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James Lovelock: Environmentalism Has Become A Religion

Britain’s Secret Bid To ‘Fix’ UN Climate Report



When the IPCC’s fifth assessment comes out in 2013 or 2014, there will be a major revival of interest in action that has to be taken. People are going to say, ‘My God, we are going to have to take action much faster than we had planned.’ --IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri, New York 23 September 2009
British officials were last night accused of ‘political interference’ in a crucial report on international climate change. The economic impact of global warming was ramped up in the final draft by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Shortly before authors wrote the final version, a British Government official passed scientists a note complaining about an earlier, more moderate draft. The final document, published today in Japan, increases the predicted economic impact of global warming. Critics said the suggestion of political interference by the Coalition, which set out to be the ‘greenest government ever’, was alarming. --Ben Spencer, Daily Mail, 31 March 2014 Many governments want sterner warnings of probable economic damage from global warming in a draft U.N. report due on Monday, saying that existing estimates of trillions of dollars in losses are only part of the picture. A final draft before talks this week among governments and scientists in Japan projected that warming would cut economic output by between 0.2 and 2.0 percent a year by damaging human health, disrupting water supplies and raising sea levels. But many countries reckon that is an underestimate because it excludes risks of catastrophic changes, such as a runaway melt of Greenland’s ice, collapse of coral reefs or a drying of the Amazon rainforest that could cause massive economic losses. --Alister Doyle, Reuters, 28 March 2014

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Environmentalism has "become a religion" and does not pay enough attention to facts, according to James Lovelock. The 94 year-old scientist, famous for his Gaia hypothesis that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, also said that he had been too certain about the rate of global warming in his past book, that "it’s just as silly to be a [climate] denier as it is to be a believer” and that fracking and nuclear power should power the UK, not renewable sources such as windfarms. --Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 31 March 2014 Asked if his remarks would give ammunition to climate change sceptics, he said: "It’s just as silly to be a denier as it is to be a believer. You can’t be certain." Talking about the environmental movement, Lovelock says: "It’s become a religion, and religions don’t worry too much about facts." --Adam Vaughan, The Guardian, 31 March 2014 UN climate report scientist says that by staying positive about the future, the most intelligent people will be attracted to finding solutions to adapt to climate change Doom and gloom about the impacts of climate change risks preventing effective action being taken to tackle it, one of the lead scientists in a major UN report into the impacts of global warming has said. Chris Field, co-chairman of the working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), called for more positivity about the “really exciting opportunities” to adapt to the impacts of climate change. --Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 31 March 2014 Benny Peiser, the director of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, a think tank that questions current efforts to tackle climate change, welcomed the report’s focus on adaptation. “The signal they are sending out is adaptation: prepare for climate change,” he said, arguing that this was a more “cost-effective approach” than trying to stop emissions rising when there was “no chance of international agreement” on such green policies. --Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph, 31 March 2014 There is still great uncertainty about the impacts of climate change, according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released today. So if we are to survive and prosper, rather than trying to fend off specific threats like cyclones, we must build flexible and resilient societies. The scale and timing of many regional impacts, and even the form of some, now appear uncertain. The report has even watered down many of the more confident predictions that appeared in the leaked drafts. References to “hundreds of millions” of people being affected by rising sea levels have been removed from the summary, as have statements about the impact of warmer temperatures on crops. --Michael Slezak, New Scientist, 31 March 2014 We are assured that the latest IPCC study is the most comprehensive ever undertaken, and it is unequivocal in its findings: But if the science appears unarguable, what to do about it remains a matter of fierce debate. Decarbonisation by the UK, for instance, will contribute little to the overall reduction in CO2 levels, yet it could damage the economic recovery. Perhaps instead of continued doom-mongering, however, greater thought needs to be given to how mankind might adapt to the climatic realities. --Editorial, The Daily Telegraph, 31 March 2014 If scientists want us to be scared of climate change they are going to have to try a lot harder, it has been confirmed. The latest UN climate report warned of food shortages, wild fires and drought and was immediately dismissed by more than 90 percent of people as ‘just a lot of blah’. Martin Bishop, from Stevenage, said: “I don’t care about any of that. I want to know if there will be crocodiles in my living room. What about the man-eating trees? The report also fails to address the issue of widespread spontaneous combustion. And what will happen to cheese? --The Daily Mash, 31 March 2014


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