Lovelock: "It's too late" 16 January 06

I’ve already commented on Lovelock and his Gaia theory below. I really do think this “theory” is a complete distraction.

I fully accept that extreme predictions need to be considered but if we really are heading for the “few breeding pairs” scenario then we either start building a high tech ark or get down the pub pronto.

When we issue warnings I think we are duty bound to offer solutions which are sustainable over the long term.

Some problems in Lovelock’s argument. The Earth is not alive as humans are. His references to “global dimming” need careful scrutiny. Billions reducing to “few” – is he implying a handful? Is his evocation of Darwin accurate? The UK has urban centres but is emphatically not completely urbanised. Wind farms exist and more are possible. Stating that “Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.” is dippy, mystical nonsense.

Douglas Coker

I much prefer the way James Hansen puts it(no less alarming, but giving nobody the hopeless ‘get-out’ clause of ‘it’s all too late’): http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=49507

What I cannot understand is why, on the one hand, he speaks of positive feedback accelerating global warming ever faster, towards infinity, but then he remains optimistic that some humans will survive and that, after 100,000 years or so the planet will recover (as it did 55 million years ago). He must have a strong belief that the system will still be robust enough not to end up with a true runaway greenhouse effect, ie that, eventually, some negative feedback or stabilising forces will kick in (as they must have done, eventually, in the past). I have read his two most recent books and I still don’t understand what he means – although I would realy like to understand his argument! Does anybody else?

Almuth

Not for the first time, comparisons have been drawn between the state of mind today concerning GW and the period in the late 1930’s prior to WW2 when the menace of Nazism was known about but had a remote and unreal quality that didn’t intrude into most people’s lives. I spoke to my father about this recently (my parents married in November ‘39) and he confirmed that there was this strange sense of unreality about the impending war: people knew it was likely to come, but no-one quite believed it could be as bad as it was. Most importantly, once the conflict had started, it sparked an enormous effort aimed at survival and the development of technological advancement in a very short space of time.

I still think that the world can respond very quickly if the threat is percieved as real and imminent and whilst we will still have a very uncomfortable time ahead, we can mitigate some of what is coming. The most urgent action is to stop the destruction of the remaining parts of the eco-system, give it some time and space to commence some regeneration and live far more efficiently on the enormous quantities of materials we have extracted and refined already. Reuse, repair, recycle; and develop strategies for getting carbon back out of the atmosphere and into the soil and fresh water into arid regions to re-start vegetation growth.

We have several advantages never held by victims of previous extinction level events (we assume!): global communications and a huge range of tools. Lovelock’s key message is that we should start to embed various levels of reinforcement into our knowledge base and communications: everything from satellites and the internet to wind-up telephones, books and libraries. Far too much of our infrastructure is fragile and insubstantial: in this context a switch to a diverse network of renewable energy sources is a strategic imperative, not a commercial one, although it may become that too soon.

My personal belief is that it is also critically important to re-invigorate local communities, economies and amenities. Our civilisation is so vulnerable to the disruption of transport that enormous hardship will be caused by any one of a number of systemic shocks that will come, whether it is from hurricanes or Iran turning their oil off. The centralisation of our civilisation is its Achilles heel. Going back to WW2, the UK had a population of about 48m at the time, and it has only increased by about 25% in 60 years, but it was enough of a struggle to feed the population then with everyone growing their own veg in their back gardens. Could we do it today, and with a more hostile climate? At least wind farms and agriculture will co-exist! I repeat my earlier comments about identity cards and rationing.

We must work to rebuild the resilience of communities and their ability to be mutually supportive. We may well discover much of our waning humanity at the same time.

Courage mes braves! Whilst the revenge of Gaia is a possible, if not a likely future it is not yet a certainty. If Arnie can order a solar revolution in California as mentioned below, there is hope yet!

best to all

Colin

The US military and State Dept held a conference in Wash DC in 2004 with many countries’ disaster folks to discuss just such a situation, although the human death toll was less.

The disaster and scenario planning folks are already thinking about this. This topic is not new.

Best,

D

I had the same thought.

I read Lovelock’s Gaia book around 10 years ago and thought it very thought provoking as a way of seeing the Earth as a self-regulating system that balances itself through “homostatis” (I think he called it). He created a model called Daisyworld to imitate how it works.

When I started getting concerned about Global Warming, I thought that Lovelock would say that the Earth would regulate itself through this. Yet Lovelock is more concerned than anyone! I am not sure why.

Huh? Whence springs this duty?

