Famed environmentalist says no one ‘knows what’s happening’ with the climate

[Oceander]

Daily Caller

Famed environmentalist says no one ‘knows what’s happening’ with the climate

by Michael Bastasch
12:26 PM 04/03/2014

Environmentalist and scientist James Lovelock has turned heads for saying that he doesn’t think “anybody really knows what’s happening” with the climate.

Lovelock told BBC Newsnight that he didn’t think that climate scientists or skeptics really know what was going on with global warming. He also slammed United Nations’ scientists and officials for being subject to “vested interests” which could hurt their scientific predictions.

“Take this climate matter everybody is thinking about,” Lovelock said. “They all talk, they pass laws, they do things, as if they knew what was happening. I don’t think anybody really knows what’s happening. They just guess. And a whole group of them meet together and encourage each other’s guesses.”

“I’m an independent scientist. I’m not funded by some government department or commercial body or anything like that,” Lovelock added. “If I make a mistake, then I can go public with it. And you have to, because it is only by making mistakes that you can move ahead.”

Lovelock’s remarks follow the release of the UN’s latest report on the impacts of global warming, which have been called alarmist by one of the report’s lead authors. The UN argued that global warming has been felt “on all continents and across the oceans.”

“Evidence of [man-made] climate-change impacts is strongest and most comprehensive for natural systems,” said the UN. “Some impacts on human systems have also been attributed to climate change, with a major or minor contribution of climate change distinguishable from other influences.”

The report, however, was called “alarmist” by one of its own lead authors. UK economics professor Richard Tol dropped out of the UN report because it would not seriously consider the potential benefits of global warming.

“Humans are a tough and adaptable species,” Tol wrote in the Financial Times. “People live on the equator and in the Arctic, in the desert and in the rainforest. We survived ice ages with primitive technologies. The idea that climate change poses an existential threat to humankind is laughable.”

“Climate change will make the disease [malaria] worse,” Tol added. “Economic growth will make it go away. In the worst case, climate change could cut crop yields in Africa in half. Yet yields would increase tenfold — in the same climate, on the same soil — if subsistence farmers started using crops and techniques pioneered on experimental farms.”

“Climate change may be a big issue in Africa,” Tol continued. “But it is not nearly as important as lack of tenure, poor roads, roving warlords and so on.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/03/famed-environmentalist-says-no-one-knows-whats-happening-with-the-climate/#ixzz2xqfs8uLD

[mountaineer]

he doesn’t think “anybody really knows what’s happening” with the climate.

I just looked outside. It's getting cooler and rainy.

[EC]

Sorry - climate change and global warming is totally a real thing.

We have had sun two days in a row. People were burning in the streets. Cars were crashing since the delicate, cloud adapted eyes of the drivers couldn't handle the strain. Sales of vitamin D supplements plummeted, while house windows remained tightly curtained in an effort to provide some comforting gloom. 

[Relic]

Sent this to a liberal, and this was the reply:

The same James Lovelock who claimed in the British newspaper The Independent in January 2006 that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century?

That James Lovelock?

The knee jerk for liberals is to impugn the source. In 2006 Mr. Lovelock was a brilliant hero to the alermists. Now he's a kook.

[Oceander]

Sent this to a liberal, and this was the reply:

The knee jerk for liberals is to impugn the source. In 2006 Mr. Lovelock was a brilliant hero to the alermists. Now he's a kook.

yup.  liberals cannot fathom engaging with the facts and changing your mind if reality demonstrates a weakness in your current thinking.  then again, liberals really don't think in the first place - what they call "thinking" is nothing more than emoting.