Okay, I’m officially shaken up. I’ve been a gloom and doomer for some time now, probably about a decade. I keep crying that until we (society) begin to tangibly experience the repercussions of our actions, of our consumerism, that nothing will change. How often have I said that many will perish before the necessary lessons are learned and behaviors changed? Not often enough, apparently. Upon reading the latest public statement by preeminent atmospheric scientist James Lovelock in yesterday’s London Independent Online, even I am in complete shock. The title of the piece, “The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years”, does justice to my reaction upon reading it.
For those not in the know, Sir James Lovelock is the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis which asserts that the Earth is one large, interconnected and self-regulating system. This means that the Earth has a range of biochemical processes that help to maintain a climate suitable to the proliferation and continuation of life. When I first read Lovelock’s work over a decade ago, I was thrilled to the core; his radical, yet solid, scientific propositions fully resonated with my personal intuitions of an animate, intelligent and unified Earth system. While even Lovelock’s writing can at times appear to blur the line between Science and Spirituality, I can assure that the thoery is firmly rooted in rigorous global atmospheric biochemistry. Unfortunately, in the end, the complex collection of feedback loops that Lovelock envisioned may turn out to work against civilzation.
Now for the real doom and gloom. I’m chilled not only by the content of these predictions, but also by the observation that this might well be the first time in the era of modern scientific thought that a scientist of Lovelock’s international stature has made such bold claims. Apparently, given the conclusions of his research, he felt no other option but to “go out on limb”. He starts with a clear and regret-filled warning:
I have to tell you, as members of the Earth’s family and an intimate part of it, that you and especially civilisation are in grave danger.
He firmly believes that we have reached “a point of no return,” that the same processes which have regulated climate until now have been so perturbed as to be irreversibly heading towards drastic climatic changes, with devastating consequences.
We are in a fool’s climate, accidentally kept cool by smoke, and before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.
And the final, no-holds-barred, pull-no-punches conclusion:
So what should we do? First, we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act; and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can.
Towards the end, Lovelock displays his compassion and love for humanity, despite our environmental follies.
We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the nervous system of the planet. Through us, Gaia has seen herself from space, and begins to know her place in the universe.
This is, at the risk of overt anthropomorphism, perhaps the saddest outcome of such a scenario. Life, in some diminished capacity, will continue on planet Earth, despite catastrophic climatic change. It is distinctly possible, however, that the resplendent beauty of the biological diaspora here on Earth will be decimated. Atop the pyramid of Life sits Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the pinnacle of evolution in our cosmological locale, replete with sentience and self-relfection, capable of receiving the beauty of Life’s diversity and giving it back through creative expression, through art and language and science, through love. An ecological collapse of that pyramid at the hands of rising global temperatures would insure the loss of such complexity, of the novelty that is the human neocortex and its’ concomitant civilization.
When a scientist on the par of James Lovelock, a man whom I happen to respect inordinately, begins to speak of the end of civilization, the time is nigh to sit up and take notice. I can’t say much more right now, I am still reeling from encountering such a desperate proclamation just a few short hours ago. The only thing I can think to do at the moment is to talk about this with those that I care about, those whom opinions I trust and respect. More words will follow and the dialogue will continue. In the meantime, please educate yourselves. Civilization may well depend on it.
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Filed under: Nature, The Future
