James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

Y'know, the weather this spring is starting out much like that of '88.  You remember that one eh, Martha?  Real hot...and dry, too.  Had folks talkin'  about climate change all of a sudden.  Why, remember the farmer who painted somethin' about climate in six foot letters across the front of his barn?  Yep, folks didn't get all bogged down in questions of persanality and accuse others of being constipated in those days, eh? No siree.

Guess folks have to do something to keep them occupied...but you'd think they'd actually try to say something about the science itself, somewhere in all that chatter, eh Martha?

Transplant reminds us the Wikibullies'  name is Connolley...I cannot now forget the guy who altered some 1500 Wiki passages to suit his idea of the universe.

Yeah, FM, we are never going to discuss the Gaia theory over a morning coffee (or lazy afternoon beer) I guess - as long as the Guardian finds him quotable, we'll probably go on about the old fart until he's no longer extant. Doubt his science will disappear, though. In fact I fully expect that some really, really hot, dry summer hereabouts, op-ed editors all over the place will rediscover him and in a knowing way say: "Well, we were warned",  using that ubiquitous "we" as though Homo sapiens can be lumped together in the way that editors and the politically correct find so convenient. 

From the "global south"...  The Weather Makers?  Naw, he largely support JL.  The Kenyan woman, Nobel winner, who's idea is to keep ahead of desertification by planting trees?  She's already history. 

Just one last missive please, FM?  What young minds from the "global south"?Then I can get reading.  

Happy gardening.

George Victor wrote:

Just one last missive please, FM?  What young minds from the "global south"?Then I can get reading.

I'll field that, George. The ones that fight tooth and nail to go to respectable institutions in their home countries or in neighbouring countries just be heard (provided that they get that far ahead), or the ones that settle for state-run institutions because they could not get ahead. And then there are millions of Lovelocks and other brilliant minds walking around hawking goods on streets and in markets, and working in their homes micro-producing. They were aborted from the 'excellence' trajectory because life is more difficult than enjoying the fruits of colonialism (ironically part of the reason our earth is in such a mess).

These people constitute the "too stupid" group Lovelock talks about from his Western-funded excellence.

Then there are the privileged minds and the very few underprivileged that infiltrate parochial western academia, like in the UK/Europe and North America, by studying in western institutions, become aligned with western outlooks on the global south, and go back home and tell you what you want to hear.

Geez, I wonder why you never heard of them!?

j.m.:

"These people constitute the "too stupid" group Lovelock talks about from his Western-funded excellence."

They do like hell, and you know it. Lovelock is talking about twits like yourself who don't "dig" his science and avoid talk about science like the plague itself. "unsubstantiated claims under the guise of 'expertise' ". The Gaia theory is now mainstream science, you silly ass. The effect on Earth is going to first affect all those young people now nearest the doldrums, as the rainfall falls into an increasingly narrow band. But what the hell.

Please remind, no more of this innuendo about elitist, snotty, ruling class scientists. Anyone looking in woould think we picked up folks from Marxist madrassas.

long thread