From the Rolling Stone: The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock

[GliderGuider]

A great article about a great man.

The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock

At the age of eighty-eight, after four children and a long and respected career as one of the twentieth century's most influential scientists, James Lovelock has come to an unsettling conclusion: The human race is doomed. "I wish I could be more hopeful," he tells me one sunny morning as we walk through a park in Oslo, where he is giving a talk at a university. Lovelock is a small man, unfailingly polite, with white hair and round, owlish glasses. His step is jaunty, his mind lively, his manner anything but gloomy. In fact, the coming of the Four Horsemen -- war, famine, pestilence and death -- seems to perk him up. "It will be a dark time," Lovelock admits. "But for those who survive, I suspect it will be rather exciting."

By the end of the century, according to Lovelock, global warming will cause temperate zones like North America and Europe to heat up by fourteen degrees Fahrenheit, nearly double the likeliest predictions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sanctioned body that includes the world's top scientists. "Our future," Lovelock writes, "is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail." And switching to energy-efficient light bulbs won't save us. To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won't make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. "Green," he tells me, only half-joking, "is the color of mold and corruption."

Lovelock knows that predicting the end of civilization is not an exact science. "I could be wrong about all this," he admits as we stroll around the park in Norway. "The trouble is, all those well-intentioned scientists who are arguing that we're not in any imminent danger are basing their arguments on computer models. I'm basing mine on what's actually happening."

[tom_paine]

1. That lucky duck, living in Sweden. From behind the Televised Curtain of Imperial Amerika

I salute Lovelock and his Free World. They give those of us in the Third World hope

(even if our third world nation is insanely rich compared to most)

[Bigmack]

2. Thanks

Thanks for the reference to this article. Alas, I fear that Lovelock may be speaking in his typically prophetic voice. This is an article well worth reading, despite it being longish. Ms Bigmack

[emmadoggy]

3. Thanks for the excellent, but frightening article.

I fear he is far more right than wrong.

[stuntcat]

4. ty

I printed it, for posterity, or something :(

[crikkett]

6. tree killer!

(just kidding)
:hi:

[Canuckistanian]

5. Thanks for posting this, GG

I'm bookmarking this and saving the article for later reading.

From your small excerpt, I can see that the man is truly a visionary.

However, not in the positive sense.

We're all arguing over deck chairs while the ship has hit an iceberg.

[babylonsister]

7. Pls. read this thread, around response #43:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=2110738

[hunter]

8. Gaia pays no mind to Lovelock's curriculum vitae...

He's right or he is wrong, time will tell.

I have a very bad feeling he is right. A warmer earth will not be so hospitable to mankind. Our use of fossil fuels was a terrible mistake.

[losthills]

9. The biggest problem

is that, no matter what we do, the CO2 that is in the atmosphere now will continue working it's magic for a century or more....

Anything we do to curb global warming will only benefit the survivors. The crisis is a done deal.

I still believe that we could adjust to it, but I am pessimistic that we will.

[Odin2005]

10. God, I hope Lovelock is wrong...

:scared:

[Delphinus]

11. Wow oh Wow oh Wow!

This man gets it.

As I'm reading this, I'm blown away with how he understands the workings of this Earth system - other scientists aren't seeing it. He seems to be an intuitive scientist, if there is such a thing. Almost like how Edison would go to sleep and get his next idea of how to make what he was working on, Lovelock would receive flashes of insight to bring him to all he has achieved. My theory only - my way of understanding this man's life.

From the article, he says: it's about everybody "absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization, so that it doesn't degenerate into Dark Ages, with warlords running things, which is a real danger. We could lose everything that way."

This is what we should all be paying attention to. If we're not lucky enough to die, is this the way we want to live?