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James Lovelock Finally Walks Back His Absurd Doomism, But He Still Doesn’t Follow Climate Science

By Joe Romm on Apr 23, 2012 at 7:10 pm

Famed scientist James Lovelock has always been in a category of one when it comes to global warming. See for instance my June 2009 post, “Lovelock still makes me look like Paula Abdul, warns climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors in the Stone Age.” That’s mostly because he doesn’t follow the scientific literature.

Now that he has dialed back his doomism — alarmism is a wholly inadequate word for Lovelock’s (former) brand of unjustified hopelessness — the media and the deniers are just so excited. That’s especially true since Lovelock has now overshot in the other direction of climate science confusion and just keeps peddling nonsense.

And so we have this MSNBC story:

‘Gaia’ scientist James Lovelock: I was ‘alarmist’ about climate change

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too….

“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium….”

He was wrong about his doomism before, he is wrong about Gore now, and he is apparently uninformed about basic climate observations (see “Breaking News: The Earth Is Still Warming. A Lot“). Indeed, even MSNBC feels compelled to note:

Asked to give its latest position on climate change, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a statement that observations collected by satellites, sensors on land, in the air and seas “continue to show that the average global surface temperature is rising.”

The statement said “the impacts of a changing climate” were already being felt around the globe, with “more frequent extreme weather events of certain types (heat waves, heavy rain events); changes in precipitation patterns … longer growing seasons; shifts in the ranges of plant and animal species; sea level rise; and decreases in snow, glacier and Arctic sea ice coverage.”

Duh.

But Lovelock hasn’t been speaking sensibly on the climate for a long, long time. Back in 2007, he was saying this sort of thing:

“By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million.”

… To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won’t make much difference at this point….

As I wrote at the time, Lovelock makes “you — or Al Gore or James Hansen or even me — look optimistic by comparison.”

Memo to Lovelock: Gore never asserted billions would die or anything close to what you’ve been saying. And unlike you, he always believed — and still does — that it’s not too late. So if you finally admitted you were wrong, that’s awesome, but don’t try to claim you were just saying what others were. You weren’t. Not even close.

In 2008, Lovelock was inspiring this kind of headline and story:

We’re all doomed! 40 years from global catastrophe – and there’s NOTHING we can do about it, says climate change expert.

… “By 2040, China will be uninhabitable.” Lovelock believes that the Chinese, because of their high levels of industrial activity, will be the first to suffer, with the death of all plant life.

“So I think the Chinese will go to Africa. They are already there, preparing a new continent – the Chinese industrialists who claim to be out there mining minerals are just there on a pretext of preparing for the big move.”

This kind of doomist nonsense is precisely why I’ve been critical of Lovelock here for many years. Yes 1 billion people will go to the one continent that can’t feed itself today and which will be Dust-Bowlifying and superhot. Seriously.

Now I know some readers may believe billions will die this century. I don’t.

Read more

NEWS FLASH

Texas’ Top Tenther Rick Perry Denies Support To Texas’ #2 Tenther Ted Cruz | Nine months ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) was campaigning for president on a platform that included declaring Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid unconstitutional (a platform that he admittedly tried to distance himself from at times after it became a political liability). Late last week, however, Perry passed over his fellow tenther Ted Cruz to endorse Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in Texas’ GOP U.S. Senate primary. Like Perry, Cruz believes that Medicaid is unconstitutional. Dewhurst, however, is hardly above confusing Republican ideology with the Constitution of the United States — he believes enforcing a key provision of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional.

Economy

Rick Perry Circulates Norquist-Style Anti-Tax Pledge In Texas

By Pat Garofalo on Apr 23, 2012 at 6:20 pm

Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist has held most Republicans by the scruff of the neck during recent tax debates due to their having signed the ATR anti-tax pledge, which states that the signees will not vote for a tax increase any time, for any reason. Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), who received accolades from Norquist during his presidential run, is aiming to start a similar pledge in the Lone Star State:

Borrowing a page from anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist’s playbook, Perry said on Monday, “Each and every member of the Legislature or anyone aspiring to become a member of the Legislature should sign on.” And right on the Governor’s website, individuals and lawmakers can sign on to the Compact: Yes, I stand with Governor Perry and I support his Texas Budget Compact. I want my state representatives in the Texas Legislature to sign on to Governor Perry’s Texas Budget Compact.

The compact calls for complete opposition to tax increases, as well as constitutional spending limits and restrictions on using the state’s Rainy Day Fund (which Perry previously plugged using federal money meant for education). While Perry isn’t personally tracking who signs his pledge, he said that outside organizations might.

Part of the compact calls for legislators to eschew budget gimmicks, even though Perry himself is quite fond of using such gimmicks to balance his budget. As Texas State Rep. Mike Villarreal said in a statement, “Governor Perry loves to talk about his principles in the abstract, but he doesn’t want to discuss the disabled kids who lose health services when he won’t close corporate tax loopholes, or the students crowded into full classrooms when he won’t touch the Rainy Day Fund.”

