One of the intellectual pillars of climate change alarmism admits that his predictions have failed.
The MSNBC.com reports (my tip of the hat to libertarian colleague Patrick Ella)
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.”…
Mr. Lovelock acknowledges that his models didn’t work and that environmentalists have been overestimating on their understanding of nature.
More from the same article…
“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…
His admission…
“We will have global warming, but it’s been deferred a bit,” Lovelock said.
'I made a mistake'
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.
Just say what government wants and funding will follow. This epitomizes the politics of climate change.
At least Mr. Lovelock has been forthright enough to face up with reality. Although like doomsday diviner Harold Camping whose controversial forecasts in 2011 failed to materialize, Mr. Lovelock seems locked into a defensive posture to protect his work by pushing his forecasts to the indeterminate future.
Only when the tide goes out, said Warren Buffett, do you discover who’s been swimming naked.
Apparently the anthropomorphic climate change dogma has been swimming naked.
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