[geo] Re: Surprise: Revenge of Gaia's specific predictions have thus far actually been too conservative, not "alarmist"

[David Lewis]

Lovelock was interviewed 
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
)

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.
 
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 , 
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 

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
)

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.
>
>
>  

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[geo] Re: Surprise: Revenge of Gaia's specific predictions have thus far actually been too conservative, not "alarmist"

[Ninad Bondre]

Dear Nathan,

 I will refrain from commenting on the bulk of your email. But I would like 
to ask you to reflect on the paragraph referring to the precautionary 
aspect.

The narrative of Carl Sagan helping to end the Cold War undersells the 
complex sway of history -- the intersecting circumstances, actions and 
events -- that facilitated a change in course. The contrasting narratives 
of "impending catastrophe" or "infinite resilience" reflect a similar need 
to simplify. They capture neither human ingenuity nor its biophysical 
limits. 

Regarding your take on the possible "cooking of the books" by Sagan, one 
could just as well speculate that it dented the credibility of the 
scientific community for decades to come. That it has made encouraging 
action difficult despite apparently incontrovertible evidence. Knowledge 
endows scientists with a unique privilege (and I dare say power) -- but it 
still does not confer divinity on them. 

Sincerely,

Ninad

___
Ninad R. Bondre, Ph.D.   |  Science Editor

International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP)
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Box 50005, SE 104-05 Stockholm, 
Sweden 
www.igbp.net 











On Thursday, September 20, 2012 10:41:00 PM UTC+2, 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.
>
> I was actually attending a meeting yesterday here in NYC, convened 
> by Greenpeace, with Jim Hansen and 
> others from the climate world, addressing the "Polar Emergency." I'm sure 
> you've taken note of everything 
> that has been going on, in any case, and I've wondered how you feel about 
> what has happened since the spring. 
> A great curiosity for me is that, when you were quoted in the press 
> talking about your new change of position 
> and book, you mentioned how, "We were supposed to be halfway toward a 
> frying world," according to your 
> previous views. I just did my own bit of accounting of what you predicted, 
> specifically, in those works, and 
> wish to go over some of it now.
>
> *The Revenge of Gaia * and *The Vanishing face of Gaia* were published 
> six and three years ago, respectively, 
> and both concern the 21st century and beyond, so they clearly cannot be 
> judged yet in their full implications, 
> nor will any of us alive today ever be able to do so. Hopefully they will 
> be wrong, because of human action.
> But in fact, when *The* *Revenge of Gaia* or *The Vanishing **Face of 
> Gaia projections *are compared in detail against 
> what has happened since, it is unquestionable that things are either 
> perfectly on track or progressing *more quickly* 
> than you had projected then.
>
> Of course, there was a somewhat poetic use of language at times in both of 
> them, covering things that no one ever 
> expects to see - a "few last breeding pairs" or some such phrase, for 
> example, but this kind of "setting the scene" is not 
> science, and so largely irrelevant, and I didn't find a single thing, 
> looking at them last night, to provide evidence yet that 
> the reverse is true, and show any *specific projection* that has failed 
> to come true or is behind schedule in either book. 
> Let's go over it.
>
> Most of your specific predictions concerned a projected state shift in the 
> climate system when CO2 reaches around 500ppm, 
> based on your own modeling, some of others', PETM paleoclimate data, etc. 
> In *Revenge* you noted that at current rates 500ppm 
> would be achieved "in forty years." It's not explicit in *Revenge*, but 
> in *Vanishing Face* you made it clear that you meant multi-gas 
> CO2e, so actually at current rates we will get to 500ppm CO2e well before 
> 2046, even without any big feedbacks kicking in, etc. 
> For example, while there's some question on accounting in multigas 
> calculations (what GWPs get used, for example), typically it's 
> considered we're at 430 or 440ppm of CO2e now. Even were there no methane, 
> CFCs, e