Bishop Hill Lovelock recants
Jan 25, 2013 Greens James Lovelock has written a letter of objection regarding a windfarm development in Devon (see link below for the whole thing). This bit strikes me as important.
I am an environmentalist and founder member ofthe Greens but I bow my head in shame at the thought that our original good intentions should have been so misunderstood and misapplied. We never intended a fundamentalist Green movement that rejected all energy sources other than renewable, nor did we expect the Greens to cast aside our priceless ecological heritage because of their failure to understand that the needs of the Earth are not separable from human needs. We need take care that the spinning windmills do not become like the statues on Easter Island, monuments of a failed civilisation.
As Phillip Bratby (to whom a big tip of the hat is due) puts it, there are strong shades of Patrick Moore's regrets over the monster he created in Greenpeace. One might add that another parallel would be Mark Lynas's regrets over his anti-GMO activism.
I've said it before, but the damage done by environmentalists to the environment is beyond estimation.
Reader Comments (58)
He doesn't recant at all. He says that their original vision was not fundamentalist, rejectionist and anti-human. He says that pragmatism about human as well as non-human lives need to be brought back into solutions to our clear negative impacts on the world.
Lovelock is not a skeptic. He is a pragmatist who is alarmed and disappointed in the extremism of the environmental movements. He sees nuclear energy as an OVERALL better source of energy in a world where people's lives need more energy than obtainable in a 17th century world. He sees the isolation of negative impacts, the "dark Satanic mills", so that they can managed better and leave more of the landscape un-blighted.
Note that he is not suggesting we retreat to a Rousseauian Eden of hunter-gatherers in primaeval forests and glades: he encourages the sustainable English countryside of the early 20th century (the better parts, that is), a landscape utterly managed and designed by Man, not God or the Old Testament.
Lovelock calls for reason in a time of passion. He says work with the environment because we do better when it does better, and for the non-human life, where possible, because the entire world does better when the largest part of the world does better.
Lovelock does not say that CO2 from fossil fuels is harmless. He considers A-CO2 to be a supreme danger in that it modifies what has been determined through natural trial and error to be the "best" situation at this time.
In short, your interpretation of Lovelock's recanting is wrong. Lovelock restates his and his fellow environmentalists' initial position that humans achieve their goals by working with the natural world, not disregarding it. Even if in doing so such non-natural things as nuclear powerplants and "dark Satanic mills" have a place, though as small as possible.
Hardcore climate activist blow all their fuses at pragmatism. Most policies wouldn't survive a healthy bit of pragmatism
Eliza the only things that have changed in Nimbin is the roads in are better than they were, and the hippies of yesteryear have migrated to the great green mendicant state of Tasmania to be replaced by their mindless spawn. The trade in pot has been taken over by groups less likely to be harrased by the coppers and many of the rainbow coalition have removes a few colours leaving just three as fits the identity politics of today.
"Cross-posted the above at JoNova's site, with the following addendum:"
Indur, it's really unsporting poking Brooksey, MattB and Catamon with a stick when they're so busy foaming at the mouth over the upcoming return visit of Lord Monkton.
For some real fun, post it on GetUp and watch Simon and Anna's accolytes explode en masse.
Clearly there are many here who have not bothered to read Lovelock. Lovelock has persistently objected to wind turbines in his writings. His primary objections have been 1. Wind Turbines do not provide reliable and consistent power and need a conventional back up. 2. The amount of CO2 released through creating concrete anchorage is huge. Lovelock is a proponent of atomic power and has been for some time.
"England is becoming one large town haphazardly interspersed with 'Greenfield
sites'. The few sizeable stretches of original countryside that remain are in rural North and West Devon and Northumberland...."
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I have a relative who farms in North Devon. Lovelock is being disingenuous in claiming that where he lives is special and therefore should not have a wind turbine. Devon and Northumberland are indeed very nice places to live but the UK is full of beautiful countryside which is being well managed by farmers, foresters and park rangers.
Hundreds of wind turbines have already been erected in the UK. The only difference between them and the one Lovelock objects to is that they aren't in his back yard.
Where are all the letters he wrote in support of people living in other parts of the UK who have been forced to accept wind turbines being erected in beautiful countryside near them?
James Lovelock is getting a dose of his own medicine and dislikes it just as much as everyone else. That is poetic justice.
Doug Proctor if humans only ever worked with the natural world ', you be in no position to write your words let alone to see them on a web. Its actual becasue Man has taken the approach that the natural world can be challenged and adapted that you have the life you do now .
'he encourages the sustainable English countryside of the early 20th century (the better parts, that is),'
And like many who do in pratice they no dam idea what that actual involved , becasue he and you are still pursuing a 'Rousseauian Eden' of some idealised pastoral past, full of rosy cheek children and happy farm workers working in harmony with nature, that never was.
I occasionally catch up with numberwatch. As well as some good stuff in the January number of the month entry about climate, the estimable John Brignell reminds us that he had the Easter Island = Windmill story ten years ago. Now, why listen to Lovelock when you can read Brignell?
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/2003%20June.htm#Vale