Lovelock was interviewed <http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock>for The Guardian and provided this description of Garth Paltridge, one of the two people who most influenced him as he changed his mind about climate science:
"There is one sceptic that everyone should read and that is Garth Paltridge. He's written a book called *The Climate Caper*. It is a devastating, critical book. It is so good. This impresses me a lot." (full interview transcript here<http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock> ) For those who haven't acquainted themselves with the views of Garth Paltridge, it happens that the Foreword, Paltridge's Introduction, Overview and a few pages from Chapter 2, i.e. a total of 25 pages from *The Climate Caper, *are online hosted by Google Books here<http://books.google.com/books?id=XYK_mrKg1V4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false>. Caution: *Lord Monckton himself* wrote the Foreword. A few quotes from the Paltridge book, from what is available online: On the IPCC: "A colleague of mine put it rather well. The IPCC, he said, has developed a highly successful immune system. Its climate scientists have become the equivalent of white blood cells that rush in overwhelming numbers to repel infection by ideas and results which do not support the basic thesis that global warming is perhaps the greatest of the modern threats to mankind". On climate science: "...give or take a religion or two, never has quite so much rubbish been espoused by so many on so little evidence". On Mann et.al.: "the hockey stick reconstruction of past climate is indeed fairly close to being nonsense". In general: "The whole business has hardened over the last decade or so into a semi-religious crusade in which climate scientists have developed an arrogance about their aims and activity which brooks no argument either with their interpretation of the science or with the way in which the science is used. To achieve their ends, they are drawing heavily on the capital of scientific reputation that has been so painfully assembled over hundreds of years." Stewart Brand (of *Whole Earth Catalog* fame) happened to be in communication with Lovelock during the time Lovelock formed his new views. Brand is an old friend of Lovelock's dating back to 1974 when Brand, as editor of CoEvolution Quarterly magazine. He says he was the first to publish Lovelock's* GAIA hypothesis*. Brand, about half way into this online article <http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/brand10/brand10_index.html>, confirms the importance of Paltridge to Lovelock and identifies that there was one other major influence. Brand: "James Lovelock... has softened his sense of alarm about the pace of climate change. He is persuaded by 'sensible skeptic' Garth Paltridge's book The Climate Caper (2009) that climate scientists have become overly politicized, and a paper in *Science* by Kevin Trenberth" Brand quotes Lovelock from personal correspondence: "Apart from a few friends... my name is now mud in climate science circles for having dared to consort with sceptics. Amazing how tribal scientists are." Trenberth's Perspectives piece in Science that Lovelock misunderstood is here<http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/T_SciencePerspectiveApril10.pdf in Science> Trenberth's has this to say about Lovelock's understanding of climate science: "The fact is he knows little or nothing about climate change." (quote taken from this article<http://www.livescience.com/19875-gaia-lovelock-climate-change.html> ) I'm not sure an appeal to Lovelock's reasoning power is going to be that helpful at this stage.... On Thursday, September 20, 2012 1:41:00 PM UTC-7, Nathan Currier wrote: > > Dear Jim, > > I hope that you received my email of last spring, suggesting, among other > things, that you might consider > at least waiting until this summer's sea-ice melt season was over, in > terms of your changed positions > mentioned in the press, your upcoming book, etc. Yesterday we arrived at > that minimum, and so I'm writing > again. But this time I'm making it a sort of open letter - also sending > it to all those who follow the geoengineering > group of Ken Caldeira and Mike MacCracken, as well as to AMEG, the group > I've been in lately that sea-ice > expert Peter Wadhams also belongs to, and a few others, including Jim > Hansen - as I wish to stimulate general > conversation in this way, and possibly others will want to weigh in, too. > After all, you were one of geoengineering's > most vocal public advocates, but have recently said that you've changed > your mind about the climate crisis altogether, > which has struck many as odd. I'm hoping that this summer's sea-ice might > have given you pause. > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/geoengineering/-/xrcJf5CyHVkJ. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
