James Lovelock
In summarizing Lovelock's view I don't think we can improve on this entry from Wikipedia:
Lovelock believes that it is too late to avoid significant global heating and significant climate change which will make large parts of the Earth's surface much less hospitable for humans. As a result, there will be an inevitable, major decline in the human population over the next hundred years. Lovelock's answer is that nuclear power is the only short-term solution for the preservation of civilization as it stands now. The dangers that many environmentalists see from nuclear power are quite minor with respect to most of Earth's ecologies. Lovelock sees benign alternate energy sources as inadequate and irrelevant at best.
Lovelock draws a distinction between his original Gaia hypothesis of the 1970s and current Gaia theory. He believes that the time will come when the United States government takes global heating seriously and that they will respond with immense planet-scale engineering fixes, perhaps space based. While he indicates these may succeed, he is left despondent by the prospect that humans will have to deal with the extra costs of maintaining a habitable surface climate, a task formerly done for the human race by Gaia.
Lovelock thinks the time is past for sustainable development, and that we have come to a time when development is no longer sustainable. He proposes that we need sustainable retreat from an impending Climate Storm; that we must retreat in an orderly fashion from the coming threats to our global habitat, to mitigate adverse impacts on human health and happiness.
According to Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain. He says that "By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris - as far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position." Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. "If you take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 - between 43C and 49C (120F). It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow - there will be almost no food grown in Europe. We are about to take an evolutionary step and my hope is that the species will emerge stronger. It would be hubris to think humans as they now are God's chosen race."
I read The Revenge of Gaia when it was first published in 2006 and was convinced Lovelock was right. The thesis of this book was a large part of why I wanted to create 1159. To my mind, above all else, this view of Lovelock's is what is needed to JOLT us into awakening. So while I am 100% certain that conscious evolution is the underlying solution to the Emergency, what we need now, first, is a way to motivate people to choose, consciously, to evolve. They have to believe there is in fact an Emergency, and I don't believe they currently do, far too few of us do.
So to me this is precisely what 1159 must change if we are to be successful. First the jolt of awakening as individual after individual realizes that EXTINCTION, or at the very least the END OF CIVILIZATION is what we are actually facing, that it will very likely mean the death of everyone in their family, their entire family line, within one or two generations. THAT will wake up the great mass of humanity, when first hundreds, then thousands, and finally millions of intelligent credible people start acknowledging this truth.
What do you think?
Lovelock believes that it is too late to avoid significant global heating and significant climate change which will make large parts of the Earth's surface much less hospitable for humans. As a result, there will be an inevitable, major decline in the human population over the next hundred years. Lovelock's answer is that nuclear power is the only short-term solution for the preservation of civilization as it stands now. The dangers that many environmentalists see from nuclear power are quite minor with respect to most of Earth's ecologies. Lovelock sees benign alternate energy sources as inadequate and irrelevant at best.
Lovelock draws a distinction between his original Gaia hypothesis of the 1970s and current Gaia theory. He believes that the time will come when the United States government takes global heating seriously and that they will respond with immense planet-scale engineering fixes, perhaps space based. While he indicates these may succeed, he is left despondent by the prospect that humans will have to deal with the extra costs of maintaining a habitable surface climate, a task formerly done for the human race by Gaia.
Lovelock thinks the time is past for sustainable development, and that we have come to a time when development is no longer sustainable. He proposes that we need sustainable retreat from an impending Climate Storm; that we must retreat in an orderly fashion from the coming threats to our global habitat, to mitigate adverse impacts on human health and happiness.
According to Lovelock, by 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine. The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain. He says that "By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris - as far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position." Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. "If you take the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 - between 43C and 49C (120F). It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow - there will be almost no food grown in Europe. We are about to take an evolutionary step and my hope is that the species will emerge stronger. It would be hubris to think humans as they now are God's chosen race."
I read The Revenge of Gaia when it was first published in 2006 and was convinced Lovelock was right. The thesis of this book was a large part of why I wanted to create 1159. To my mind, above all else, this view of Lovelock's is what is needed to JOLT us into awakening. So while I am 100% certain that conscious evolution is the underlying solution to the Emergency, what we need now, first, is a way to motivate people to choose, consciously, to evolve. They have to believe there is in fact an Emergency, and I don't believe they currently do, far too few of us do.
So to me this is precisely what 1159 must change if we are to be successful. First the jolt of awakening as individual after individual realizes that EXTINCTION, or at the very least the END OF CIVILIZATION is what we are actually facing, that it will very likely mean the death of everyone in their family, their entire family line, within one or two generations. THAT will wake up the great mass of humanity, when first hundreds, then thousands, and finally millions of intelligent credible people start acknowledging this truth.
