Ian Johnston
MSNBC
4/23/2012
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.
Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.
He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”
However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far.”…
…In 2007, Time magazine named Lovelock as one of 13 leaders and visionaries in an article on “Heroes of the Environment,” which also included Gore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Robert Redford…
The complete article is at MSNBC
Related: Newsbytes – the ungreening of Germany and other environmental news at WattsUpWithThat
German utilities and private investors have plans to construct or modernise some 84 power stations, energy and water industry association BDEW said on Monday. Of the total number counted 29 units were gas-fired and 17 coal-fired generation plants, it said. The plans this year reflect over a year of debate on how to best replace Germany’s nuclear power stations, which must be closed faster than planned in light of the nuclear disaster in Japan in March 2011…
Also, No EPA action after 16 more Dimock well tests
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday it would not take any action in response to tests of 16 more drinking-water wells in the embattled natural gas-drilling town of Dimock, Pa., and one resident whose well showed elevated levels of carcinogenic arsenic declined the agency’s offer for alternative water.
The test results largely reinforced findings the EPA released recently on its tests of 31 other residential water wells in the Susquehanna County township, where opponents and supporters of Marcellus Shale natural gas development have clashed. The EPA intervened in Dimock in January after some residents expressed doubt about a state finding of improved water quality in the town…
