Is anyone here qualified to criticize James Lovelock, with no proof? How so?

Question

Someone just did that over this article.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock

"One of the most eminent scientists of our time"

is not hype.

What is amazing is that one of the strongest environmentalists in the world is calling for massive construction of nuclear power plants, because he knows global warming is a much bigger threat.

You can't credibly say Lovelock is doing this to get attention or make money. He has all of those he needs. If he wanted more, he could write another book. That would be number 10 or so, and they sell very well. Or invent some new gadget, as he's done in the past. Those do well, also. His "electron capture detector" is found in thousands of chemistry labs.

Answer 1

If we get warming of 11 degrees F by 2100 (within the IPCC forecast range for expected warming), that is an average change of one degree in just over 8 years, a change that would be over 11X greater and faster than what we've seen over the past 100 years.

No one, including Lovelock, can anticipate with any accuracy what the outcome will be.  Lovelock may be grossly overoptimistic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_...

According to a UN climate report, the Himalayan glaciers that are the sources of Asia's biggest rivers - Ganges, Indus, Brahmaputra, Yangtze, Mekong, Salween and Yellow - could disappear by 2035 as temperatures rise.  Approximately 2.4 billion people live in the drainage basin of the Himalayan rivers.

Here's how the chief scientist of the Department of Energy's Atmospheric Science Program believes we need to respond:

http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/news/NationalPost...

Stephen Schwartz knows as much about the effects of aerosols on climate change as anyone in the world, and he's worried. He believes climate change is so massive an economic issue that we face costs "in the trillions if not quadrillions of dollars." He thinks a Herculean effort and great sacrifice is required to get the world down to zero net increase in carbon dioxide concentrations, an effort he compares to that which the Allies undertook in their all-out war against n**i Germany and Japan.

"Recall World War II, where everyone was making a sacrifice: gas rationing, tire rationing, no new car production, food rationing," he explains. "I don't think the people of the world are ready or prepared to make such a level of personal sacrifice. Perhaps when the consequences of climate change become more apparent that will change. But by that time, there will be irreversible changes in climate."

Neither politicians nor most scientists seem prepared to discuss the possible outcomes of even the IPCC's "most likely" scenario, and the IPCC report has been criticized as being overly edited by the political review (as the skpetics also point out), so it could be far too optimistic.

"Instead of sea levels rising by about 40 centimetres, as the IPCC predicts in one of its computer forecasts, the true rise might be as great as several metres by 2100. That is why, they say, planet Earth today is in 'imminent peril.'"

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserve...

But 2100 is only an arbitrary point in time.  Warming will nto magically stop then.

If we look past 2100,

- Global and regional warming could more than quadruple after 2100

- Sea level will still be rising at the end of the millennium (3000)

- Ocean pH will fall dramatically for all but the minimum emission scenario

- Business-as-usual could lead to abrupt climate changes

- Abrupt climate changes could occur long after emissions cease

- The ocean carbon sink becomes less effective the more CO2 is emitted

- The land could be a net carbon source on the millennial timescale

"Potential sea level rise on the millennial timescale (excluding the contribution of Antarctica), is 0.5-11.4m in GENIE-1 and 1.0-8.5m in MoBidiC.  Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, if it occurs, could add up to 4-6m on the millennial timescale [Oppenheimer and Alley, 2004]"

“…our relatively conservative assumptions, for example regarding climate sensitivity or the exclusion of the Antarctic ice sheets, still produce the result that only by starting to reduce CO2 emissions in the very near future, and continuing to reduce them such that they are zero by year 2200, can we avoid dangerous climate change on the millennial timescale.”

http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/theme1...

So whether Lovelock is right about the date or not, nothing we are doing at this time is sufficient to stop warming the planet past the point where our agricultural and complex economic systems can absorb the damages.  

Given that we have reached "peak oil" and have the simultaneous challenge of having to replace the world's energy source for transportation soon (while oil demand skyrockets in China and India), it's not clear how we can possibly solve both problems at once while carrying the world's current population forward.

Here's how Journalist Jonathan Gatehouse summarized the conclusions of Oxford trained geologist Jeremy Leggett, author of The Empty Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and the Coming Financial Catastrophe, in a 2006 Macleans article:

. . . when the truth can no longer be obscured, the price will spike, the economy nosedive, and the underpinnings of our civilization will start tumbling like dominos. "The price of houses will collapse. Stock markets will crash. Within a short period, human wealth -- little more than a pile of paper at the best of times, even with the confidence about the future high among traders -- will shrivel." There will be emergency summits, diplomatic initiatives, urgent exploration efforts, but the turmoil will not subside. Thousands of companies will go bankrupt, and millions will be unemployed. "Once affluent cities with street cafés will have queues at soup kitchens and armies of beggars. The crime rate will soar. The earth has always been a dangerous place, but now it will become a tinderbox."

