First posted 24 April 2012
'Gaia' scientist James Lovelock reverses himself: I was 'alarmist' about climate change and so was Gore!'...'The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.'...'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. (Reported from US by MSNBC)
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Link here
New link: Johnny Ball heralds an end to Climate Change Alarmism. Johnny is a British popularizer of science and mathematics, writing and presenting 23 Solo Television series, with "Think of a Number", "Think Again", etc (BBC), and "Johnny Ball Reveals All" (ITV). His TV shows and videos won 12 awards, including a BAFTA., a New York International Emmy nomination, and the ITVA "Presenter of the Year" Craft Award.
Heralding an end to Climate Change Alarmism
from the blog of Johnny Ball in UK (http://www.johnnyball.co.uk/html/johnnysblog.html)
Johnny Ball is a popularizer of science and mathematics, writing and presenting 23 Solo Television series, with "Think of a Number", "Think Again", etc (BBC), and "Johnny Ball Reveals All" (ITV). His TV shows and videos won 12 awards, including a BAFTA., a New York International Emmy nomination, and the ITVA "Presenter of the Year" Craft Award.
April 2012. A little "Crow" to herald the end to Climate Change Alarmism!"
Having delayed this for some time, as one doesn't gain much for crowing "I was right", I think the time is right, right now!
James Lovelock, the great guru of Climate Change and impending doom, has admitted he was "Wrong over his alarmism with regard to galloping Global Warming." As he said the other day - "We should have been frying by now?" Poor fool. It is clearly established that there has been no significant change in world temperature for over 12 years. There have been less "severe" weather events and not more. There are no alarming changes in Ice or Sea levels. There are droughts here and heavy rains there, but nothing that can be construed as worsening conditions due to Climate Change.
So the points I made at the Bloomsbury Theatre, when I was slow handclapped (by a dozen out of 500 people) were after all, totally correct. CO2 is clearly not a major factor in climate change, as I have always maintained and as was apparent from the very start of the history of Chemistry with Dalton's Atomic Theory. CO2 is part of the triumverate along with Oxygen and Water, that originally made and still makes life on earth possible. If you demonise one of them, you soon find you have to demonise all three.
The boss of the Met Office called me in to tell me that warming was still taking place - but it wasn't. A President of a major Scientific society showed me "how CO2 can absorb more energy along the baseline of it's identifying graph" - but then perhaps a more qualified scientist confirmed my belief that this was unscientific piffle. The Royal Society first asked me to speak, but then begged that I did not feature my views on Climate Change (as Al Gore was speaking in the same week). Yet everything I wanted to say and did say by way of begging the question - is now shown to have been correct?
Those who accuse me of being anti-green, I feel, should be aware of what I have had to put up with. Yet one of my major activities these days is selling greener energy policies to ordinary people, not to save the planet, but to save them their hard earned cash. I promote Energy From Waste - as the state of the art technology produces no alarming discharges and saves precious land from being used to dump rubbish. I drive a very green car - the BMW5 series 2.5 turbo diesel, because it is the greenest car in its class - but now realise that stupid politicians have decreed that I shall pay "No Road Tax?" - which is politically crazy as the only place I will use the car is - on the roads of Great Britain? Not to worry - bereft of cash, the government now realise that the only soruce of revenue still untapped, is available by clawing back the stupid subsidies they have given to Wind, Solar, Tidal and other inadequate or inefficient technologies.
It has to be remembered that the human race is a tremendous weight on our precious Planet. But the green antics of promoting defense against climate change have included taking diesl generators from hidiously poor villages in Asia and Africa, denying them even the technology to keep their medicines cold - a human tragedy in the name of saving the planet, which was featured by Royal Society President Sir Paul Nurse in his excellent Dimbleby Lecture. The green lobbyist have attempted at every turn, to reject best practice technology in favour of half baked and inadequate alternative energy schemes. But the truth is that our technoogies are improving at every turn and in every direction, in becoming more efficient and less taxing on the planet.
So, I feel I can once again smile and show contentment at the way things are going - though I never stopped smiling, because my faith in the human race was never really shaken by the green doom and gloom air heads. As I still maintain at the end of each of my lectures - that for our next generations, despite the shortcomings that are apparent in our every day lives, the future is technologically brighter than any of us can yet imagine - and we, the human race, will collectively make it so.
Johnny Ball, April 2012