From Rolling Stone (1/1/07) (LINK)
The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock. One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible — and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century. “But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting.” By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes — Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.
To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won’t make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. “Green,” he tells me, only half-joking, “is the color of mold and corruption.”
“Jim is a brilliant scientist who has been right about many things in the past,” Richard Branson says. “If he’s feeling gloomy about the future, it’s important for mankind to pay attention.” ( It was Lovelock who inspired his friend Richard Branson to put up a $25 million prize for the Virgin Earth Challenge, which will be awarded to the first person who can figure out a commercially viable way of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.)
The giant, inexpressibly subtle network of positive and negative feedbacks that keeps the Earth’s climate in balance is seriously out of whack, derailed by pollution and deforestation. Lovelock believes the planet itself will eventually recover its equilibrium, even if it takes millions of years. What’s at stake, he says, is civilization.
“The whole system,” he decided, “is in failure mode.” A few weeks later, he began work on his latest and gloomiest book, The Revenge of Gaia, which was published in the U.S. in 2006.
But evidence from the real world suggests that the IPCC is far too conservative. For one thing, scientists know from the geological record that 3 million years ago, when temperatures increased to five degrees above today’s level, the seas rose not by twenty-three inches but by more than eighty feet.
Here, in its oversimplified essence, is Lovelock’s doomsday scenario: Rising heat means more ice melting at the poles, which means more open water and land. That, in turn, increases the heat (ice reflects sunlight; open land and water absorb it), causing more ice to melt. The seas rise. More heat leads to more intense rainfall in some places, droughts in others. The Amazon rain forests and the great northern boreal forests –the belt of pine and spruce that covers Alaska, Canada and Siberia –undergo a growth spurt, then wither away. The permafrost in northern latitudes thaws, releasing methane, a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more potent than CO2 — and on and on it goes.
To Lovelock, the whole idea of sustainable development is wrongheaded: “We should be thinking about sustainable retreat.”
Retreat, in his view, means it’s time to start talking about changing where we live and how we get our food; about making plans for the migration of millions of people from low-lying regions like Bangladesh into Europe; about admitting that New Orleans is a goner and moving the people to cities better positioned for the future. Most of all, he says, it’s about everybody “absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization, so that it doesn’t degenerate into Dark Ages, with warlords running things, which is a real danger. We could lose everything that way.”
It’s terrifying. We have just exceeded all reasonable bounds in numbers. And from a purely biological view, any species that does that has a crash.”
“We need bold action,” Lovelock insists. “We have a tremendous amount to do.” In his view, we have two choices: We can return to a more primitive lifestyle and live in equilibrium with the planet as hunter-gatherers, or we can sequester ourselves in a very sophisticated, high-tech civilization. “There’s no question which path I’d prefer,” he says one morning in his cottage, grinning broadly and tapping the keyboard of his computer. “It’s really a question of how we organize society — where we will get our food, water. How we will generate energy.”
For water, the answer is pretty straightforward: desalination plants, which can turn ocean water into drinking water. Food supply is tougher: Heat and drought will devastate many of today’s food-growing regions. It will also push people north, where they will cluster in cities. In these areas, there will be no room for backyard gardens. As a result, Lovelock believes, we will have to synthesize food — to grow it in vats from tissue cultures of meats and vegetables. It sounds far out and deeply unappetizing, but from a technological standpoint, it wouldn’t be hard to do.
Nuclear Power Is the Only Green Solution.” Lovelock argued that we should “use the small input from renewables sensibly” but that “we have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear — the one safe, available energy source — now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.”
Then, as now, the lack of political leadership is what’s most striking to Lovelock. Although he respects Al Gore’s efforts to raise people’s consciousness, he believes no politician has come close to preparing us for what’s coming. “We’ll be living in a desperate world in no time,” Lovelock says. He believes the time is right for a global-warming version of Winston Churchill’s famous “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat” speech he gave to prepare Great Britain for World War II. “People are ready for this,” Lovelock says as we pass under the shadow of the castle. “They understand what’s happening far better than most politicians.”
“Our moral progress,” says Lovelock, “has not kept up with our technological progress.”
But maybe that’s exactly what the coming apocalypse is all about. One of the questions that fascinates Lovelock: Life has been evolving on Earth for more than 3 billion years — and to what purpose? “Like it or not, we are the brains and nervous system of Gaia,” he says. “We have now assumed responsibility for the welfare of the planet. How will we manage it?”
“Some people will sit in their seats and do nothing, frozen in panic. Others will move. They’ll see what’s about to happen, and they’ll take action, and they’ll survive. They’re the carriers of the civilization ahead.”
Posted by publius2012 
Posted by publius2012 
Posted by publius2012 