I have not read Lovelock’s book, only the articles in The Independent, but even there it was clear Lovelock had solutions. Sure, you may not like Lovelock’s solutions, but they seemed to be appropriate to the situation he was describing.

Lovelock thinks the situation is serious; you apparently don’t.

The time for sustainable win-win solutions that don’t result in the deaths of billions and unprecedented social injustices is past. Jimmy Carter was the last world leader to come up with real solutions – and that was in 1977 (the time the UK was riding high on North Sea oil and talking of becoming a major OPEC member into the indefinite future).

Carter’s solutions were realistic and they were sustainable and they could – if not watered down by Congress and finally ridiculed and then kicked out by Reagan – have led to greater understanding and, then, a series of increasing and effective global actions to forestall peak oil and global warming. But that was then. We did nothing for thirty years except destroy rain forests and increase our greenhouse gas emissions and lock ourselves even more tightly into ever-increasing rates of these and similar errors. Thirty years on, the only viable solutions are those of the magnitude proposed by Lovelock.

Wind farms? They might have worked if introduced as part of a greenhouse gas reduction strategy in the 1980s. This is 2005 and now wind energy is mere technophilic tinkering.

You say that Lovelock’s statement that “Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.” is dippy, mystical nonsense. Surely you don’t think it was meant to be taken literally! Lovelock is – I repeat – serious and he will pull out all the rhetorical stops that an 86 year old, beholden to no one, knows how. All right. If it offends your sensibilities, forget ‘Gaia’. Look only at the hard science that Lovelock uses and resist the temptation to indulge in ad hominem arguments.

Your post is the sort of thing an ingenue might have written in 1977. The time for point scoring is past.

If you want to understand this more fully, I recommend William Catton’s book “Overshoot”.

Keith

Control systems have some fundamental aspects in common. If a complex system is in equilibrium but receives a stimulus, it has three main ways to react. First, the system will be attracted back to the original status, second, the system may change and the enertia created by the stimulus results in a new set of characteristics, somewhat in proportion to the stimulus. Third, the stimulus creates a new state, disproportionate to the stimulus, the system starts to rapidly change towards this new equilibrium. The example of a cone shape illustrates the point. Sat on its base, side or balanced on the peak. Lovelock may consider it to late not because the system will run away exponentially, but because the earth system may now be attracted to a new equilibrium. Its characteristics changing rapidly until they satisfy the parameters of a new equilibrium. What this new equilibrium will be and how we survive the changes to come as we move towards it, is possibly the question/thought Lovelock is highlighting.

Heat, light, deference and clarity.

Prompted by Keith Thomas’s post here are some further thoughts on this Gaia business. (BTW I’m ignoring Keith’s implication that I’m naï and complacent. He can’t have read my various posts below …. !)

The Independent’s coverage of James Lovelock’s thoughts has caused quite a stir. I fear that there may be more heat than light generated. Lovelock’s views are sought and used by many journalists and documentary makers. For instance he appears – advocating nuclear energy – in the Royal Institute Lectures a year ago. He is also referred to in today’s Guardian. Here http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1688034,00.html

He has standing and status in environmental circles and is apparently revered by a number of commentators. See, for instance, Porritt in today’s Indy http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article339066.ece and Lynas (maybe) above. Being short on deference I haven’t paid much attention to his ideas as his Gaia formulation always seemed a bit vague. This was confirmed for me recently on reading Jon Turney’s “Lovelock & Gaia” a recent review of the history of the Gaia hypothesis. Turney documents the various versions of Gaia espoused by Lovelock, notes his sometime colleague Margulis prefers her own version, and indicates clearly that Gaia, in its strong and weak forms, is contradictory, ambiguous and ramshackle. (See, for instance, pages 148-9.) I also note that a couple of contributors to this blog have struggled with Lovelock’s hypothesis.

As for Lovelock’s solutions he’s ruled nuclear in and wind power out. Great!! Not the first environmentalist to get upset by wind power. There’s been more discussion on this site alone on useful solutions to global warming than Lovelock has offered – or have I missed something?

I’m puzzled by Keith’s reference to Jimmy Carter. Michael Klare in “Blood and Oil”, discussing the flow of Gulf oil to the US, quotes Carter (not Dubyaa) as saying “that Washington would use ‘any means necessary, including military force,’ to keep the oil flowing.” (page 4.)