By 2010, predicts Leggett, democracy will be on the run . . . economic hardship will bring out the worst in people. Fascists will rise, feeding on the anger of the newly poor and whipping up support. These new rulers will find the tools of repression -- emergency laws, prison camps, a relaxed attitude toward torture -- already in place, courtesy of the war on terror. And if that scenario isn't nightmarish enough, Leggett predicts that "Big Oversight Number One" -- climate change -- will be simultaneously making its presence felt "with a vengeance." On the heels of their rapid financial ruin, people "will now watch aghast as their food and water supplies dwindle in the face of a climate going awry." Prolonged droughts will spread, decimating harvests.

When the oil runs out

http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?conte...

So we haven't worked out how we'll survive our dependence on oil (other than establishing the underpinnings for martial law and fascism as we've succeeded in doing over the past 8 years).  Whether or not the issues from global warming come fast enough to warrant our attention may be a moot point.

Answer 2

He offers despair doom and gloom.  He shows no kindness to the poor and became religious when it was time for him to go and fight in the war.  He seems very bitter and angry with humanity and hates us because we are not part of the natural environment. Of course he includes himself part of the humans that he hates.    Man reading that article we should just quit because there is no hope.

Answer 3

He'll get loads of attention from that, and he'll be dead before he's proven wrong. It's like someone with 2 months to live saying they've found the Jesus's skeleton, selling it to a museum with loads of "proof" then dying before everyone works out it's a hoax. I'm not saying melting ice caps are a good thing, which they're not, I just can't see what he's describing happening. Look at this:

The continued rapid cooling of the earth since WWII is in accord with the increase in global air pollution associated with industrialization, mechanization, urbanization and exploding population.

-- Reid Bryson, "Global Ecology; Readings towards a rational strategy for Man", (1971)

This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century

-- Peter Gwynne, Newsweek 1976

This cooling has already killed hundreds of thousands of people. If it continues and no strong action is taken, it will cause world famine, world chaos and world war, and this could all come about before the year 2000.

-- Lowell Ponte "The Cooling", 1976

If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder by the year 2000...This is about twice what it would take to put us in an ice age.

-- Kenneth E.F. Watt on air pollution and global cooling, Earth Day (1970)

(EDIT) Found some new stuff:

The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer

-- Paul Ehrlich - The Population Bomb (1968)

I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000

-- Paul Ehrlich in (1969)

In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.

-- Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)

Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity . . in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion

-- Paul Ehrlich in (1976)

This [cooling] trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century

Answer 4

Yes.

Answer 5

No one here is qualified, but that doesn't stop them from spreading disinformation. Remember, many of those who deny the reality of AGW are the same ones who trash highly respected, mainstream science organizations such as NAS, NASA, AGU, AIP, GSA, IPCC and NOAA and refer to them as liberal biased, fringe, pseudo-scientific hacks. Very shortsighted.

Answer 6

Just to correct (gcnp58),it's considered a biosphere,it's amazing what people can do with a selective memory....

Answer 7

Lovelock is revered for being a charismatic figure in science, rather than his actual accomplishments.  I like Lovelock, everyone does, but your description of him is a little hyperbolic.  He doesn't publish all that much, most of the articles he does publish are on Daisyworld (which is a very very simple climate model), and he is a bit of a self-promoter.  Finally, he can't realistically go out and make more money by inventing another device, the ECD was a once-in-a-lifetime thing, and he's never come anywhere close to inventing anything like it since then.  And this statement from the RS article "... Lovelock's vision of a self-regulating Earth now underlies virtually all climate science" is patently untrue.  Earth does not self-regulate because of biology, there is ample evidence that geologic processes such as plate tectonics have a far larger effect on climate (in the long term, this statement is made outside of the current anthropogenic radiative forcing) than life does.  (google "snowball earth" for evidence of this)  I suspect where the author is coming from is the "CLAW" hypothesis (Nature, 340, 437-438, 1988), which has since been shown to be a drastic oversimplification of the link between phytoplankton, DMS, CCN and cloud albedo.  