Fortunately, several lawmakers at the federal level have broken with Norquist and his anti-tax pledge. “I think anybody who doesn’t indicate their willingness to look at revenues — expiration of tax loopholes, tax credits, increase in contribution to Social Security, which is a tax, and otherwise — would be disingenuous and irresponsible,” said GOP Rep. Timothy Johnson (IL).

Alyssa

What Will Hollywood Learn From the Success of ‘Think Like a Man’?

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Apr 23, 2012 at 6:07 pm

I’m going to try to catch Think Like a Man this week, so I’ll be able to report back on whether this romantic comedy, which boasts a mostly-African American cast, is actually any good. But I am very, very curious to see how the coverage of it plays out over the next several weeks, and whether any projects get greenlit as a result. Think Like a Man was on track to make $33 million this weekend even though it only opened in 2,017 theaters, or $15,369 per theater. By contrast, uber-white The Vow, which starred Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams, substantially bigger stars, opened with $41 million in 2,958 theaters, or $13,860 per theater.

So what’s the lesson going to be? Will it be that if you do the marketing right—a lot of the trailers were from the perspectives of the male characters rather than the women—men will turn out for romantic comedies? Apparently, audiences for Think Like a Man were 37 percent male. Will it be that romantic comedies with black stars can cross over? I haven’t found breakout data on the racial makeup of audiences, though the studio appears to be claiming that racial crossover is part of the movie’s success. Will it be that there’s pent-up desire for romantic comedies, or movies period, with black casts? That if you court black journalists, students at historically black colleges and universities, and similar outlets and constituencies, you’ll get exceedingly strong turnout for a movie that actually engages with the target audience rather than tokenizing it? Will it be that maybe it’s time to see if Michael Ealy and Romany Malco are viable romantic comedy stars? Hollywood was willing to do a fair amount of work with Tatum before he became both a box-office monster and started getting nice reviews from people who aren’t observant ladies like me. Maybe Ealy, Malco, and the other men in this movie have proved they’ve earned the same amount of patience?

I would be shocked if this was the movie that made the difference and made Hollywood wake up. But I’d like it to be really clear the lessons that they should take. No one should get to claim a passing grade because they burned all the copies of the test papers.

Election

Missouri GOP Senate Candidate ‘Not Sure’ What The Violence Against Women Act Is

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 23, 2012 at 5:29 pm

Missouri Senate Candidate Sarah Steelman

Former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a Republican now hoping to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), said recently that she was unfamiliar with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the landmark anti-domestic violence legislation whose re-authorization is now stalled in the Senate.

 

Senate Republicans are objecting to re-upping the 1994 law, which has already been extended several times, because of amendments that would extend protections for Native American women, gay victims, and others.

A video released today by the Missouri Democratic Party shows a man asking Steelman about VAWA at a campaign event. Steelman replies, “I’m not sure what that is because I’m not serving right now.” He asks again, “You haven’t really heard about it?” And she confirms, “No, not really.” Watch it:

 

 

Caitlin Legacki, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Democratic Party, told Inside Missouri Politics that the exchange “underscores how ill-equipped she is to serve in public office.”

For her part, Steelman said in a statement: “Of course I am for stopping violence against women.” But she accused Senate Democrats of making the bill a “political football” and said she would would look at “an improved version” of the bill advanced by Republicans.

LGBT

California Bill Would Protect Patients From Harmful Ex-Gay Therapy

By Zack Ford on Apr 23, 2012 at 5:15 pm

A California Senate committee today advanced SB 1172, a bill that would help protect citizens from harmful, ineffective ex-gay therapy. The law does not outright ban all ex-gay therapy, but it does prohibit anyone under the age of 18 from undergoing sexual orientation change efforts. It also requires that any prospective patient sign an informed consent form that includes the following disclaimer:

Having a lesbian, gay, or bisexual sexual orientation is not a mental disorder. There is no scientific evidence that any types of therapies are effective in changing a person’s sexual orientation. Sexual orientation change efforts can be harmful. The risks include, but are not limited to, depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior.

Medical and mental health associations that oppose the use of sexual orientation change efforts include the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Counseling Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

This is model legislation that applies scientific knowledge to the benefit of the general welfare. Ex-gay therapy has been debunked repeatedly and deserves the marginalization that this bill would implement.

Of course, groups that promote ex-gay therapy insist that the evidence supports their traumatic practices, but it’s an empty claim. One of the witnesses at today’s hearing speaking on behalf of NARTH (National Association for the Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) cited two studies that have been debunked and disavowed. The intention behind the therapy, as essentially admitted in NARTH’s alert email today, is to simply reinforce religious bias against homosexuality. (The same email also mistakenly described the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ted Lieu (D), as openly gay, in an apparent attempt to further bias the group’s followers.) SB 1172 is an important step forward to protect gay youth and limit the dangerous impact of such stigma.

