James Lovelock on Global Warming

Here is a key bit from a talk by James Lovelock at the Royal Society:

How, asks Lovelock, can we predict the climate 40 years ahead when there is so much that we don’t know? Surely we should base any assumptions on things we can measure, such as a rise in sea levels. After all, surface temperatures go up and down, but the rise in sea levels reflects both melting ice and thermal expansion. The IPCC, he feels, underestimates the extent to which sea levels are rising.

Do mankind’s emissions matter? Yes, they undoubtedly do.

No one should be complacent about the fact that within the next 20 years we’ll have added nearly a trillion tons of carbon to the atmosphere since the industrial revolution. When a geological accident produced a similar carbon rise 55m years ago, it turned up the heat more than 5C. And now? Well, the effect of man-made carbon is unpredictable. Temperatures might go down at first, rather than up, he warns.

How should we be spending our money to prevent possible disaster? In Britain, says Lovelock, we need sea walls and more nuclear power. Heretical stuff, when you consider the vast amount that Europe plans to spend on wind turbines.

“What would you bet will happen this century?” a mathematician asked him. Lovelock predicted a temperature rise in the middle range of current projections — about 1C-2C — which we could live with. Ah, but hadn’t he also said there was a chance that temperature rises could threaten human civilisation within the lifetime of our grandchildren?

He had. In the end, his message was that we should have more respect for uncertainties and learn to live with possibilities rather than striving for the 95% probabilities that climate scientists have been trying to provide. We don’t know what’s going to happen and we don’t know if we can avert disaster — although we should try. His sage advice: enjoy life while you can.

I like what Lovelock says: there is uncertainty learn to live with it. The problem of trying to act on uncertain projections into the future is that you can be massively wrong. I have nothing against conservation and new technology to reduce green house gases, but I draw the line on the hare-brain ideas of de-industrializing or freezing in place an advantage where the rich get to cavort with their wasteful energy behaviours while the world's poor are supposed to do without. I especially detest Global Warming agitators who think nothing of hopping onto planes to fly halfway around the world to posture over the "need" to reduce a carbon footprint. Well, yeah! You can reduce it by staying home and quit your jet-setting around! I especially dislike being hectored and lectured at by hypocrites who preach one thing and do another, who want to tell the poor how to live their lives while refusing to reign in their own waste and extravagance.

If you don't believe me that "green" is hypocritical, then read this Guardian article.