but making America Good. Heard any of those? Ever wondered how they came about?

[cfimages]

I find this description of Lovelock as "Godfather of Global Warming" quite amusing. I've never heard him called that before, and distinctly remember one of my university professor's in climate back in the early 90's (who incidentally is one of the world's leading atmospheric scientists) saying that Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis needed to be taken with a grain of salt. He's definitely not considered the Godfather of Global Warming among climate scientists.

So which one was the leading atmospheric scientist that YOU studied with?

http://www.climatescience.org.au/staff/profile/apitman

[fred smith]

Awards and accolades received by Professor Pitman include: NSW Scientist of the Year Award (2010), the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographical Medal (2009), the Dean’s Award for Science Leadership at Macquarie University (2005), the Priestly Medal for Excellence in Atmospheric Science Research (2004) and the Geoff Conolly Memorial Award (2004). He jointly won the International Justice Prize for the Copenhagen Diagnosis (2010) and was among Sydney Magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people (2010).

World's leading climate change scientists???????

[fred smith]

Let's google him and see what comes up especially with all those peer-reviewed articles...
Um...

Okay...

Er...

One link and then... nothing... hell, even a google search on my name pulls up more info on the first page then that... does that make me a leading anything in the world?

[fred smith]

He was a climate change alarmist and extremist and now has turned on himself. He isn't denying AGW by the way, just some of the extreme outcomes that he himself was one of the major proponents of not so long ago . The world should pat him on the head and ask him to say "I have a lovely bunch of coconuts" over and over again.

And for ditching his alarmist and extremist views, he should be treated like a senile old fool? Or perhaps you got your wording incorrectly? Surely, he should be congratulated by getting rid of what you, yourself, have labeled as extremist and alarmist?