NEWS FLASH

Coalition Of Corporations Pushing For Massive Tax Giveaway Disbands | WinAmerica, a coalition of corporations including Apple, Cisco Systems, and Microsoft that has been pushing for a massive corporate tax giveaway, will reportedly disband, according to Bloomberg News. The group has severed ties with two of its three lobbying firms after spending more than $760,000 lobbying for a temporary reduction in the repatriation tax, the tax corporations pay on foreign profits when they are brought back to the United States. Though their cause was quickly adopted by congressional Republicans and many of the party’s presidential candidates, it ultimately went nowhere, potentially because the failures of the last repatriation holiday were quite apparent. After the repatriation tax rate was temporarily reduced in 2004, corporations stored more money offshore in anticipation of a future holiday, all the while laying off thousands of workers.

NEWS FLASH

Romney Spokesman Under Fire For Tweets Also Edits His Own Wikipedia Page | Last week, we noted that Mitt Romney’s new foreign policy spokesman Richard Grenell had a colorful life on Twitter, often dispensing biting comments about political opponents, and women in particular. Grennell has since scrubbed much of his online presence, deleting over 800 tweets and taking down his personal website. Now, Buzz Feed’s Andrew Kaczynski points out (on Twitter) that Grenell edits his own Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia edit page shows that most of the edits have to basic biographical information, such as his job history. But the editing suggest someone concerned about their public perception online, and thus someone who should probably have known better than, or saw nothing wrong with, making derogatory comments about MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s femininity, for example.

By Alex Seitz-Wald on Apr 23, 2012 at 4:53 pm

NEWS FLASH

Gambian President Condemns Homosexuality As ‘Evil And Ungodly’ | President Yahy Jammeh of The Gambia opened the 2012 legislative year with a condemnation of homosexuality, chastising Great Britain and the United States for threatening to withhold financial support if the country continues to persecute and incarcerate gay people:

JAMMEH: If you are to give us aid for men and men or for women and women to marry, leave it; we don’t need your aid because, as long as I am the President of The Gambia, you will never see that happen in this country. One thing we will never compromise, for whatever reason, is the integrity of our culture, our dignity and our sovereignty. [...] Sometimes you hear of a lot of noise about the laws of this country or my pronouncements; let me make it very clear that, if you want me to offend God for you to give me aid, you are making a great mistake; you will not bribe me to do what is evil and ungodly. I made it very clear, and I will make it very clear to this august body again that every country, every society, every culture has its own natural dos and dont’s.

Justice

Super PAC Evades Disclosure, Spends Big Against Pennsylvania GOP Senate Hopeful

By Josh Israel on Apr 23, 2012 at 4:40 pm

Freedom Fund for America’s Future website

Freedom Fund for America’s Future website

Tomorrow, Pennsylvania Republicans will vote in a primary to select their challenger to Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D). The five GOP candidates on the ballot include former coal mining CEO Tom Smith, biotechnology CEO Steve Welch, and former state Rep. Sam Rorher. While these candidates have been campaigning for months, a new Super PAC (seemingly aligned with Welch) has stormed onto the scene — and is taking advantage of its last-minute formation to circumvent disclosure rules.

On March 19, Washington, DC-based campaign finance compliance specialist David Satterfield filed a statement of organization for a new Super PAC named “Freedom Fund for America’s Future Inc.” The form did not name anyone else associated with the committee and included the URL for the group’s virtually-empty website.

On April 13, the group filed a quarterly disclosure statement listing no expenses or contributions through March 31, 2012. Three days later, it filed an amendment, revealing a $5,000 in-kind contribution of legal services from a Harrisburg, PA political consulting firm.

After the quarterly filing period was over, the group sprung into action. Last Thursday, it reported to the Federal Election Committee that it had spent $145,000 on a media buy aimed at opposing candidate Tom Smith. Friday, it reported another $30,145. Both payments went to a political ad firm which also is working for the Welch campaign. The firm’s managing partner claims there is a firewall between its work for Welch and its super PAC work for the anti-Smith Super PAC.

Watch the Freedom Fund for America’s Future Inc. attack ad against Smith:

Though the ad ends with a disclaimer that “Freedom Fund for America’s Future is responsible for the content” of the spot, Pennsylvania voters have no way of knowing that that means. The group has not disclosed a single contributor to the $175,000-plus ad buy. The group has not identified a board of directors or a chairman — only the little-known Satterfield. The group did not respond to multiple requests by ThinkProgress to identify the sources of its funding.

Because the group is a Super PAC, it will have to disclose its donations eventually (unlike 501(c)(4) groups like Crossroads GPS). But on a quarterly filing schedule, voters may not know the source of these contributions for months. And, with the primary tomorrow, that will be of little value to the citizens hoping to evaluate the credibility of people behind the ad before they case their ballots.

In his controversial 5-4 majority opinion in the Citizens United case, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote “Disclosure is the less-restrictive alternative to more comprehensive speech regulations.” But with a Federal Election Commission not enforcing existing disclosure laws and Congressional Republican opposition to any legislative remedies, Freedom Fund for America’s Future’s example is clear evidence that voters no longer even have that.

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