Catton’s “Overshoot” ideas are spelt out by Richard Heinberg in “The Party’s Over”. They are interesting and help us understand how we got to where we are today. Heinberg’s recommendation that we move from “drawdown” to “powerdown” leads him to suggest we need to pursue “de-industrialisation” (p177 “Powerdown”). While I recognise that worst case global warming scenarios may prove the catastrophists right it sometimes seems as if those who write in this vein are willing a catastrophe because they fundamentally disagree with the path human progress has taken over the last 10,000 years or so.

Our misuse of technology and fossil fuels got us into this mess. We need better technology to help us change trajectory. Less mobility, less consumption and more community are inviting prospects. And less people is an idea which, I note, both Heinberg and Porritt are raising. But rhetoric which merely results in lots of frightened people is less than useful. Gaia, I believe, is actually a distraction and might prevent some from taking heed of Lovelock’s warnings. Similarly notions that we can dispense with technology and return to a pre-industrial age are plain daft.

Finally as a citizen of this planet I recognise I have rights and responsibilities. One of those responsibilities is to leave the place fit for future generations hence my use of the term “duty”.

Douglas Coker

PS Almuth – just read your post. I don’t read the Climate Ark graphic as supporting Gaia. It’s a snapshot surely. During the Earth’s 4.5bn year existence hasn’t it gone through various states? Isn’t it just chance that we currently have conditions that support human life? See page 149 of “Lovelock & Gaia” for more. But I found an article on Lovelock at the same site. Here http://www.climateark.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=31893 It’s by the Independent journalist Michael McCarthy who wrote the pieces in yesterday’s Indy. Has he prompted us to go round in circles here?

So what can we do now Mark to step up the Campaigning? Should there be more Climate Marches? What can we do to put more pressure on the Government and get even more people to wake up to the stark realities of Climate Change? Cathy.

As much as I dislike tarnishing Douglas’s reputation by agreeing with him, I must endorse with his characterization. I believe that Lovelace’s description of Gaia is nothing more than pantheism (with a pinch of the Greek god, Pan thrown in) with a new name.

As to those, Heinberg and Porritt et al., proposing fewer humans, I say, “you first”. After all, does one who proposes a remedy not have an obligation to demonstrate its efficacy?

I also agree with Colin that the current situation is reminiscent of past ones. However, I think that a more recent example, Paul Ehrlich’s “Population Bomb” madness is more apt.

but the pre-WW2 comparison was chosen because it contrasted the ‘calm before the storm’ and sense of detachment with the very real horrors that swiftly followed and the immense struggle to overcome them.

I did not mention that at the time there were also several voices raised in public ( both in the UK and the US) saying things like ‘it’s all scaremongering, Herr Hitler is a civilsed man; we should look at the progress Germany has made’ etc. Contrarians then too.

Oddly enough, one person with an ambivalent view of National Socialism and a certainty that Germany would sooner be an ally than an enemy was P.G.Wodehouse, the writer and creator of ‘Jeeves’. As a wonderful exponent of the full breadth of the English language, I agree with Stephen Fry who compared him to Shakespeare. Norbert, if you were pleased with your acquisition of the word ‘arrant’ may I recommend Wodehouse’s writings as a great source of even more wacky words, but you may need the larger Oxford English dictionary!

kind regards to all

Colin

I remember enjoying the Jeeves shows on TV. It has been quite a while since they aired and I had mostly forgotten them. Thanks for the reminder.

I understand that there was a large pro-Nazi movement in the US before the war. I am not old enough to have any personal knowledge of it, but from our present-day perspective, it is hard to imagine how it could have been. Of course, our view is far better.

I actually was one of those unfortunates that Erhlich mesmerized. That experience is partially responsible for my present skepticism. There have been too many groundless scares in our past and present to take delivery early in the game. I have read that the scaremongers took advantage of the arrival of Haley’s comet 1910. Scam artists predicted doom and sold Comet Pills and masks that they guaranteed would protect the customer from the deadly effects of the earth passing through the dusty tail of the comet. The devices worked; no one was injured.

As you know, I am skeptical about AGW.

Lovelock did say “as if” it is alive. It’s a metaphor, but a strange one, because much of our world (flora & fauna) is alive. It’s what I call the “organic analogy.” Emile Durkheim (from Herbert Spencer) used it for society. Society is like an organism: government is like the head, the economy like the stomach, religion like the heart, the military like (you got it) the arms (as in “arm yourself”)...and society can become sick…and can die (disintegrate).

Lovelock’s is an extreme “ecological” paradigm (all is connected, a systems approach). And what’s weird is that it’s applied to ecology. So it’s in part sort of true.

Billions of people dead might be pushing it, but if 160,000 per year are dying now from GW, and it & its effects accelerate with global dimming dimming & positive feebacks kicking in with vengeance, it could be perhaps 1-10 million dying from GW per year by 2100.

