Influential Father of ‘Gaia Theory’ Endorses Fracking After His Energy Costs Skyrocket in the U.K.
- Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:35am by
Erica Ritz
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James Lovelock admits some of the conclusions he made in this book about the effects of global warming went too far. (Image: Amazon)
James Lovelock, often known as the father of Gaia theory, or the “highly influential hypothesis” that Earth is a self-regulating, single organism, has radically altered his environmentalist beliefs after being forced to move because of skyrocketing energy costs.
In a profile with the U.K.’s Guardian, Mother Earth’s former advocate is introduced:
Three years ago, he received a heating bill for the winter [totaling] £6,000. His [old] age means he has to have the heating on full in his poorly insulted home and, with his disabled son, Tom, living in a house next door, his outgoings on fuel rocketed… The experience altered his attitude to the politics and economics of energy… [He] is now coming out in favour of “fracking”, the controversial technique for extracting natural gas from the ground… “Gas is almost a give-away in the US at the moment. They’ve gone for fracking in a big way. Let’s be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.”
Not only that, Lovelock is also saying he is no longer concerned about rising sea levels, and that windmills are both “ugly and useless.”
Quite a change from the man who, in 2006, wrote an influential book called “The Revenge of Gaia,” saying that by the end of the century “billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”
Having admitted that he was probably “extrapolating too far,“ Lovelock also took time to criticize the ”green” movement, which has been highly influenced by his ideas:
“It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don’t think people have noticed that, but it’s got all the sort of terms that religions use. The greens use guilt. You can’t win people round by saying they are guilty for putting CO2 in the air.”
Here is a dramatic BBC clip of Lovelock describing his “Gaia” theory, and what will likely happen to the planet:
In addition to fracking, the former alarmist now also embraces nuclear power in the strongest of terms.
A blogger for the U.K.’s Telegraph embraces the change, but asks:
Could he really not see where green energy policies (inspired partly by his doomsday predictions in books like The Revenge of Gaia) were leading until he was socked with his first whacking great £6,000 heating bill? If so, then it strikes me as both a woeful failure of imagination and a lack of clear thinking. High energy bills, after all, are no accident. They are result of a very deliberate strategy by environmental pressure groups to make energy bills more expensive in order to force everyone to reduce their energy usage. Of course, the people this hits hardest are the ones for whom reducing energy usage is not really a viable option: the old and inform, many of whom have been driven into “fuel poverty” by the greens’ well-meaning attempts to save the world from the illusory threat of ManBearPig.
“Better late than never, eh?” he concludes, declaring his favorite line of the article to be: “I’m neither strongly left nor right, but I detest the Liberal Democrats.”
(H/T: Red State)
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Comments (108)
gregjackie1
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:33pmI find it so funny that these global warming nuts always show the ends of glaciers falling off into the water when talking about the phony global warming. Then turn around and say conservatives do not believe in science.
Report Post »Well the joke is on them. The process of the ends of glaciers falling into the water is called Calving. It has been around since glaciers first started.
Think of a lit cigarette on the end of a table. As it burns the ashes get too heavy and drop off a little at a time. Glaciers move toward water and eventually fall off at the weakened ends.
These global warming nut leftists are ridiculous.
The-Monk
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 5:08pmPoor little Mr. Lovelock…
They only wake up when they have to open up their OWN wallets.
Oh, the injustice of it all…. (end sarcasm)
Report Post »pavepaws
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:16pmSomewhere Al Gore is shedding a tear.
Report Post »piper60
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 6:18pmsatisfied laughter.
Report Post »Hickory
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:21pmA cold butt produces a clear head.
Report Post »Bryan B
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:12pmCan we drill in the Gulf of Mexico now ?
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 17, 2012 at 12:46amWe are a Predator Species… What we do is Hunt & Consume: Frack Gaia!
Report Post »mauijonny
Posted on June 17, 2012 at 3:12amOnce a fracking idiot, now a fracking genius…
Report Post »rickc34
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:30pmOkay let’s get this straight , here you have the guy that started earth worship and now he wants to give his god an enema to relieve gas? In nursing this is called a harris flush. Anyway he paying out the nose to heat his home and now have second thoughts. Its like Hugo Chavez now that he is dying he wants to get right with Jesus and give up being an Atheist. Hypocrites. They only change when their lives are effected.