What do you think?
Views: 70
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Gareth Strangemore-Jones on -
I have a lot of respect for Lovelock and share his fears regarding the threats to the current level of human population
I do not believe Nuclear Power to be the / an answer.
To me, the argument against nuclear runs like this (and please excuse the language involved, it is the simplest analogy I can come up with)...
Q) Would you shit on your own doorstep?
A) No.
Q) Would you shit on your neighbour's doorstep?
A) No.
Q) Would you shit on a stranger's doorstep?
A) No.
Q) Would you shit on your children's or grandchildren's doorstep?
A) Hell, no!
So commissioning a power source that cannot be cleaned up using current or emerging technology just is not a sustainable or morally acceptable option.
This arguement is only talking about the long term storage and disposal of nuclear waste, and does not even take into account ongoing safety factors...
But Lovelock is right to create debate as 'energy as usual' is failing us.
Whatever the solutions are, they will need substantial investment soonest.
I hope to help WorldShift 2012 to engage this process of positive transformation.
Power to the Peaceful,
G*
-
Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on -
Hey Gareth, someone finally responded to one of my forums!
Loud and clear on nuclear power, and he has few supporters on that count, me included. My support is primarily for the concept that the 6th mass extinction to occur on this planet is fully underway, accelerating exponentially, that we are causing it, and that what is necessary is not sustainable development but sustainable retreat. I think Lovelock sees nuclear power as a stopgap that buys us some time while we retreat, but it's not going to happen and shouldn't happen for many reasons, including the ones you've so vividly shared here.
Again, I believe the key is collective shock and alarm, a collective shot of adrenalin. We're going to get it one way or the other, it's inevitable, but wouldn't it be wonderful if it didn't require the death of a large percentage of the human population? That is why I'm dedicating my company's new technology (as soon as it's built) to WorldShift2012, so that people like Ervin can reach out through the screen and engage the individuals of (at least) the broadband world in a two-way conversation, to convince them that the emergency is real, and to become part of a clearly articulated solution.
Thanks for your thoughts!
-
Permalink Reply by Graham Boyd on
-
Hi Carl, Gareth
Your motivation for founding 1159, and the views you have, are spot on. Very resonant with why Robin and I are founding Renaissance2. So I'd love to see a cross-post of this on our Renaissance2 Ning site; would be great if you could do it with your name behind it.
My phrasing of the nuclear question is what do we need to do to retreat from nuclear over the coming decade without triggering massive systemic problems. Right now, for example, nuclear provides half of Belgium's electricity. So an orderly retreat means a full activity system that replaces nuclear with renewable electricity.
In Renaissance2 we're starting to use the word 'Renewable Civilisation' to replace Sustainable. It resonates better with a full range of activity systems balancing retreat, sustainable and a lot more, to reach a system that can be fully sustained by Gaia. ie., fully renewable.
Regards
Graham
-
Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on
-
Hi Graham, sorry I missed this reply earlier, thank you for your vote of support. I would be happy to post this on your network, please let me know what you have in mind.
Lovelock of course is pro-nuclear, so he would tell you that nuclear is actually part of sustainable retreat, and that renewable sources are far too little too late. He is quite grim in his forecast, but I think we must take him seriously because he's a truly great scientist and has nothing to lose at his age.
That said, it's not clear what the real answer might be. It seems we must embrace any and all renewable solutions while attempting to maintain the existing ones and hope that a miracle energy technology is discovered before it's too late.
-
Permalink Reply by Marcel Cramer on -
I am not completely in line with 'fatalistic' messages to the crowds. Yes, you might think that screaming in someones ear that the world will be coming to an end is the way to go but that is not the case.
Before you know it the masses will place you in a corner. Why? There have been 'END of TIME' movements for hundreds of years now, and they were not heard by the masses. People discarded them as fools, and the fact we are all still here did not help build their case nor will it help ours. Furthermore, telling people that it will end anyway, whatever we do is not enough to motivate. They will just pull up their shoulders and think, if that is the case, why should I do something?
In my opinion it should still be the right message but brought to them in the way they want it and got used to. Selling the product is not very different from selling the message. Remember, a human brain learns fast. If we manage to propel change by using all possible media we would create a bigger effect. Repetition of the message is more important than sheer force of the message.
2009 - 2010 will, for example, bring a revolution in internet caused by the rise of social media and use of video platforms. If you have the right message - the right package - the target audience and a long breath you can get very far. Even more if you combine it with radio - podcasting - tv - webtv - events...
Well, i hope you notice where I would like to go. Don't shout - convince with evidence.
