Source: BBC TV: Newsnight
URL: N/A
Date: 02/04/2014
Event: Lovelock on climate change: "I don't think any of them really know what's happening"
Credit: BBC TV
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Jeremy Paxman: Now he's been called one of the world's top public intellectuals, he invented the "Gaia" idea - the theory that the world is a self-regulating organism - and now, at the age of 94, he's being celebrated at the Science Museum in London as one of the titans of post-war science, a man who, working outside the mainstream scientific institutions, came up with some of the most original ideas of our time. His latest book is A Rough Guide to the Future, which deals with the small matter of whether mankind has a future. I went to talk to him.
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James Lovelock: There's a tendency to think that we are the end of the road, the final product of evolution, the most important animal that was ever - evolved. We're not, I don't think - we're just a step in a long progression.
Jeremy Paxman: So, you mean the human race could die out?
James Lovelock: Oh yes, it could do. Other species have died out. I mean, why should we be given some special - what do you call it - tenure?
Jeremy Paxman: Well, mainly because we're cleverer than all the other ones.
James Lovelock: We think we are.
Jeremy Paxman: We are, aren't we?
James Lovelock: No, I don't think so.
Jeremy Paxman: Why not?
James Lovelock: Well, I think we're so proud of ourselves that we don't realise how ignorant we really are.
Jeremy Paxman: What do you mean?
James Lovelock: Well, take this climate matter that everybody's thinking about. They all talk, they pass laws, they do things as if they knew what was happening. I don't think any of them really know what's happening. They just guess at it. And a whole group of them meet together and encourage each other's guesses.
Jeremy Paxman: That latest report from the International Panel on Climate Change did suggest that there was something inevitable about climate change, that it had already begun and that we had to adjust to it. All of those things are true, are they not? As far as we know.
James Lovelock: Absolutely, that is true. That report, the last one, is very similar to the statements that I made in a book about eight years ago called The Revenge of Gaia. It's almost as if they've copied it, but not quite.
Jeremy Paxman: Sure. You, then, after publishing these apocalyptic predictions, you then retracted them.
James Lovelock: Well, that's my privilege, you see. I'm an independent scientist. I'm not funded by some government department or commercial body or anything like that. If I make a mistake, then I can go public on it. And you have to, because it's only by making mistakes that you can move ahead.
Jeremy Paxman: It follows from that, does it not, that this panel on climate change, which has - as you point out - vested interests involved in it, may be just as likely - or even more likely - to make a mistake.
James Lovelock: Well, that would be a lot of hubris on my part, to say that. But it's possible.
Jeremy Paxman: Now, you are evidently very concerned about the effect of carbon upon the world, and yet you part company with many environmentalists on the question of nuclear power. Do you think - I mean, what's gone wrong with the perception of nuclear power?
James Lovelock: I wish I knew. There - I can offer a suggestion. Nuclear energy is a normal, natural thing for the universe. Our not using it is quite mad. And I think the only reason we don't use it is that we feel - felt quite guilty about using that gift of nuclear energy in wartime, rather than using it as a safe, clean and nearly perfect source of energy. It's safer even than windmills - you can be killed when the blade of a windmill spins off and hits your house or chops your head off.
Jeremy Paxman: And as far as the other great bête noire of environmentalists goes - fracking - where are you on that?
James Lovelock: Well, I think it's an awful word. [Laughs.] The guy that thought of it should have realised that it's just the kind of word that will stir up a lot of fuss. Er, but leaving that aside, I'm fairly neutral about fracking. I think we in Britain may be forced to use it, because we won't have any other easily available sources of electricity, other than burning methane.
Jeremy Paxman: You don't worry, though, about the collateral - potential collateral consequences that are said to flow from fracking, for example water-course pollution and the rest of it?
James Lovelock: I do. I don't altogether like it. But we may have no option but to use fracking as our source, because nothing, I can imagine, is much worse, environmentally, than a sudden cessation of electricity supplies. Just imagine London without any - as a society, we'd fall apart in a relatively short space of time.