James Lovelock admits he was alarmist on climate change

[annette]

This article says it probably better than I can.

http://www.menzieshouse.com.au/2012/...te-change.html

[Ludi]

[pebble]

I think the argument is about whether it's caused by humans or not.

[Ludi]

That argument really only exists among people who don't accept the greenhouse gas theory of C02, which has been around for a hundred years or so.....it doesn't exist among the majority of climate scientists.....

http://grist.org/climate-energy/there-is-no-consensus/

[Michaelangelica]

Have a look at this
http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude/.../statement.htm
Then tell me that humans are not warming the planet.

I would not believe anything put out by Menzies house.
They are a right wing pressure/opinion group, with their own weird agenda; so un-liberal they would have the old PM Menzies turning in his grave

[pebble]

Love the cartoon Ludi :-))

[Michaelangelica]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/201...eat/?mobile=nc

Climate scientists have been consistently downplaying and underestimating the risks for three main reasons. First, their models tended to ignore the myriad amplifying carbon cycle feedbacks that we now know are kicking in (such as the defrosting tundra).
Second, they never imagined that the nations of the world would completely ignored their warnings, that we would knowingly choose catastrophe. So until recently they hardly ever seriously considered or modeled the do-nothing scenario, which is a tripling (820 ppm) or quadrupling (1100 ppm) of preindustrial levels of carbon dioxide over the next hundred years or so. In the last 2 or 3 years, however, the literature in this area has exploded and the picture it paints is not pretty (see “An Illustrated Guide to the Science of Global Warming Impacts: How We Know Inaction Is the Gravest Threat Humanity Faces“).
Third, as Blakemore (and others) have noted, the overwhelming majority of climate scientists are generally reticent and cautious in stating results — all the more so in this case out of the mistaken fear that an accurate diagnosis would somehow make action less likely. Yes, it’d be like a doctor telling a two-pack-a-day patient with early-stage emphysema that their cough is really not that big a deal, but would they please quit smoking anyway. We live in a world, however, where anyone who tries to explain what the science suggests is likely to happen if we keep doing nothing is attacked as an alarmist by conservatives, disinformers, and their enablers in the media.
Back in 2005, the physicist Mark Bowen wrote about glaciologist Lonnie Thompson: “Scientists have an annoying habit of backing off when they’re asked to make a plain statement, and climatologists tend to be worse than most.”
The good news, if you can call it that, is that the climate situation has become so dire that even the most reticent climatologists are starting to speak more bluntly. By the end of 2010, Thompson was writing:. . . .

[annette]

Wow great article and answers some of the questions I have been thinking of. Thanks M.

Cheers
Annette