-
Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on
-
I'm sure you like Ervin's approach then, Marcel, as he's not inclined to shout at anyone, and offers plenty of evidence. We'll do our best to get his message out to the world using existing and new technologies as they become available. I don't advocate shouting either, for that matter, but the evidence can provide us with a much needed jolt of awakening that can lead to intelligent collective action. Thanks for our reply!
-
Permalink Reply by Dominic Search on -
"End of Days" prophecies were part of the driving force behind St. Paul's fervour in spreading the message of Christianity, and in one form or another are almost certainly of very great antiquity. The human mind seems to crave this type of thinking, and every age has had it's form of apocalypse to chasten its behaviour... to continue Peter's quotations from La Rochefoucauld "Repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done as fear of the evil that may befall us as a result".
In my youth it was the doomsday spectre of global nuclear warfare, and today it is the prospect of impending social, economic, and (most particularly) ecological collapse. This is in part a line of reasoning that runs through Michael Crichton's novel "State of Fear". That of course is not to say our current apocalypse is a mere "mind-forged manacle"... it is unfortunately very real.
As to whether we should be shouting about... it the early days of the "green" movement it was the only way to attract attention, when anyone remotely voicing concern was labelled by the media as some kind of crank or hippy. Today it's very different... climate change is mainstream and the business of dealing with its is starting to become Big Business. So too our approach must be different... certainly we must continue to highlight just how perilous the situation is (for which I see the WorldShift 2012 Declaration as being key), but also we must positively "market" positive solutions.
And of course, always convince with evidence... the very foundations of our 400 year journey into modern science.
-
Permalink Reply by Dominic Search on
-
Lovelock's current pro-nuclear stance is a pointer to some of the very vexed questions and dilemmas we shall all face on our collective road to ecological "salvation"... at the time he went public with these views (as now while I write), it forced me to challenge my own idealisms and prejudices with the harsh realities of where we are now.
Many years ago I heard someone described nuclear power as an "extra-terrestrial" technology, by which they meant too dangerous for use within our biosphere but too important for humanity to ignore. Some of the very first street protests I attended were the CND marches in London during the mid 1980's, partly in response to the doomsday spectre of global nuclear warfare I mentioned earlier, and partly because of this "extra-terrestrial" quality to nuclear power. And then there was Chernobyl...
Before committing fingers to keyboard here I've spent the last hour or so reading through some of the many linked Wikipedia articles on nuclear power, reactor technology, chain reaction physics, fission products, etc, etc. I studied sciences at high school and have a pretty good grasp of basic nuclear sci-tech.
But I am hopelessly out of my depth when it comes to assessing current safety standards, relative risk-factors, longer-term energy forecasts (and their economic consequences), the pros & cons of fast-breeder reprocessing vs cask burial as a waste disposal strategy, etc, etc. Expert panels can't agree either... and the whole issue is both shrouded in commercial secrecy and clouded by passionate public emotions... not to mention the political hot potato of where to build new reactors & disposal facilities.
So how can I properly judge what Lovelock has proposed? Certainly he is right that time is of the very greatest essence, and that we have barely made an impact on the total global energy use with either energy consumption reduction campaigns or alternative / renewable energy sources. But is he right to assert that nuclear is therefore the only way forward for the short-medium term? If nothing else changes then my gut reaction is yes... and unless things do change I may actually find myself agreeing to the use of a technology I have spent the last 25 years opposing. That's the point where idealism gives way to pragmatism...
A great moment then to remind ourselves what the great late Bucky Fuller once said "There is no energy crisis, only a crisis of ignorance." My great hope is that he is right and that Lovelock is wrong. It is now up to us to help overcome our collective ignorance.
-
Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on
-
Enjoyed reading this, Dominic. I share your great hope, and your feelings about nuclear power and Lovelock's nuclear prescription for sustainable retreat. There must be a better way, but exactly what it is remains unclear. A crisis of ignorance indeed.
-
Permalink Reply by Dominic Search on
-
:-)
btw, there's good a (but alas short) interview with Lovelock on the subject in this archived BBC radio program. I heard it on original transmission... unfortunately their internet player doesn't seem to be functioning properly at the moment so I'll send them an email.
-
Permalink Reply by Dominic Search on
-
Randomly I've just come across this interesting blog thread: Tom Blees: Rebuttal to Greenpeace on nuclear. Interestingly he references "The Limits to Growth" (1972) and bases his argument on the experimental 4th generation Integral Fast Reactor (which is what I delved into Wikepedia for in the first place as I'd vaguely heard of it before, but then got lost in all the other related material).
-
Permalink Reply by Carl Carpenter on
-
Great find, Dominic. In addition to sponsoring a debate on global warming, I would like to see WS2012 sponsor one on nuclear power. No doubt this IFR technology will factor largely into that. Thanks for digging!
© 2012 Created by David Woolfson.