He has also always been a strong proponent of nuclear power, his first book on Gaia made the case that nuclear power was to be preferred over fossil fuels.  What makes Lovelock unique is that he understands what is going on with climate in a physical sense and is willing to come out and say directly the consequences are going to be really nasty.  Most climate scientists won't do that since they are scared of being wrong.  

Anyway, yeah, I am qualified to criticize Lovelock, anyone is.  He's not a god.

Answer 8

He criticizes himself with this statement

"I could be wrong about all this," he admits as we stroll around the park in Norway. "The trouble is, all those well-intentioned scientists who are arguing that we're not in any imminent danger are basing their arguments on computer models. I'm basing mine on what's actually happening."

Answer 9

No proof.  if co2 has such tremendous forcing to cause the end of the world then we should have warmed up a lot more by now, and we should not have experienced global dimming during the mid century.

There is also no indication in the ice core data to support such rapid warming.  For 800 years the ice core data shows temperatures and co2 going in the opposite directions.  Warmest account for this with this explanation:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=1...

The problem is that after when both co2 and temperatures were moving it the same direction, we should of seen an acceleration of warming, but we do not.  Or at least he should prove that the natural forcing that cause temperatures to rise stopped and co2 took over.  Again that is not proved. So he is wrong.

The only proof that he has is based on computer models.  Only a computer illiterate believes in computer models.  You get one variable wrong by a small amount and that can throw off the results by a large amount.

Answer 10

the real question is. should anyone be allowed to criticize anyone else without proof? i would say no.

Answer 11

oh, because he was labeled as the "worlds more eminent scientist" means he is right?

That article is by far the craziest, most rediculous global warming article I have read to date.  

hahaha.  Irreversible.  Right...

plus, way more than 6 billion people will have died by the end of the century anyways, people only live so long.

Thumbs down?  HA.  People cant do simple math and apply logic...  Lifespan of humans is around 60-70 years.  It varies from country to country, but most people live somewhere with lower life expectancy.  Therefore, everyone that is alive today will most likely be dead by the end of the century unless they live to be over 90.    Meaning, all 6 billion people alive right now will be dead then whether it warms, cools, or does nothing at all.

So is he claiming there will be less than 300 million people on earth by the end of the century?  Because that is a massive reduction in population, and severely improbable seeing as how our cumulative knowledge allows us to survive in pretty much any situation.  So where are these 300 million remaining people going to be living?  Are we not going to be able to farm because it will get warmer and wetter?  I think not.  

Does anyone realize that LIFE IS MADE OF CARBON.  Life cant get scarce if we add a miniscule amount of carbon to the air.  If anything, it will boost photosynthetic life, which in most cases is the lowest link of the food chain.  Doing this will cause an increase in the life forms that rely on that food.  So how will more food for every living thing on earth cause a reduction in population to under 300 million?

I dont think this guy cares about his reputation anymore, he's 88 years old.  He will most likely be dead before any predictions can be seen to be true or false, and he most likely knows this.

Answer 12

No, Lovelock is more of an expert on climate science than anyone here.  As with all scientists, he's willing to admit that he may be wrong, which ironically soccerdstroyr equates with self-criticism.

Lovelock makes some very good points though.  "But evidence from the real world suggests that the IPCC is far too conservative."  So far this is true.

"Here, in its oversimplified essence, is Lovelock's doomsday scenario: Rising heat means more ice melting at the poles, which means more open water and land. That, in turn, increases the heat (ice reflects sunlight; open land and water absorb it), causing more ice to melt. The seas rise. More heat leads to more intense rainfall in some places, droughts in others. The Amazon rain forests and the great northern boreal forests --the belt of pine and spruce that covers Alaska, Canada and Siberia --undergo a growth spurt, then wither away. The permafrost in northern latitudes thaws, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more potent than CO2 -- and on and on it goes.

In a functioning Gaian world, these positive feedbacks would be modulated by negative feedbacks, the largest of which is the Earth's ability to radiate heat into space. But at a certain point, the regulatory system breaks down and the planet's climate makes the jump -- as it has many times in the past -- to a new, hotter state. Not the end of the world, but certainly the end of the world as we know it."

It's entirely possible (even likely) that Lovelock is wrong and some negative feedbacks will slow down the process or the positive feedbacks won't kick in as rapidly as he thinks.  However, the scary thing is that it's also entirely possibe that he's right.

Answer 13

prove it and we will listen ,as for all the long drawn out answers well come forward with the truth or shut up!