James Lovelock Says Live It Up: We’ve Got “20 years before it hits the fan”
Sun, Mar 2, 2008
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This is a follow-up to my previous post, “If You Knew the World Would End in the Near Future, What Would You Do?”
Smile, this guy says we’re all screwed!
It’s not the way I wanted to start my Saturday, reading that James Lovelock, the author of the Gaia hypotheses, is predicting that we have already passed the tipping point and so we might as well “enjoy life while you can.” Worse, I have heard a similar prediction from Dr. Andrew Weaver, Canada’s highly respected climate scientist and Nobel-winning lead author on the IPCC report.
Dr. Weaver gave it more like 40 years, but then he and most scientists are quite conservative about these things. I must say, my own research leads me to conclude that, if we have time to make change, it isn’t much at all. Unless the world as-a-whole undertakes a radical wartime-like effort to completely retool the economy and eliminate greenhouse gas emissions, it will all be over except the crying.
And, unfortunately, the wars and rape and murder and robbery and all the other things that happen as a civilization collapses. I encourage everyone to do their own research, but certain facts seem incontrovertible:
1. The IPCC predictions are conservative.
2. The IPCC predictions do not take into account certain positive feedback loops that will accelerate climate change and its effects.
3. The actual, measured events have generally occurred much more quickly than predicted.
The Arctic ice melt is the most recent and obvious example of the latter. Scientists are now saying that the summer ice may all be gone within a few years. That would be catastrophic, as the Arctic ocean would then absorb heat rather than reflect it back into space, as happens when it is covered by ice and snow. As the Arctic sea ice goes, it is very likely that methane – 23 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide – will be released in vast quantities from the permafrost.
And there will nothing to stop Greenland from melting – again, likely much more quickly than predicted – raising sea levels 7m or 20 feet. Each one metre rise in sea level will create 100 million refugees, and I would not be at all surprised if that figure was conservative.
So, what to do? I think it is the duty of enlightened people, and the Green Parties, to propose rapid and decisive action. We are faced with a crisis and must respond appropriately. Lovelock predicts that 80% of the human population will be dead by 2100, and I have heard similar predictions elsewhere. It is not hard to imagine that, as civilization collapses, the social effects of the climate crisis – war, murder, rioting, widescale food and water theft – will result in more immediate deaths than actual shortages.
What would you do if you knew the world was going to end in 20-40 years? And what do you think a lot of other people will do?
We must have a plan for this change. Half measures are inadequate, and we certainly don’t have time for ‘the market’ to respond if we simply remove subsidies and implement a carbon tax. We must lay out a program of rapid change that moves us to a green economy with almost zero greenhouse gas emissions within four years. We must retrain all those who lose their jobs, we must invest immediately in clean and green research, we must bring corporations and vested interests to heel, and we must repair our democracy. And we must do it all very bloody fast.
Cross-posted to my Green Party blog – because if we don’t get the politicians moving, we’re done.
Brian Gordon is a Canadian Green Party member and candidate trained by Al Gore to present An Inconvenient Truth.
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» » Party ’til you drop Says:
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:34 pm[...] Lovelock, the environmentalist who developed the Gaia hypothesis, suggests that we can party for about 20 years and humanity is [...]
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 am
How do we present this to people who govern and perhaps more importantly to big business who control modern life?
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:17 pm
It is very unlikely that mankind will cut their emissions so fast and drastically that either abrupt climate change or runaway global warming will be avoided.
Dr James Hansen of NASA says that any feasible planetary rescue plan must include a method of removing CO2 from the air.
I suggest the low cost, highly scalable, and technically feasible method of biosequestration. Read my blog at http://www.myspace.com/dobermanmacleod for more information.
“But getting billions of humans to make serious cuts in CO2 emissions anytime soon may be even less realistic politically. As Dr. Lovelock and Dr. Rapley write: Processes that would normally regulate climate are being driven to amplify warming. Such feedbacks, as well as the inertia of the Earth system — and that of our response — make it doubtful that any of the well-intentioned technical or social schemes for carbon dieting will restore the status quo. What is needed is a fundamental cure.” (New York Times, Oct. 1)
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Vaclav Smil, an energy expert at the University of Manitoba, has estimated that capturing and burying just 10 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted over a year from coal-fire plants at current rates would require moving volumes of compressed carbon dioxide greater than the total annual flow of oil worldwide — a massive undertaking requiring decades and trillions of dollars. “Beware of the scale,” he stressed.”
