James Lovelock on shale gas and the problem with 'greens' | Environment | guardian.co.uk

I think the most outrageous example of climate scientists getting it wrong and not admitting it was the 2007 IPPC report. They happily accepted the Nobel prize, but their sea-level rise estimates, according to that very important Science paper by Rahmstorf (pdf), were 100% wrong. They didn't really answer this other than say it's a very complicated business and we've only just started. The IPCC is too politicised and too internalised. Whenever the UN puts its finger in it seems to become a mess. But I wish I knew of a better model than the IPCC.

...The greens use guilt. That shows just how religious the greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting CO2 in the air. We do now know what we are doing when it comes to CO2 [emissions], but you don't have to go right over the top like the greens and shouting, "You're guilty!" I don't like it.

...One thing being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope you get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it. It's just the way the humans go that if there's a cause of some sort, a religion starts forming around it. 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 people who don't believe in the environment and climate science, etc, are the deniers. They are a totally different category [to the greens]. They've got their own religion. They believe that the world was right before these damn people [the greens] came along and want to go back to where we were 20 years ago. That's also silly in its own way. I don't see how any true scientist could be either a believer or a denier. The term "sceptic" has been hijacked, too.

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