The Status of "Spaceship Earth"

December 31, 2008

The Status of "Spaceship Earth"

One of the leading experts on planet Earth, James Lovelock, believes that there is very little we can do to stave off global warming catastrophes. Lovelock is the man who created the Gaia theory – that the earth is essentially a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism.

Lovelock developed the Gaia hypothesis as an outgrowth of his work for NASA on methods of detecting life on Mars, which he popularized with his 1979 book Gaia: A new look at life on Earth. He named this self-regulating living system after the Greek goddess Gaia, using a suggestion from the novelist William Golding, who was living in the same English village as Lovelock. The theory drew withering criticism from many in the scientific establishment, drawing the comparison with the resistance to the introduction of the idea of plate tectonics within geology, which took about 30 years before it became universally accepted as true.

Lovelock's task at NASA was to develop instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces for the Viking program that visited in the late-1970s was motivated in part to determining whether supported life. Lovelock's work on the composition of the Martian atmosphere, led him to believe hat many life forms on would be obliged to make use of it and, in return, alter it. However, the atmosphere was found to be in a stable condition close to its chemical equilibrium, with very little oxygen, methane, or hydrogen, but with an overwhelming abundance of carbon dioxide. This stark contrast between the Martian atmosphere and chemically-dynamic mixture of that of our Earth's was strongly indicative of the absence of life on the planet.

Today, Lovelock believes that a rapid drop in carbon in the atmosphere could actually do more damage than good. He believes that the global warming that we are currently experiencing is offset by a cooling of 2-3ºC, caused by Global Dimming -essentially, the reduction of direct irradiance at the earth’s atmosphere as a result of industrial pollution, known to others as aerosol particles.

It’s a horrible catch 22 situation that leaves only a very small gap for any joy at all. If we continue to do nothing (note the use of the word continue), then we will doom ourselves. If we do do something, like a massive cut back in the emission of carbon in to our atmosphere, Lovelock believes that we would further damage Earth.

"Any economic downturn or planned cutback in fossil fuel use, which lessened aerosol density, would intensify the heating,” Lovelock will say, in a lecture to the Royal Society today. “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."

What’s worse is that Lovelock believes that the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are underestimating the severity of climate change. He has labeled a report issued by the IPCC earlier this year as "properly cautious", adding that he believes the report leaves a tone of “we can fix this”, when there is none. He continues and adds that a possibly six to eight billion people will suffer food and water shortages, intolerable climates, and the extinction of entire ecosystems.

"We are at war with the Earth and as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond." In his speech to the Royal Society, 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 the global temperature suddenly rises 6ºC 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."

The man who has come under criticism by the Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, is not solely alarmist. He believes that we should attempt to lower greenhouse gases, and minimize the destruction of forests; but he believes that that will simply not be enough.

The bottom line, according to Lovelock, is that we will simply have to adapt.

Posted by Josh Hill with Casey Kazan.

Comments

We humans have the intelligence and the greatest ability to adapt.

Let us use our intelligence to adapt our society's to the forthcoming changes, like we have done in our past history.

For inspiration, check out the extraordinary documentary "Miracle Planet";
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Planet

Miracle Planet is a five-part documentary series, co-produced by Japan's NHK and the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), narrated by Christopher Plummer, which tells the 4 billion year old story of how life has evolved from its humble beginnings to the diversity of living creatures today.

Over its more than 4-billion-year history, the earth has been home to repeated violent climactic changes, which have caused mass extinctions.

And yet, life has survived. In fact, these same catastrophes helped bring about the evolution of life, from the simplest microbes to the complexity and diversity that is found on the planet today."

"Miracle Planet" can be found here;
http://www.google.se/search?hl=sv&q=The+Miracle+Planet+torrent&btnG=Google-s%C3%B6kning&meta=&aq=f&oq=

Posted by: Gagarin Miljkovich | December 31, 2008 at 06:00 AM

Predictions from Lovelock are appreciateed.
Comments from Gagarin are also appreciated.

About the 'human ability to adapt' , I tend to be less optimistic than Gagarin....
It is true that we are an adaptive specie....but for a variety of reasons we humans tend more to be 'reactive' than 'proactive'....

Then if so it could be TOO LATE to correct our bad behaviour about polluting the ATM and seas...and correcting our bad influence on Climate.

About possibility that 'Sudden decrease of the CO2 generated by human emission would negatively influence the climate'...It MAY be possible.....

Glaciation periods were common on so called 'GAIA'....
and we may end up in the near future towards a Glaciation age more than warming age...

I would also guess that too much 'NOT salty water in the oceans' (as a consequence of glaciers melting) would drastically influence the climate changes....possibly in a bad manner.

As said by many we Do NOT know very well the 'relative weights' of various elements influencing the climate....BUT as a matter of facts we are also destroying life forms in the seas polluted by us... and the healty food coming from fish is becaming more rare than it was before.

We tend more and more to eat cultivated-grown fishes...than 'remnants of fish' still available in the seas.

We are also energy poor on the planet...and we would NOT easily survive a miniglaciation...or a major one.

Regards

Good article....

Posted by: claudio | January 01, 2009 at 01:37 AM

Lovelock fails to understand the reasons for Global Climate Change and therefore his prognostications are totally unfounded.

Funny how with the climate going into total reversal, all of a sudden all the theories are redrawn
as if THEY know what they are talking about all along

Science on the run is a fool's science... and this is LIFE on Earth these fools are playing with

THEY have no idea at all... and to make matters worse in their arrogant ignorance THEY are accelerating the New Ice Age.

Goodbye Earth

http://www.omegafour.com/forum2/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=46

Posted by: John Caley | January 01, 2009 at 08:19 AM

Even though our understanding of climate change is impressive, it is no way near enough to predict the patterns over geologic scale with great precision. Hence I think IPCC report underestimates the extent to which the global warming will wreak havoc on our ecosystem. I don't think it underestimates the problem as we have enough evidence of the repercussions of global warming already.

Caludio makes the point that we are more a "reactive" than "procative" species. I agree with that, but all the species are reactive because of the very nature of evolution. If any body can find a species which was proactive then it would suggest some form of "intelligence" to the evolutionary process. Because all species are essentially reactive, it is imperative that they get sufficient time to adjust to any climate change. If they don't they will be wiped out. This is where the man made contributions to global warming could be devastating to most inhabitants of the ecosystem.

Hence it is best to make sure that the CO2 levels are brought in line with what the natural processes would have created to give a reasonably good chance of avoiding massive damage to our ecosystem and our way of life.

Posted by: zhaphod | January 02, 2009 at 06:33 AM

thanks

Sohpet -
çet -
cet -
Chat Siteleri -
Sohbet Kanallari -
Chat odalari -
Seviyeli chat -
Sohbet Odaları -
Sohbet siteleri -
Chat adresleri -
Sohbet chat -
muhabbet chat -
chat siteleri -
Sohbet Sayfaları -
Seviyeli sohbet -
Dini Sohbet -