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 4:28pmAll we will see of Mr. Lovelock, are body parts flying out from under the Progressive Bus.
Report Post »rickc34
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:25pmYes 13th iman he just earned himself a spot on Obamas kill list.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on June 17, 2012 at 4:04amGore will now send… the ManBearPig after him!
Report Post »RightPolitically
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:22pmProof once more that once these egghead elites come down from the lofty heights of their ivy towers, reality hits them smack in the face, or should I say, smack in the pocketbook. Funny how that all works!
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:51pmAmen brother.
Libs always do as I say not as I do hypocriticl elitists.
Barry gives a big speech saying global warming is real and a planetary crises and two weeks later he says hey hey Mooshelle let’s take a 747 to go have dinner at our favorite restaurant in Chicago for Valentines Day. And the lib media says aren’t they so cute!
Obama says you all don’t like high gas prices… Well buy a new car! Haha hoho what a funny a hole we have for president.
Barry says you might want to consider a staycation while he and his family jet around the freaking planet using our tax dollars and aircraft like a party wagon.
Five more months! Anyone that votes for this jerk again needs to get their freaking head examined.
Report Post »Godrulz
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:21pmGood for him.
Report Post »Freeze in the dark ya stupid old self appointed genius.
Rightdownthemiddle
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:15pmThis is a perfect example of religious dogma meeting reality. The green’s “religion” is just like so many others that have gone before, only to be discredited and die out. The real irony is the greens appear to be the real “flat earth” believers, as Algore puts it, and not the rest of us. Trying to explain how the earth’s ecosystem works with our level of knowledge is akin to two 4 year olds trying to explain how light bends around massive objects in space. Science has questions that may not have answers. Religion has answers that may not be questioned.
Report Post »Twobyfour
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:53pmRegarding light bending around massive object in space… That is also an incorrect theory. Light does not bend around a gravitational well, it bends into. However there is something else, many many many orders of magnitude more powerful, that that bends light — electromagnetism. I suspect that is the real maxwell demon here.
Report Post »Chris
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 9:36pmThe Gaia concept wasn’t an eco-religion when it started but it was rapidly picked up by the Earth worshipers that were already in the green movement.
Report Post »As the scientists explained it, Gaia was a shorthand term for the idea that there is a whole system of competing equilibria involving the earth and living things that keep things pretty much the way that they are. There are processes that create CO2 and processes that consume CO2, for example.
One of the basic pieces of data is that, unlike the other planets in our solar system, the Earth’s atmosphere is not in chemical equilibrium and the existence of life is what keeps it that way.
There is no intelligence guiding things in this concept – just a bunch of processes in competition with and reinforcing each other. Another concept is that the current conditions aren’t somehow “right”. If things change enough the system settles into a new stable condition although not necessarily on that people will thrive in.
Some of the eco-freaks took this basic idea and injected the concept that “Mother Earth” somehow “knows” and keeps the environment the way that she wants it.
NashEast
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:14pmWell, Frankenstein finally got his from the monster. Just like all Liberals, it‘s a wonderful idea as long as he doesn’t feel the pain. Now his creation has come back to destroy him. Hurts, don’t it?
Report Post »AmazingGrace8
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:32pmGood post!
Report Post »The_Cabrito_Goat
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:06pmOh, so this is where that reoccurring ‘Gaia’ joke came from :P
Report Post »Micmac
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:59pm@ Obrien871
Nuclear energy is the future, without a doubt. But man’s stupidity and shortcut financial/political decisions attached to its uses and safety precautions, like putting waste storage on top of multi-story structure that was destroyed by a tsunami/earthquake, says man is really not quite ready for this level of energy source. What’s going on in Japan right now and being withheld from their public is unconscienceable. The rate of cancers in Japan in the next generation will be manifolded because of one little tsunami/eathquake. This event was inevitable, but not well thought out and designed into the system. Politicians lessened the safety factors for cost purposes. Now many people will die before their time. Good going.
