THE timing couldn't have been more perfect for Gaia guru James Lovelock to recant his climate alarmism last week.

His epiphany came on the eve of ABC television's hotly anticipated 10-city, 21-day eco-extravaganza,

I Can Change Your Mind About Climate Change .

Oddly, however, on the Q & A panel show that followed, in which, naturally, sceptics were outnumbered three to one, it barely rated a mention.

Here was the scientist hailed as the godfather of the modern environmental movement admitting that he had over-egged the pudding on global warming.

The doomsday merchant who wrote in 2006: "Billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" has allowed the evidence to change his mind. Hallelujah.

The Earth has "not warmed up very much since the millennium" he told msnbc.com last week, even though "we were supposed to be halfway towards a frying world now".

The temperature "has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising. But carbon dioxide is still rising, there's no question about that".

Let history mark the moment when the gig was up for climate alarm.

Unfortunately, there was no such dramatic conversion on the ABC on Thursday night.

But Lovelock's change of mind provided a sobering backdrop for the saccharine condescension of the documentary. Starring climate sceptic former Liberal senator Nick Minchin, 59, and climate activist Anna Rose, 28, the aim was to have each try to persuade the other to their view. They travelled around the world, camera crew in tow, seeking out the best advocates to help argue their case and listening with an open mind to opposing views.

That was the theory, anyway. But from the start it was obvious that, despite her sweet smile and winsome ways, Rose was a climate fanatic incapable of changing her mind.

You have to give points to her, as co-founder of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition and wife of GetUp leader Simon Sheikh, for having the courage to take part in the show, despite condemnation from fellow alarmists such as Clive Hamilton.

According to Simon Nasht, the documentary producer, Hamilton asked "Rose not to participate, in the most manipulative manner, by placing the entire future of the environmental movement on her young shoulders".

Heavy burden, which may explain the insults and ad hominem attacks she engaged in, when meeting experts chosen by Minchin.

In Boston, when she met Richard Lindzen, the eminent American atmospheric physicist, she blanked everything he said about climate feedback and instead performed a stunt, accusing him of being a tobacco industry shill.

"I never did that. That is pure slander," he exclaimed.

It was the one time Minchin lost his cool, telling her: "The thing that really pisses people like me off is this red herring that people like you raise about tobacco. It is part of the slander of the environmental movement."

It's a pity Minchin didn't get fired up some more, because Rose continued in the same vein for much of the show.

She insulted Marc Morano in Washington, saying he was "the worst of the worst Republican attack dogs" who "makes things up" but refusing to provide examples or debate him.

After meeting mathematician David Evans and scientist Jo Nova in Perth she dismissed their "kitchen table science". She didn't even try to meet Minchin half way. It was as if sceptics were supposed to be pathetically grateful to get airtime on the ABC at all.

The alarmists have only been driven to dialogue with the enemy through desperation, as public opinion deserts them. They tried ignoring the sceptics. But that just made them look shifty and insecure. They tried to smear sceptics by linking them to Big Tobacco or Big Oil but that made them look mean and tricky. They tried accusing sceptics of violence and death threats but it didn't wash. They even talked about suspending democracy.

Now when they're licked, they deign to talk. Big concession.

Rose tells Minchin in a breathtakingly patronising set piece at the end, that people like him are needed to join the campaign against climate change.

"And while it didn't make the final cut of the documentary, she boasted afterwards, "I believe Nick's admission in London that the climate has warmed" and that "human emissions of CO2 probably made some contribution to that" was a major step forward from someone who had previously called climate change some kind of plot "to de-industrialise the western world".

No. Minchin stated from the start that, like most sceptics, his doubts are less about the reality of climate change than the apocalyptic urgency of the alarmists.

"Nobody disagrees that the climate is changing It's a question of what is driving that and is there anything we can actually do about it," he said. "Australia's greatest single most important competitive advantage has been access to cheap, reliable energy produced by coal.

"You don't jeopardise that unless there is absolutely overwhelming evidence that you must do that to save the Australian nation."

Alarmists haven't wanted to hear what the sceptics are saying.

Instead they have demonised, propagandised, wasted money, rammed through jobs-destroying legislation the majority of the populace doesn't want, and diverted attention from issues like children dying for lack of clean water.

Will any of the rats jumping from the sinking ship of climate alarm ever admit what damage they did to the environmental cause by their hysterical over-reach, distortions and abuse of those who refused to fall into line?

They have created a generation of people who don't care about the environment and don't respect science. It's a huge own goal, but it rebounds on us all.