“I no longer care much about the science of global warming. To me, the central question, and the one that few are willing to discuss in depth, is: Then what? Fossil fuels now provide about 85% of the world’s total energy needs. Even more important is this corollary: Increasing energy consumption equals higher living standards. Always. Everywhere. Given that fact, how can we expect the people of the world — all 6.6 billion of them — to use less energy? The short answer: we can’t. The developed countries of the world can talk forever about the virtues of solar panels and windmills, but what the energy-poor need most are common fuels like kerosene, propane, and gasoline” –Robert Bryce, Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of ‘Energy Independence
Cutting emissions and waiting for a damaged Earth to remove the excess CO2 from the air is a weak (and expensive) mitigation strategy.
March 3rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm
I’ve been thinking about that for over 10 years. Finally I came to the possible conclusion that powerfull and influencial figures in politics and business think that they will not die as a result of a collapsing climate. They are wrong. They will just die a bit later than most of us. Tell them that.
March 3rd, 2008 at 6:57 pm
In response to everyone’s comments so far, I have to say I agree with Alan Cree. Jared Diamond pointed out (in his book Collapse) that this is not new. Those on top develop (or have) a mentality that they are somehow different from, and better than, the rest of us. This is how they justify their actions, and why they believe they are exempt from the natural consequences of their actions. However, as Diamond and Alan pointed out, at best (from their point-of-view) they will simply be the last to starve.
From our point-of-view, they must be the first to go or we are all doomed. It is debatable whether we have time to save civilisation-as-we-know-it; certainly the sooner and more decisively we get moving, the better the chances. However, for that to happen, those in power need to step aside, or be removed. It’s that simple, and that blunt.
Our current system rewards people with an arrogant worldview, and we can no longer afford this arrogance. We need wisdom, but the CEOs and top politicians and union bosses will not step aside. They will stall and fight and attempt to divide us every step of the way.
June 20th, 2008 at 3:12 am
Polar cities dubbed “Lovelock cities” in honor of James Lovelock
Polar cities are now being dubbed “Lovelock cities” in honor of James Lovelock, who has said that in the future human populations will likely be reduced greatly by global warming and only “breeding pairs in the Arctic” will keep the human species going. This is where the idea of polar cities germinated from.
Now, after blogging about polar cities for almost 2 years, and getting a little ink here and there, mostly in the blogosphere (and almost nothing in the mainstream media) I have decided to dub polar cities as “Lovelock Cities” in honor of James Lovelock, and also to help reporters and editors and readers understand better that these so-called polar cities at NOT at the poles per se, but merely in northern areas of the world; some Lovelock cities might be situated in Colorado, Switzerland and Britain, in fact. New Zealand and Tasmania, too. Patagonia, too. None at the North Pole because the North Pole will be underwater (or is that under water?).
At any rate, you heard the term first today here: LOVELOCK CITIES. May they help preserve the human spirit and the human species in the far distant future, IF WE NEED THEM. Let’s hope we never need them. Remember, this is all a “just in case” scenario. A “what if” scenario.
Here’s a timeline for Lovelock Cities:
2008-2050 : business as usual; meetings, conferences, talk talk talk
2050 – 2080 : preparations finally get underway
2100 : first mass migrations to Alaska, Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Russia, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Britain, Tasmani, New Zealand, Patagonia begin
2200 : second wave of mass migrations bring more people north from India, Africa, Asia and the Americas — and south to Tasmania and New Zealand
2300 : World Government Body (WGB) set up first officially sanctioned polar cities for breeding pairs in the Arctic, also known as Lovelock Cities
2400 : major climate disasters worldwide with scarce food, fuel, power, and other resources (coupled with overpopulation) begin reducing world population from 9 billion people to 1 billion people
2500 : world population declines to just 200,000 “breeding pairs” in the Arctic (and southern extremes as well, including Antarctica) in 100 to 30 Lovelock Cities situated in those regions and administered and governed by the World Government Body or some such entity, perhaps the IPCC. [Mad Max conditions outside these Lovelock Cities, aka polar cities, last for 1000 years... until 3500]
4500 : The human species has made it through the Great Interruption, intact but greatly reduced in numbers. Full recovery possible beginning in 4500. Hope springs eternal.
Note A: children born in Lovelock Cities (aka Polar Cities) are mixed DNA humans of combined Caucasian-Asian-African-Hispanic-Arab stock, creating a new “race” on Earth
Note B: a new religious perspective develops before, during and after the Great Interruption to help humans cope with and understand what has happened to them