This catastrophe is still decades away from being over, and the potential for global clamity from this one single event still exists. So, we really aren’t fully ready for universal nuclear.
NoBama 2012
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:32pmTrue but have hear those were old style reactors new ones and those that would be built here much safer. They also step use the material and essentially recycle it meaning less storage required.
Japan had to nuclear bombs dropped on them and survived think teu can handle this. From what I’ve heard/read deaths due to long term radiation are over blown. Not an expert though so could be wrong.
Bottom line is we have 200 years worth of oil, 200 years worth of coal, and 200 years worth of natural gas. Meaning we easily have half a millennia to figure out an option for th future. And considering the planet has warned in 15 years and were heading into a mini ice age this is much ado about nothing.
Guarantee you the enviro wing nut chicken mottled will be clicking about spreading black soot on the encroaching glaciers ten years from now just like they were with their garbage in garbage out computer models in the 197Os! Lol
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:42pmSpot on about one time occurance over fifty years. Look what three mile island did and no one was effected by that at all. Media hype and liberals killed nuclear power in this country for the past 40 years over a rather benign incident. We need energy to live. If we‘re going to go the nobody dies ever route well then let’s make the speed limit 20 miles an hour and no one ever dies in a car accident. There are inherent risks in any industry and we have to weigh te benefits against the bad.
Report Post »Micmac
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 1:49pmI agree. We have about 500 years based upon our current population to get it right. I just hope that when we get it right the world is still useable without requiring a 25,000 year healing period. Even though the reactors may have been older ones, the decision at the time was based upon the current knowledge at the time, and we still make decisions thusly. And politicians still have their fingers in the cookie jar…and people like the hubrous Al Gore, as crazy as he is, effect national decisions.
NoBama 2012
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 2:05pmNo doubt. It amazes me a buffoon like Al Gore who flunked out of two universities and got a D in science… Twice… Has all the world a twitter over a complet crock of baloney. Planet hasn’t warmed in 15 years even the iguana UN admits it. Goes to show the problem is not science it’s the media. My inlaws dyed in the wool democrats buy the global warming nonsense hook line and sinker. I have masters in engineering and tell them it’s utter nonsense and they say NBC says its real. Yeah, some journalism lib bonehead knows more about what’s going on than I do. Propaganda from the MSM is killing our country. If my dem inlaws knew one tenth the truth about Barack Obama they’d never vote for him in a thousand years.
Report Post »Co2Forever
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:39pmDidn‘t we drop two bombs on them and they’re still kick’n. My bet is they’ll be fine after this too. Seems like nobody’s dooms day predictions ever come true. Oh, except those of the Jihadist, They have a knack of say’n you die infidel and we do. Oh ya and The Obama when he said if he has his way we’ll pay more for energy. Yep, that one came true too.
Report Post »I am an Individual
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:54pmExpect his disciples to turn on him and eviscerate him. There is another religion that kills those who embrace the faith and then leave it. Green worshipers are no different.
Report Post »Micmac
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:37pmThe concept of Gaia is an interesting one with threads of validity, but as usual ideas that haven’t been fully developed are used for political influence without having all the truths, and half-truths are not truths at all. For an eco-system like the earth to be able to adjust to changes over billions of years and still be as pristine as it is today says a lot.
But the leftist kooks make it out to be some piece of crystal, when it is as solid as one could dream, purely to advance their fallacious agendas. The power of fear. One of NoBama’s main tools. What I find ironic is this guy made a life off of this book and his Gaia concept, but when it comes to him, he changes his toon. Suck it up buddy. Wear warmer clothes or go live in a teepee. Hypocritical. Live the life you jammed down other’s throats. I refer to people like this as intellectual idiots, vis-a-vis the useless idiots we so often refer to.
NoBama 2012
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:26pmDisgusts me the needless suffering and money these green morons have wasted. The enviro nuts blocked nuclear energy so we had to build coal fired plants to produce electricity. Not they want to shut down the coal fired plants and build nuclear. The trillions upon trillions people have paid because energy prices driven up and ludicrous green taxes that are supposed to make the weather change. Food prices in poor nations through the roof because of ethanol insanity. And the list goes on. Only good thing is they’re refusing to breed because they think the planet has a fever. Darwinism at work the irony abounds!
