Humans At War With Earth On Climate Change Says James Lovelock

Main Category: Water - Air Quality / Agriculture
Article Date: 29 Oct 2007 - 5:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions

We could be on the brink of natural disaster and even the gloomiest predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report are underestimating the current severity of climate change, Professor James Lovelock will say at a public lecture at the Royal Society (1) the UK National Academy of Science today (Monday 29 October 2007).

Professor James Lovelock will discuss his concerns about the impending consequences of global warming at the lecture(2), Climate change on the living Earth'. He will argue that although the scientific language of the IPCC report is "properly cautious", it gives the impression that the worst consequences of climate change are avoidable if we take action now.

Instead, his view of the future is much more frightening. Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct. He argues that we have set off a vicious cycle of positive feedback' in the earth system whereby extra heat in the atmosphere from any source is amplified, causing yet more warming. He will say: "We are at war with the Earth and as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond."

According to Professor Lovelock the IPCC's climate models fail to take account of the Earth as a living system where life in the oceans and land takes an active part in regulating the climate. He will argue that when a model includes the whole Earth system it shows that: "When the carbon dioxide in the air exceeds 500 parts per million(3) the global temperature suddenly rises 6 degrees Celsius and becomes stable again despite further increases or decreases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This contrasts with the IPCC models that predict that temperature rises and falls smoothly with increasing or decreasing carbon dioxide."

Professor Lovelock will also warn that cutting back on fossil fuel use could actually exacerbate global warming. This is because current global warming is being partially offset by global dimming the two to three degrees of global cooling caused by aerosol particles in the atmosphere from man made pollution. These reflect sunlight and nucleate clouds that reflect even more sunlight.

He will say: "Any economic downturn or planned cut back in fossil fuel use, which lessened the aerosol density, would intensify the heating. If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler....We live in a fool's climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly."

However, he will also say: "Because it might help slow the pace of global heating, we have to do our best to reduce emissions and lessen our destruction of natural forests to feed and house ourselves; but this is unlikely to be enough and we will have to learn to adapt to the inevitable changes we will soon experience.

Professor Lovelock will say that this does not mean that there is no hope. Instead we should think of the Earth as a live self-regulating system and devise ways to harness the natural processes that regulate the climate in the fight against global warming. This could involve paying indigenous peoples to protect their forests and develop ways to make the ocean absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere more efficiently.

Professor Lovelock will conclude: "We are not merely a disease; we are through our intelligence and communication the planetary equivalent of a nervous system. We should be the heart and mind of the Earth not its malady."

In 1965 Professor Lovelock was responsible for developing the Gaia Hypothesis; this evolved in the 1980s to become the Gaia Theory that says self-regulation is by the whole system, not just life.

Professor Lovelock's comments will reflect his personal views.

http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk