James Lovelock: "Enjoy Life While You Can"
tcbev...@yahoo.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
Sucks, but I believe him. I've been smelling this vague doom on the
wind since I was a teenager. -- Tom Buckner
In 1965 executives at Shell wanted to know what the world would look
like in the year 2000. They consulted a range of experts, who
speculated about fusion-powered hovercrafts and "all sorts of fanciful
technological stuff". When the oil company asked the scientist James
Lovelock, he predicted that the main problem in 2000 would be the
environment. "It will be worsening then to such an extent that it will
seriously affect their business," he said.
"And of course," Lovelock says, with a smile 43 years later, "that's
almost exactly what's happened."
Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory
in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent
accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's
most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone
since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which
helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the
Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-
regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as
new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all
climate science.
For decades, his advocacy of nuclear power appalled fellow
environmentalists - but recently increasing numbers of them have come
around to his way of thinking. His latest book, The Revenge of Gaia,
predicts that by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global
devastation; that by 2040 much of Europe will be Saharan; and parts of
London will be underwater. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change (IPCC) report deploys less dramatic language - but its
calculations aren't a million miles away from his.
As with most people, my panic about climate change is equalled only by
my confusion over what I ought to do about it. A meeting with Lovelock
therefore feels a little like an audience with a prophet. Buried down
a winding track through wild woodland, in an office full of books and
papers and contraptions involving dials and wires, the 88-year-old
presents his thoughts with a quiet, unshakable conviction that can be
unnerving. More alarming even than his apocalyptic climate predictions
is his utter certainty that almost everything we're trying to do about
it is wrong.
On the day we meet, the Daily Mail has launched a campaign to rid
Britain of plastic shopping bags. The initiative sits comfortably
within the current canon of eco ideas, next to ethical consumption,
carbon offsetting, recycling and so on - all of which are premised on
the calculation that individual lifestyle adjustments can still save
the planet. This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the
things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they
won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping
point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.
"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along
routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have
time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I
think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of
people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us
nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to
do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."
He dismisses eco ideas briskly, one by one. "Carbon offsetting? I
wouldn't dream of it. It's just a joke. To pay money to plant trees,
to think you're offsetting the carbon? You're probably making matters
worse. You're far better off giving to the charity Cool Earth, which
gives the money to the native peoples to not take down their forests."
Do he and his wife try to limit the number of flights they take? "No
we don't. Because we can't." And recycling, he adds, is "almost
certainly a waste of time and energy", while having a "green
lifestyle" amounts to little more than "ostentatious grand gestures".
He distrusts the notion of ethical consumption. "Because always, in
the end, it turns out to be a scam ... or if it wasn't one in the
beginning, it becomes one."
Somewhat unexpectedly, Lovelock concedes that the Mail's plastic bag
campaign seems, "on the face of it, a good thing". But it transpires
that this is largely a tactical response; he regards it as merely more
rearrangement of Titanic deckchairs, "but I've learnt there's no point
in causing a quarrel over everything". He saves his thunder for what
he considers the emptiest false promise of all - renewable energy.
"You're never going to get enough energy from wind to run a society
such as ours," he says. "Windmills! Oh no. No way of doing it. You can
cover the whole country with the blasted things, millions of them.
Waste of time."
This is all delivered with an air of benign wonder at the intractable
stupidity of people. "I see it with everybody. People just want to go
on doing what they're doing. They want business as usual. They say,
'Oh yes, there's going to be a problem up ahead,' but they don't want
to change anything."
Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing
can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or
sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics.
Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland
Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to
start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The
sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by
going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from
less technology, but more.
Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger
challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know.
Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in
Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it.
You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary
technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's
population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling
Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."
Faced with two versions of the future - Kyoto's preventative action
and Lovelock's apocalypse - who are we to believe? Some critics have
suggested Lovelock's readiness to concede the fight against climate
change owes more to old age than science: "People who say that about
me haven't reached my age," he says laughing.
But when I ask if he attributes the conflicting predictions to
differences in scientific understanding or personality, he says:
"Personality."
There's more than a hint of the controversialist in his work, and it
seems an unlikely coincidence that Lovelock became convinced of the
irreversibility of climate change in 2004, at the very point when the
international consensus was coming round to the need for urgent
action. Aren't his theories at least partly driven by a fondness for
heresy?
"Not a bit! Not a bit! All I want is a quiet life! But I can't help
noticing when things happen, when you go out and find something.
People don't like it because it upsets their ideas."
But the suspicion seems confirmed when I ask if he's found it
rewarding to see many of his climate change warnings endorsed by the
IPCC. "Oh no! In fact, I'm writing another book now, I'm about a third
of the way into it, to try and take the next steps ahead."
Interviewers often remark upon the discrepancy between Lovelock's
predictions of doom, and his good humour. "Well I'm cheerful!" he
says, smiling. "I'm an optimist. It's going to happen."
Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when "we all
knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn't know what to
do about it". But once the second world war was under way, "everyone
got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long
holiday ... so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in
those terms. A sense of purpose - that's what people want."
At moments I wonder about Lovelock's credentials as a prophet.
Sometimes he seems less clear-eyed with scientific vision than
disposed to see the version of the future his prejudices are looking
for. A socialist as a young man, he now favours market forces, and
it's not clear whether his politics are the child or the father of his
science. His hostility to renewable energy, for example, gets
expressed in strikingly Eurosceptic terms of irritation with subsidies
and bureaucrats. But then, when he talks about the Earth - or Gaia -
it is in the purest scientific terms all.
"There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very
similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events
keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a
human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with
it properly. That's the source of my optimism."
What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says:
"Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20
years before it hits the fan."
BS
news:eaf01099-e49e-46a3...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
> Global Warming has cooked our goose, says James Lovelock:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange
> Sucks, but I believe him. I've been smelling this vague doom on the
> wind since I was a teenager. -- Tom Buckner
I credited you Tom on my posting on this on Today's Cool News (dot com)
Here's what I wrote on there about this:
Thanks to Tom Buckner at alt.fan.rawilson for pointing me to this.
The thing that bothers me about the Global Warming orthodoxy is that
whenever you look at the history of science, when you get to the point that
"every reputable scientist in the world agrees that X is true", X is almost
certain to be disproved by the next generation of scientists.
I'm also just fundamentally turned off by the holier than thou "I'm more
Green than you" mentality, especially the blind fervor you find in the Bay
Area.
Now here's a guy, James Lovelock, who says returning to the days of the
horse and buggy ain't gonna fix the problem.
BS
SF, CA
p.s. Don't tell the eco-freaks that RMJon 23 has been seen riding in my SUV.
Gasp.
tcbev...@yahoo.com
>
> Now here's a guy, James Lovelock, who says returning to the days of the
> horse and buggy ain't gonna fix the problem.
>
> BS
> SF, CA
>
> p.s. Don't tell the eco-freaks that RMJon 23 has been seen riding in my SUV.
> Gasp.
I've taken it as axiomatic for some years that horse-and-buggy could
not be the solution for Global Warming or any related humans-might-
whack-themselves situation, for game-theoretical reasons. See, those
who 'cheat' by cutting down more forests, digging more coal, building
more bombs, etc., have a huge game-theoretical advantage over those
who cannot or will not avail themselves of the latest power
strategies. This is precisely why asshole Republicans have all the
money, and it is precisely why Amazonian Indians get shot by hired
lumber company thugs and precisely why oil men are in the White House.
Their strategies may be losers a hundred years out, but they are
winning strategies short-term.
There's a new movement called Bright Green which explicitly proclaims
that we MUST invent our way out of this impasse; think of it as Neo-
Eco-Futurism, in honor of the Futurists of nearly a century ago who
felt that "a speeding motor-car is as poetic as the Winged Victory."
Do I agree? I just fucking don't Know.
p.s. Nevah mind that SUV. I think a very Green invention, if it
finally gets into production, would be Moller's flying car, running on
maybe hydrogen. Did ye know that the paved area of Unistat is about
equal to South Carolina? Jeebus, people. If we could tear up 90% of
the roads, don't you think the trees and critters would breathe a sigh
of relief? Even the cleanest ground car needs roads and runs over
bambis and thumpers. Similarly, if we had Really Good Virtual Reality
we wouldn't much need to travel and leave toilet paper all over the
Khumbu Ice Fall.
So the Bright Greens are at least correct about this: we need to find
the necessary measures enjoyable or we won't do what must be done
until forced to.
Thoughts?
Tom Buckner
RMJon23
> <tcbevol...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>
> news:eaf01099-e49e-46a3...@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Global Warming has cooked our goose, says James Lovelock:
> > Sucks, but I believe him. I've been smelling this vague doom on the
> > wind since I was a teenager. -- Tom Buckner
>
> I credited you Tom on my posting on this on Today's Cool News (dot com)
> Here's what I wrote on there about this:
>
> Thanks to Tom Buckner at alt.fan.rawilson for pointing me to this.
>
> The thing that bothers me about the Global Warming orthodoxy is that
> whenever you look at the history of science, when you get to the point that
> "every reputable scientist in the world agrees that X is true", X is almost
> certain to be disproved by the next generation of scientists.
>
> I'm also just fundamentally turned off by the holier than thou "I'm more
> Green than you" mentality, especially the blind fervor you find in the Bay
> Area.
>
> Now here's a guy, James Lovelock, who says returning to the days of the
> horse and buggy ain't gonna fix the problem.
>
> BS
> SF, CA
>
> p.s. Don't tell the eco-freaks that RMJon 23 has been seen riding in my SUV.
> Gasp.
Great. Now the Earth Liberation Front is gonna be all over my ass.
Thanks, Bri.
RMJon23
Well, I've been monitoring my emotional response to stories of dire,
immanent- relatively speaking - doom. One thing: I shut that stuff out
for a few days after it gets to me, and my optimism for the human's
"success in universe" (RBF) wanes. (I retreat into the intellectual
"little world.")
I tell myself DOOM makes good copy. (Which doesn't mean it ain't
serious, or a helluva problem.)
I tell myself stuff like BS does: "consensus" on scientific issues w/
in the scientific community of truly qualified knowers has often been
WAY OFF, historically. (But what if they're close "enough"?)
I use some magickal thinking: Think of all the generations of humans
that have lived before me: what are the odds that I am living in the
last generation? (Or the penultimate one? Or the penultimate + two,
whatever? Not bloody fookin' likely! But then again, it's like the
lotto: "someone's gotta win." May as well be ME! [cue the first few
bars of "Black Sabbath" from the eponymous LP/CD.])
I also think: Hey, Lovelock deserves his place among the great
maverick scientists, but maybe he's old and sad the planet's
governments and populations didn't listen to him loud and clear back
in the 70s, and he's turned pessimistic 'cuz he's sorta olde and
depressed and infirmed. He's projecting. Yea, that's it. A new
generation of innovators in varying disciplines will combine to stave
off Lovelock's doom. Yea, I "think" that, sometimes. Hell, maybe I'm
the one projecting?
In Edward O Wilson's 2002 book, _The Future of Life_, the Ur-maven of
sociobiology writes:
"The human brain evidently evolved to commit itself emotionally only
to a small piece of geography, a limited band of kinsmen, and two or
three generations into the future. To look neither far ahead nor far
afield is elemental in a Darwinian sense. We are innately inclined to
ignore any distant possibility not yet requiring examination. It is,
people say, just good common sense. Why do we think in this
shortsighted way?
"The reason is simple: it is a hardwired part of our Paleolithic
heritage. For hundreds of millenia, those who worked for short-termed
gain within a small circle of relatives and friends lived longer and
left more offspring - even when their collective striving caused their
chiefdoms and empires to crumble around them. The long view that might
have saved their distant descendants required a vision and extended
altruism instinctively difficult to marhsall."
Sobering all get-the-fuck-out, innit? (Ya want more? Heaped on thick?
Read _Collapse_ by Jared Diamond. Or if you think you might be
enjoying life a bit too much, see is this book can take the shine off
yer pants: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Final_Hour )
I'm convinced there are a lot of folks with the right stuff, the
knowledge and vision to right the spaceship Earth. But maybe not
enough, and too little too late.
But, like Robert Anton Wilson writing about immortality while he was
sick, in pain, not receiving the better-than-cash recognition from his
peers at large as a Great Writer: he went on, daring to maintain that
dream and vision.
I found/find that romantic en extremis. And I mean "romantic" in no
pejorative sense at all. I mean romantic-heroic. Poetic and rare, and
yet RAW was probably right when he said that 90% of people feel
helpless and dont do much of anything at all. It's the 10% of so that
move history. They're full of moxy, vision, stubbornness,
testosterone, and ego. They're poetic souls. And often "unpleasant."
I'm simplifying here.)
And also along Robert Anton Wilson's more pragmatic tacks: what the
Seeker seeks, the Prover proves. We will seek and prove a solution to
these problems, or - literally - die tryin'.
Not that I call some of us - or fer gawdssake, myself - heroic. It's
just a more William Jamesian position to take: sure, we're probably in
a ecological quagmire, but we can extricate. We find it much easier to
live day-to-day in our own constantly negotiated ethical worlds if we
hold to this scenario, however vague at the moment. We can extricate.
If not for us, for our children's children. I too want humanity to be
a success. But I'm obviously biased...
(Perversely: I find I quite enjoy not-so-pleasant visions of the
future, from Blade Runner on down. And I mean DOWN. It's oddly
refreshing to listen to wildly black pessimistic metal bands
proclaiming a downward-spiraling viral every man for himself Road
Warrior future, just around the corner. Is this some atavistic part of
my ingenium preparing for the Real Deal? I don't know. Maybe I just
dig artists and their angst writ large and loud and shrill.)
And if the humans don't make it and prove to be a evolutionary dead-
end: I/we were wrong. But we weren't oblivious. Nor cynical-unto-
death.
Then there seem the little matter of species under environmental
pressures and consequent mutations. (If you're reading this you are a
mutant! Remember this often!)
And I doubt that a failed optimistic stance on pragmatic grounds
counts anywhen, but at this point the reckoning seems a petty quibble.
-rmjon23 da Berkeley, who never fell for (seemingly?) moronic ideas of
an afterlife in "heaven"
"Man has lost the capacity to foresee and forestall. He will end up by
destroying the earth."
- Albert Schweitzer (okay Albert-o: when did "man" have the capacity
to foresee?)
"What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to
put it on?"
- Thoreau
"The lunatic asylum of the solar system."
-Samuel Parker Cadman (hey! that's MY lunatic asylum!)
"We are going to have to find ways of organizing ourselves
cooperatively, sanely, scientifically, harmonically and in
regenerative spontaneity with the rest of humanity around earth...We
are not going to be able to operate our spaceship earth successfully
nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate
as common. It has to be everybody or nobody."
-Bucky
"America is not a young land: it is old and dirty and evil before the
settlers, before the Indians. The evil is there waiting." - Wm.S.
Burroughs (hey! how did this get in here?)
ARW23
>> Thoughts?<<
How about some action when it comes to environment?
I wonder: How many of you/us on this group drive hybrid car?
What in particular each one of us on this group does daily to save the
environment?
ARW23
knick23
At the risk of seeming defeatist, I can't help thinking that the
'space migration/earth as the craddle' model seems the most likely,
with the human organism inevitably sucking its host dry and moving on.
As far as trying to avoid/delay this situation from occuring through
what car people drive, maybe we should just stop making/discarding so
many of them, regardless of what they run on. Even the new hydrogen
cars pose the irksome question of where will we get all the hydrogen
to run them?
nick.
BS
because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us
an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to
do."
I found this the most powerful quote of the piece. Let's stop wasting
our time separating the recyclables and enjoy the beauty and majesty
of the planet while we can.
BTW ARW, I'm driving a non-hybrid SUV around aimlessly just to screw
the kids these days. (cue evil laughter) and I'm doing it while
listening to the metal RMJ refers to...
BS
SF, CA
BS
> our time separating the recyclables and enjoy the beauty and majesty
> of the planet while we can.
One more rant. If we really want to stop wasting time, let's get busy
on SMI2LE... specifically the SM part of it.
Put away those whips, you dirty minded peeps... I mean Space
Migration.
We need to get the fuck off this planet. If we really focus on this
as the salvation for our species, we could make it happen... maybe not
get everyone off but enough to start to put this planet back into
balance.
That means we need immediate funding of the space elevator and
encouragement to think about living in orbit or on the moon or on
mars.
Or maybe I was right the first time and all we really need to do is
give up and party for two decades.
BS
SF, CA
Johnny Q
a bunch of idiots blundering about in the cosmos could be seen as a bad
thing. Unfortunately, it seems we've shat our nest so badly we'll have to
leave the spaceport without being properly briefed. Well, I guess we can
chalk it up to a "learning experience" provided we actually learn from it.
Then again I think it was Bucky Fuller who said that Humanity was designed
for success. If we fuck it up completely, perhaps another variant will
learn from our mistakes and do better.
"BS" <smi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:075ee52e-c434-479e...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com...
ARW23
On Mar 7, 7:01 am, BS <smi2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> BTW ARW, I'm driving a non-hybrid SUV around aimlessly just to screw
> the kids these days. (cue evil laughter) and I'm doing it while
> listening to the metal RMJ refers to...
