by Ian Mosley

A founding father of Global Warming, Dr. James Lovelock admits that it might be a colossal mistake. After climbing for nearly two decades, global temperatures began to drop in 1998. Prior to 1998 a cult of alarmists began blaming mankind for Global Warming and demanded severe restrictions on CO2 production. You’d think the fact that global temperatures dropped after 1998 would shut them up, but they’re still around and they’ve substituted “Climate Change” for “Global Warming”. Don’t expect the Global Warming crowd to listen to Dr. Lovelock. They would probably prefer to toss him in a volcano to placate their new “religion”.

The Toronto Sun reports: “Two months ago, James Lovelock, the godfather of global warming, gave a startling interview to msnbc.com in which he acknowledged he had been unduly alarmist about climate change. The implications were extraordinary.”

“…Lovelock, until his recent retirement at age 92, was a much-honoured working scientist and academic. His inventions have been used by NASA, among many other scientific organizations. Lovelock’s invention of the electron capture detector in 1957 first enabled scientists to measure CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) and other pollutants in the atmosphere, leading, in many ways, to the birth of the modern environmental movement.”

“Having observed that global temperatures since the turn of the millennium have not gone up in the way computer-based climate models predicted, Lovelock acknowledged, ‘the problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago.’ Now, Lovelock has given a follow-up interview to the UK’s Guardian newspaper in which he delivers more bombshells sure to anger the global green movement, which for years worshipped his… apocalyptic predictions that billions would die from man-made climate change by the end of this century.”

“Lovelock still believes anthropogenic (man-made) global warming is occurring and that mankind must lower its greenhouse gas emissions, but says it’s now clear the doomsday predictions, including his own (and Al Gore’s) were incorrect. He responds to attacks on his revised views by noting that, unlike many climate scientists who fear a loss of government funding if they admit error, as a freelance scientist, he’s never been afraid to revise his theories in the face of new evidence. Indeed, that’s how science advances.”

A very large part of the Global Warming movement was a giant cash grab by the leftists. A new field was going to be created at every college specializing in Global Warming funded by billions in government grants. California is one of the few places in the First World (assuming California is still part of the First World) to enact a Global Warming Law. This law has proven to be a major hassle for productive companies, which now must monitor CO2 production, which no one had cared about previously since trees and grass turn CO2 back into oxygen. Politicians can now fine businesses for failing to obey the Global Warming Law. At least one truck business fled the state of California rather than buy new engines for their entire fleet of trucks as mandated by this new law. Two independent studies estimated that the Global Warming Law in California could cost the state one million jobs.

The article notes “Among his observations to the Guardian:

“(1) A long-time supporter of nuclear power as a way to lower greenhouse gas emissions, which has made him unpopular with environmentalists, Lovelock has now come out in favour of natural gas fracking (which environmentalists also oppose), as a low-polluting alternative to coal. As Lovelock observes, ‘Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it … Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.’”

“(2) Lovelock blasted greens for treating global warming like a religion. ‘It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion,’ Lovelock observed. ‘I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use … The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.’”

“(3) Lovelock mocks the idea modern economies can be powered by wind turbines. As he puts it, ‘so-called ‘sustainable development’ … is meaningless drivel … We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can’t stand windmills at any price.’”

“(4) Finally, about claims the science is settled on global warming: ‘One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don’t know it.’”

If people had been more open-minded in the first place, the Global Warming movement would have never been started. There was a cooling period in the 1970s, despite increasing factory pollution around the world. This demonstrated that fluctuations in energy output from the sun can easily overwhelm anything that man can do to the environment.

If you go back thousands of years, there were ice ages that the planet went through. No one knows what may have caused those aside from longer term fluctuations in the heat output from the sun.

If you can’t explain an ice-age or even a ten year cold spell in the 1970s or an eight year cooling trend starting in 1998, then you can’t justify the Global Warming cult.