I just came across the full transcript of the interview responses made by James Lovelock to Leo Hickman of the Guardian who used some of them in this piece. They make interesting, challenging and thought provoking reading. Lovelock pulls no punches in his criticism of both sides in the climate debate and has a strong perspective of his own. I can’t reproduce the whole page here for copyright reasons, but you can always copy and paste a section from the original into the comments section if you want to discuss it. Here is a small selection to get started with:
The great climate science centres around the world are more than well aware how weak their science is. If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet.
We do need scepticism about the predictions about what will happen to the climate in 50 years, or whatever. It’s almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it’s wrong to do it.
I think the sceptic bloggers should worry. It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening. This is going to resolve itself and global heating is going to come back on stream and it’s these bloggers who are going to be made to look weird when it does. When something like this happens again, they’ll say we had all this before with ‘Climategate’. But there’s a danger that you can go off too strong, like they have. They are not sufficiently aware of the longer-term consequences.
We shouldn’t let the lobbies influence science. Whatever criticism might befall the IPCC and the UEA, they’re nothing as bad as lobbyists who are politically motivated and who will manipulate data or select data to make their political point. For example, it’s deplorable for the BBC whenever one of these issues comes up to go and ask what one of the green lobbyists thinks of it. Sometimes their view might be quite right, but it might also be pure propaganda. This is wrong. They should ask the scientists, but the problem is scientists won’t speak. If we had some really good scientists it wouldn’t be a problem, but we’ve got so many dumbos who just can’t say anything, or who are afraid to say anything. They’re not free agents.
I think the sceptic bloggers should worry. It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening. This is going to resolve itself and global heating is going to come back on stream and it’s these bloggers who are going to be made to look weird when it does.
On the other hand one could say : effect of CO2 is logarithmic and since there is only 2-3 ppm/annum added, and the carbon fuel consumption is limited as a natural resource and forever price increase, it may mean that current global values of increase are near its peak.
As it can be seen, from no less than the NOAA’s data, the rate of CO2 increase has been erratically falling since 2000.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2_data_mlo_anngr.png
I respect James Lovelock as a great scientist, thinker and philosopher but that doesn’t mean that he is always correct in each of his pronouncements.
Pure alarmist BS …
“I think the sceptic bloggers should worry. It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening.”
Why doesn’t he state CO2 increase in terms of percentages? Oh yeah, because the scale of change comes down to earth and is less alarming. I have *no* respect for Dr. Lovelocks’ vain posturing.
“It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening”
It is not almost certain, it is pure conjecture.
Lovelock did some commendable work when he was young. However much has changed in that time and he makes the fatal mistake of overestimating the importance of humans in Nature and underestimating Nature. We live in but the blink of an eye compared to nature. Given that CO2 has made up most of the atmosphere for most of the life of the earth I would say we have a shortage at present. You just can’t take anything he says seriously. Just pressing his own agenda whilst pretending to address the trouble science is in.
“It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening.”
Unsupported claims like this are why we need skeptics. As far as I know the only conclusively documented impact of increased atmospheric CO2 is that it makes plants grow faster.
TN: “You just can’t take anything he says seriously”
Well, yes and no. He undoubtedly has a brilliant miind, as his earlier work shows, but he vascillates between saying it’s unlikely Humans could make much difference at a planetary scale in his early work, to worrying about potential climate consequences from human emission of co2 later. But at the same time he recognises, and says quite bluntly that the science is totally uncertain. It seems to me that he is an honest man unafraid to speak his mind, and unworried by the contradictory nature of his statements as they sit alongside each other. I actually admire him for that. Too many of the outlets which make pronouncements on climate are strategy bound, and avoid ‘giving anything away’ or offering ‘hostages to fortune’.
On the other hand he might be devilishly cunning; giving something to everyone in order to increase his book sales. But on balance I think he is a very open human being who cares deeply about ‘spaceship Earth’ and struggles with the ambassadorial position thrust on him by his fate, in counterpoint to his truly scientific vocation and ethic.
I think he can’t weigh up the ‘precautionary principle’ to his own satisfaction and it bugs him mightily.
Posted quote & link on the WUWT’s
‘Quote of the week’
tb: “On the other hand he might be devilishly cunning; giving something to everyone in order to increase his book sales.”
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there Tallbloke.
I have five Lovelock books and I have great admiration for the man but I do think he is being very cunning here. He expresses lots of doubts about warmists science or lack there of, yet he pushes the CO2 warming agenda without quoting the science.