I believe you BS. It was, actually, me, few weeks ago, on the corner
of Columbus Avenue and Green Street, who would not let you make your
way through (although you had right off way). You were honking
desperately to pass me, but I thought to myself: "That's BS in SUV,
and I am in hybrid, so I'll just change the rule." Btw: I do change
rules as I go, and I hope to brake at least 23 rules a day, because,
generally speaking, I think, rules are for fools.
>I found this the most powerful quote of the piece. Let's stop wasting
>our time separating the recyclables and enjoy the beauty and majesty
>of the planet while we can.
I agree with James Lovelock that it's too late to go back and save
this planet since we managed to trash it to the point of no return. I
disagree that "separating the recyclables" is waste of time (it takes
'nanosecond') , because I believe that at least we can slow down the
process of decay and prolong the life of this beautiful planet in the
universe. I think, it's "beauty and majesty" deserves it.
I think, our planet has got cancer. A wave of poison eating it's
cells. And if it were YOU (not just you BS), would you trash yourself
within three months? Or would you prolong YOUR life by some 30 to 50
years?
I am aware, that me driving hybrid car is probably just a drop in the
ocean, but I also think, if I am not a part of solution, I am part of
a problem. And it's not all about helping the environment, in my view.
It is also about putting less $$$ in oily boys pockets. Spending 50%
less gasoline and $$$ gives me some kind of satisfaction every day.
When it comes to "enjoying the beauty and majesty of the planet", I
can enjoy it even more now; especially while driving through national
parks and forests in a cleaner and very quiet car. I feel more intuned
with nature. I used to feel embarrassed when I was driving my old and
noisy FORD (found on the road dead) car through those areas. I felt as
if I was committing a crime against nature.
But, when it comes to environmental issues, I think, DOING seems more
important to me than saying. Therefore, I am going to shut up and
separate some recyclables now.
BTW, BS, I am going to be in the area soon, so watch out for High
Breeds!
ARW23
from very polluted LA
ARW23
>>At the risk of seeming defeatist, I can't help thinking that the
'space migration/earth as the craddle' model seems the most likely,
with the human organism inevitably sucking its host dry and moving
on.
As far as trying to avoid/delay this situation from occuring through
what car people drive, maybe we should just stop making/discarding so
many of them, regardless of what they run on. Even the new hydrogen
cars pose the irksome question of where will we get all the hydrogen
to run them?<<
I think, it is relevant these days "what car people drive". (Again, as
I already mentioned in my response to BS: If we are not a part of
solution, then we are part of a problem). I happen to live in Los
Angeles, and LA ranks among 10 most polluted cities in the USA. It is
the traffic/the cars that are causing the smog in LA. If everyone was
driving hybrid in LA pollution would be reduced by 50%.
I think, it's our responsibility to drive cleaner cars.
Can you imagine how clean LA air would be if the cars were pruning on
water. There is plenty of Ocean out here and everywhere, for that
matter, on this planet.
BTW, "Who Killed the Electric Car?"
Have you seen this documentary?
ARW23
bandito
> What in particular each one of us on this group does daily to save the
> environment?
I bought my wife an SUV that averages 18 miles per gallon, nearly a
50% decrease from our previous vehicle. This increased consumption
further stimulates demand in a supply limited market, thus directly
effecting an increase in price for gasoline. The higher the price of
gasoline, the more financial stimulus goes into R&D for
alternatives.
So I figure the more we drive it, the more we're saving the planet.
bandito
as problemo numero uno.
I also think that if Bill Joy and James Lovelock got together for tea,
the other patrons of the tea house would hang themselves to escape the
depressing vibes those two emanate.
RMJon23
Yes, maybe. And how ironic are their names? I mean, precisely?
bandito
> On Mar 13, 4:02�pm, bandito <mgather...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I suspect that "peak oil" will very quickly supplant "global warming"
> > as problemo numero uno.
>
> > I also think that if Bill Joy and James Lovelock got together for tea,
> > the other patrons of the tea house would hang themselves to escape the
> > depressing vibes those two emanate.
>
> Yes, maybe.
Probably not. I can be a bit of a grump.
tcbev...@yahoo.com
Their names are 87% ironic. To be 100% ironic they could change their
names to Hope Joy and Jellybean Lovepumpkin.
Toy Buttercrumpet