Report Post »LibsAndCopKillersALoveStory
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:24pmEveryone grows up.
Report Post »CatB
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:50pmStill waiting on the man-child in the White House … I can’t say everyone …
Report Post »Smokey_Bojangles
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:23pmWould really mess up the green religion if James Lovelock wrote a Christian book.
Report Post »urrybr
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:21pmMaybe Gaia will start with him.
Report Post »RamonPreston
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:19pmSure. Destroy and poison the Earth just to save a few bucks. Didn’t he ever hear of Tesla who found out how to extract free electricity from the atmosphere? I’m sorry, wasn’t supposed to reveal the big secret of the oil/gas and electricity companies that are ripping you off for every cent they can get.
Report Post »ManassasGrandma
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:50pmPlease tell me this is sarcasm.
Report Post »Amica
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 5:51pmGrandma…Nope, he means it. I’ve heard the Tesla thing before. Haven’t taken the time to research it, but in my observation it’s just another way to be stuck in the past and have something to whine about.
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 7:11pmOil Co profit per gallon of gas – 2 cents TWO CENTS
St of CT Theft per gallon of gas 51.9 cents , FIFTY ONE point NINE CENTS
Federal Gas Theft per gallon of gas 18.4 cents EIGHTEEN point FOUR CENTS
Evidently the big secret is you are oblivious
And just who are the RAPISTS??
Report Post »scuba13
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:16pmMaybe he just evolved from being an idiot.
Report Post »obrien871
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:06pmWait until President Romney and republicans open the flood gates on oil. Executive order for Keystone on day one, extra 800,000 barrels a day. ANWR opened up an extra million barrels a day. Btw, we import a million barrels a day from Saudis. Coastlines and gulf opened up and the 800 billion barrels Barry and democrats have locked up on federal land will get going as well. Republicans have a plan to be 100% energy dependent within a decade. Gas and energy prices will plummet not to mention all the great paying jobs and massive tax revenue that will be created.
Report Post »bbhouston
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:43pmBush should‘ve just signed and ’EXECUTIVE ORDER’ opening Anwaar. Can you just imagine the outrage!!!
Report Post »olliehop
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:44pmCorrect! Lower energy prices, more commerce, people going back to work, more tax revenue, less unemployment. We can put a dent in the debt and at the same time increase our enegery independence.
Report Post »rsanchez1
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:04pmNothing like facing the stark reality of their failed policies to get environuts to change their tune.
Report Post »db321
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:22pmThis Liberal is no different that a person on Welfare – he promotes it until it start costing them money. Liberals are nothing more than mooches on society.
Obama knows how to go after Welfare, Food Stamps, Birth Control Pill Moms, illegals, and Free Health Care idiots that think Obama care is going to be free.
America is broke – Reagan save Welfare by cutting the waste. Once we have a Monetary collapse of the US Dollar, because of Obama spending and not trying to control the size of Govt. The above will be the first ones to suffer. They are called useful idiots. They vote for their own demise.
Report Post »The_Jerk
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:01pmHe knows that his pro-green trash science is being eviscerated, and at his age he must try and save some of his foolish reputation.
Report Post »MeteoricLimbo
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:00pmThere are no atheists in foxholes
Report Post »Sully9378
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:58amWow! My bet is that he made the book to make money by appealing to people’s fear. If that is not the case then good for him looking at his conclusions and realizing how wrong he was.
Report Post »rsanchez1
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:06pmJust like Al Gore made money with An Inconvenient Lie and with his investments in companies that stand to gain from “green” legislation.
Report Post »RedDirtTexas
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:56amAs I sit in my truck, on this frack job, I am speechless on this one! Leopards can change their spots!
Report Post »HKS
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:50amHe must have filled his bags. It’s all a money hokes. Follow the money.
Report Post »kung
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:49amNothing wrong with adjusting your opinion as you gain more facts.
Report Post »MeteoricLimbo
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 12:05pmme thinks the problem is expressing an opinion without all the facts….maybe
Report Post »jhaydeng
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 11:48amImpressive
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