Then if you add in what the social sciences tell us about how people act & interact under serious duress & situations of limited resources - such as going around killing each other - we could possibly be looking at more that 10 million dying directly & indirectly from AGW. Or, extreme totalitarianism kicking in with scared people eagerly giving up their freedoms (just look what 9/11 has done to the U.S.). Or, both genocide & totalitarianism (chaos & control, entropy). The 20th c was the worst in human history for people killing people, tremendous genocide starting in 1915 with the Armenians. What will the 21st c. hold for us (even without GW, probably even greater levels of genocide). (I just saw HOTEL RWANDA.)

I really hope I’m wrong in all this, or overshooting my imagination.

One thing Lovelock IS definitely wrong about wind generators. I’ve talked to Green Mountain Energy, and they told me in some areas they pay farmers to provide a bit of space for their wind generators, and the farmers can farm right up to the base of those generator towers. So hardly any loss of ag land or product.

We just have to keep trying the best we can to avert all this.

I think that everyone, even geniuses, can be wrong. I suspect that even Norb would agree that Einstein was a very clever man – but he was famously wrong on Quantum Theory “God Doesn’t Play Dice”.

Having read “The Ages of Gaia”, I believe that Lovelock has some very bright holistic views about Earth. That he calls it Gaia may give it a spiritual feeling, but it seems a sound scientific analysis to me. I wouldn’t call it mystical, patheistic etc.

However, I believe and hope he is wrong with regard to the “end of the world is nigh”. I also believe he is wrong about nuclear energy & wind farms. (BTW, with nuclear energy – how CO2 efficient is France which relies on it?)

Probably a take-away point is that we should always try and rely on the arguments rather than who is saying them. To a greater or lesser degree, we are all correct on some things, incorrect on others.

How CO2 efficient is France with its nuclear energy?

See here file http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/environment/energy_impact/seib2005ch5a.pdf.

Much as I hate to say positive things about nuclear energy, France, with 76% electricity from nuclear has considerably lower CO2 emissions per capita than the EU average, and than the UK and Germany. Sweden is doing slightly better than France, but still gets 50% of electricity from nuclear. Of course, CO2 emissions from mining the uranium in other countries are not factored in.

I’ve been watchng Germany closely which is phasing out nucler power, whilst doing more than most countries for energy efficiency and spending on renewables. So far, what I have seen is a disaster: CO2 emissions from electricity production are rising as fossil fuel replaces nuclear, there are worries even about meeting Kyoto targets, and Germany still has the most polluting coal power stations in Europe. I would suspect that Germany is one of the countries most likely to go for carbon capture and sequestration – they are already investing a lot in this – but meantime, Germany’s attempt to set an example with a switch from nuclear to renewables whilst reducing CO2 emissions is not off to a good start at all. Right aim, wrong order, I suspect. [and no ‘there we go’ from our contrarians, please – if the US had per capita figures remotely like Germany they would have met Kyoto already many times over].

Sorry, not what one would like to hear – I, too, wish it was different!

Almuth

You can find more commentary on Lovelock through this link http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/01/global_warming_alarmism.php

Douglas Coker

I agree with you Lynn.

If instead of “this century” we say over the next 200 or 300 years, Lovelock’s ideas might not be so wacko - assuming worse case scenario – highest GHG sensitivity, continued human GHG emission increases - as in totally ignoring the problem, like some on this site might suggest), and all sort of nasty impacts we don’t quite understand now, but will as they unfold, plus human nasty reactions to bad conditions. The worst of all worst case factors. Maybe he’s underestimating.

Still we need to keep fighting against GW. Maybe “fighting” is too militaristic a word. Maybe we have to totally change our culture & ourselves, render ourselves good & harmless.

Some of my students saw a TV program about Mayan prophecy – actually about their calendar, I think, which is much more accurate than ours & on a 52 year cycle.

According to the ancient Mayans, the world is to come to an end in 2012, Sunday, Dec. 23.

I told my students that some people have been saying that we have less than 10 years to seriously address GW, before we might reach an irreversible stage, which eventually could entail massive extinctions & great harm to humans.

Now the ray of hope in the Mayan apocalypse (v. the Christian one) is that the world will be renewed after the destruction, and better people will emerge. I think we are now in the 5 world, heading for a transition to the 6th. Acc to the Hopi, we are in the 4th world, heading for the 5th (the spiritual cultures will survive, and the material ones, like the U.S., will die out).