“… global heating is going to come back on stream and it’s these bloggers who are going to be made to look weird when it does. …”
This is the key statement, in two ways. First, if global heating does come back on stream, yes, we will know that something unusual is going on. Perhaps man-made CO2 is important. But if it doesn’t, if stagnation or a decline characterize the next few years, then the (IPCC) projections are so far off actuality that we then will know that the models are inadequate, incorrect or both.
The second way is the timing: when is to come back “on stream” to validate CAGW? Those of us who say that climate heating and cooling is (currently) fundamentally a sol-driven, natural process, will concede that at some time the temperatures could go back up to those of the Cretaceous. Warming coming back in 10 years? Is this time period in the warmist story?
I’ll bet it is. I’ll bet that I’ll go to my grave with the Gore saying that the physics is right, but the oceans are buffering the heating right now, but JUST YOU WAIT!
Suzuki, also. The principle is that us humans are damaging the Earth irrevocably. We will pay. Like the sinners of Christianity, we WILL pay, though maybe not today or even in this generation. But the Earth – the current stand-in for God – will smite the evildoers on the Day of Judgement. Whenever that is. It’s the Law.
“… global heating is going to come back on stream…”
I too used to be an admirer of Lovelock’s early work, but couldn’t stomach any of the stuff when he reached the ‘Messiah’ stage, after his elevation by green zealots.
The above quote is risible, as the late 20th centurary warming is not unusual in the historic temperature record which shows similar rates have happened in the past. How does Lovelock know what the future will bring?
“If you talk to them privately they’re scared stiff of the fact that they don’t really know what the clouds and the aerosols are doing. They could be absolutely running the show. We haven’t got the physics worked out yet.”
Aerosol are everywhere ,one cubic centimetre of air contains thousands of them. Water vapour preferentially condenses onto these solid and liquid particles simply because there are so many of them. There would be no clouds without them.
So I agree with Professor Lovelock, aerosol could be running the show! or at least they should be seriously considered within the climate change debate.
Especially when Co2 enrichment will increase the production of aerosol from the biosphere, for example pollen is a very effective cloud condensation nuclei aerosol and plants will produce more of them.
They should be “scared stiff” because they don’t really know the scaling (size distribution) of dust.
A scaling theory for the size distribution of emitted dust aerosols suggests climate models underestimate the size of the global dust cycle
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/jasperkok/files/kok2011_pnas_scalingtheorydustpsd.pdf
And they influence SSTs;-
Wang et. al say it’s naturally occurring African dust!!!
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-11-00413.1 (pay walled)
“This suggests a novel mechanism for North Atlantic SST variability – a positive feedback between North Atlantic SST, African dust, and Sahel rainfall on multi-decadal timescales. That is, a warm (cold) North Atlantic Ocean produces a wet (dry) condition in the Sahel and thus leads to low (high) concentration of dust in the tropical North Atlantic which in turn warms (cools) the North Atlantic Ocean”.
“An implication of this study is that coupled climate models need to be able to simulate this aerosol-related feedback in order to correctly simulate climate in the North Atlantic. Additionally, it is found that dust in the tropical North Atlantic varies inversely with the number of Atlantic hurricanes on multidecadal timescales due to the multidecadal variability of both direct and indirect influences of dust on vertical wind shear in the hurricane main development region”
I find it difficult to rationalise the following three statements being made by the same person:
["We haven’t got the physics worked out yet."]
and
["It’s almost naive, scientifically speaking, to think we can give relatively accurate predictions for future climate. There are so many unknowns that it’s wrong to do it."]
with
["It’s almost certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere without something nasty happening. This is going to resolve itself and global heating is going to come back on stream..."]
?
Wow! Now that is some honesty right up front at least. Yes he still thinks the great warming is going to come back, that’s fine, those very detailed aspects on exactly what radiation in our atmosphere does and does not do has captured many from both camps on the wrong side of physics. Now to read the rest. He is blunt and I like that.
The whole emphasis of Lovelock book was that the Earth’s systems maintained equilibrium by a system of negative feedbacks. The IPCC assumptions of positive feedbacks is in direct conflict with this and contrary to all evidence. That means that IPCC projections are all exaggerated by typically a factor of 5.
However the point should be accepted that changing CO2 content by a large amount must have consequences, some of them potentially serious. One of these consequences of course is that plants have more food.
Edit:
“It’s almost maybe possibly certain that you can’t put a trillion tonnes of CO2 back into the atmosphere it came from without something nasty or wonderful happening. Or not.”
There. Fixed.
Sounds a bit like what’s-his-face running the Berzerkley Project!! Claims he is a sceptic when he ALWAYS BELIEVED CO2 WAS A DANGER!!!
Yeah, he says the climate science is uncertain, but he certainly believes it’s certain that putting a trillion tonnes of CO2 will cause bad things to happen. Non story, IMO.
The climbdown has begun…
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change