Climate change deniers (as they have adopted "alarmists" and "warmenists" as a matter of routine, I'm not going to worry about using "denier" any more, although I have a soft spot for "fake skeptics") were all excited about Lovelock's recent interview where he said he had been too alarmist in his previous talk about how climate change would only leave a handful of breeding humans in the Arctic, and that "no one knows" what the climate is doing.
As I tried to tell the selectively stupid at another blog, it's not as if Lovelock was ever "mainstream" on the topic. My sentiments were summarised by a climate scientist quoted at the BBC (link at the top):
One IPCC scientist, who said he didn't want to be drawn into a personal argument with Dr Lovelock, said: "Jim exaggerated the certainties of climate change before, which wasn't helpful then. His recent comments aren't helpful nowJames Annan is also happy to point out that he and others called out Lovelock's extreme pessimism at the time, including Tim Lambert in Australia.
"They will be seized on by people who argue that science is too uncertain to inform policy - and that's absolutely not the case. He's blown too hot, now he's blowing too cold."
Prof Hans von Storch of the Meteorological Institute at the University of Hamburg told BBC News: "Lovelock certainly exaggerated in 2006. It seems that the extreme position on both sides are losing ground, and that is good."
That said, nearly everyone still likes listening to Lovelock. He is a very interesting character with lots of good work behind him. It's just that he has been well out on his own in terms of pessimism on climate change.
But does this wash with the selectively stupid will take his current view as indicating that everything is so uncertain that nothing should be done about CO2 emissions? No, of course not.
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