In an interview  with MSMBC,  two months ago, James Lovelock, the “godfather of global warming”, recanted his strong beliefs on the inevitability of global warming. He said he had been unduly alarmist. That other doom prophets such as Al Gore were too.
James Lovelock developed the Gaia theory, portraying Earth as one big organism and it’s inhabitants as inter-reliant on each other. That the preservation of the whole system was largely affected by the actions of the organisms within.
No postulating layman or “political scientist”, he invented the electron capture detector in 1957. this allowed the measurement of cloroflourocarbons (CFC’)s to be measured in the atmosphere. CFC’s have a profound effect on the thickness of the ozone layer.
lovelock says that global warming is still occurring but “doomsday” predictions were wrong as the actual temperatures don’t reflect the computer modeling.
The degree of his turnaround from his 2006 book that predicted billions would die from the effects of GW is unprecedented; he now endorses nuclear power, tracking and lashed “greenies for treating
Global Warming like a religion.
From science 20 – What’s eating the Godfather of Global warming:
“It’s just the way the humans are that if there’s a cause of some sort, a religion starts forming around it. It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use. The greens use guilt. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting CO2 in the air.”
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.”
http://www.science20.com/science_20/james_lovelock_whats_eating_godfather_global_warming-91406
The following is the full transcript of the UK Guardian interview:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jun/15/james-lovelock-fracking-greens-climate
In this interview, he says,”wherever the UN puts it’s finger in, it becomes a mess. He “detests” the Uk Liberal Democrats however, he says he is neither Left or Right:
“All ideologues are harmful. They are never right. We get to our stable position through checks and balances. The whole of nature does that through natural selection. Proportional representation is a very bad idea and an absolute gift to ideologues.
My commentary:
I was well aware by the age of eight that fervor and fear of technology could be whipped up very easily. A schoolfriend of mine told me we would get obliterated by a nuclear cloud from Chernobyl.
I was paralyzed by my own emotions and wouldn’t leave the couch until Mum coaxed my fear from me.
Burned at an early age, I was skeptical over GE and rightly skeptical of the Y2K bug non-issue.
Sometimes power can only be obtained by whipping up fear and loathing of others. An easy target is the “uppity” middle classes. UN Political Guilt tugboat, Helen Clark, recently said that consumers must curb their appetites or we are digging a grave for emerging economies:
I wonder if the UN is a haven for ideologues.
Environmentalism belongs in the local community. It should be up to the local community to retain or endorse, say, fracking. I have family employed in the oil industry in Taranaki. I have hazy memories of the distant glow at night from oil burnoffs. Somehow I doubt Taranaki would go for a hazy, non-proven, “environment over the economy”, mindset. Only if the down stream effects to other provinces or the entire NZ GDP was at stake should we be legislating to prevent environmental damage.
And this is where the traditional right wing needs to step up – the Federated Farmers position on dirty rivers was protective of the industry rather than being based in reality. Even when water quality was directly attributable to local farms.
If the science is dubious or not proven then the decisions should be in the favor of the community. Wind-power is  case in point:
 Wind power – a method of electricity generation widely hated by the communities surrounding wind farms. Perhaps the turbines belong in  the 13th century or in the ocean as in the photo above.
