Karen,
In the space of perhaps 1,000 years a new
organism appeared on earth – one that emitted a noxious substance that
killed off practically everything on earth.
Of course, the organism was a green plant
that gave off oxygen.
One man’s meat is .
. . . .
Gaia was here before we were and will be
here after we are gone. It’s silly to suggest that Gaia is alive. If it
is it is a great killer.
Ernst Mayr, who died last year, was a top
biologist – and naturalist He identified 26 new species of bird,
more than anyone else now alive, and 38 species of orchid.
In his seminal work “The Growth of
Biological Thought: Diversity, Evolution,
and Inheritance”, looked at 3
million years of life, 500 million years of a rather rich biota and
a reasonable turnover in the species composition
of the biota . He mused that an estimate of one billion extinct
species is presumably on the low side.
Needless to say, we seem to have gotten
along without them very well.
The point about a warming planet with
increased CO2 is that it’s better for us than a cooling planet. We live
better and more easily in warmth than cold.
A primary difference between other
animals and us is that we can adapt.
We can change the environment, or we can
change ourselves. If it gets cold, we wear heavier clothing, if it gets warm, we
invent the air conditioner.
However, such is the venality,
incompetence, and outright corruption of our politicians that we are likely
always to do the wrong things. Our future danger rests in our political
structure rather than our scientific or behavioral characteristics.
Perhaps the only difference between us is
that you view Bush and the Republicans in this light – I don’t
distinguish between any particular brand of politician.
Harry
**********************************
Henry George School
of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box
655 Tujunga CA 91042
818 352-4141
**********************************
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2006
6:12 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: [Futurework] The Revenge
of Gaia
A pessimistic
conclusion from the author of Gaia. Note the plea for a powered descent,
like the Peak Oil activists who advocate a managed transition to post-cheap
energy survival and community rebuilding. kwc
James Lovelock: The
Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years
Each
nation must find the best use of its resources to sustain civilisation for as
long as they can
The
Independent UK,
16 January 2006
Imagine a young
policewoman delighted in the fulfilment of her vocation; then imagine her
having to tell a family whose child had strayed that he had been found dead,
murdered in a nearby wood. Or think of a young physician newly appointed who
has to tell you that the biopsy revealed invasion by an aggressive
metastasising tumour. Doctors and the police know that many accept the simple
awful truth with dignity but others try in vain to deny it.
Whatever the response,
the bringers of such bad news rarely become hardened to their task and some
dread it. We have relieved judges of the awesome responsibility of passing the
death sentence, but at least they had some comfort from its frequent moral
justification. Physicians and the police have no escape from their duty.
This article is the most
difficult I have written and for the same reasons. My Gaia theory sees the
Earth behaving as if it were alive, and clearly anything alive can enjoy good
health, or suffer disease. Gaia has made me a planetary physician and I take my
profession seriously, and now I, too, have to bring bad news.
The climate centres
around the world, which are the equivalent of the pathology lab of a hospital,
have reported the Earth's physical condition, and the climate specialists see
it as seriously ill, and soon to pass into a morbid fever that may last as long
as 100,000 years. 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.
Our planet has kept
itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more
than three billion years of its existence. It was ill luck that we started
polluting at a time when the sun is too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a
fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been
there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years. We are
responsible and will suffer the consequences: as the century progresses, the
temperature will rise 8 degrees centigrade in temperate regions and 5 degrees
in the tropics.
Much of the tropical
land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for
regulation; this adds to the 40% of the Earth's surface we have depleted to
feed ourselves.
Curiously, aerosol
pollution of the northern hemisphere reduces global warming by reflecting
sunlight back to space. This "global dimming" is transient and could
disappear in a few days like the smoke that it is, leaving us fully exposed to
the heat of the global greenhouse. 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.
By failing to see that
the Earth regulates its climate and composition, we have blundered into trying
to do it ourselves, acting as if we were in charge. By doing this, we condemn
ourselves to the worst form of slavery. If we chose to be the stewards of the
Earth, then we are responsible for keeping the atmosphere, the ocean and the
land surface right for life. A task we would soon find impossible - and
something before we treated Gaia so badly, she had freely done for us.
To understand how
impossible it is, think about how you would regulate your own temperature or
the composition of your blood. Those with failing kidneys know the never-ending
daily difficulty of adjusting water, salt and protein intake. The technological
fix of dialysis helps, but is no replacement for living healthy kidneys.
My new book The Revenge of Gaia expands these
thoughts, but you still may ask why science took so long to recognise the true
nature of the Earth. I think it is because Darwin's vision was so good and clear that it
has taken until now to digest it. In his time, little was known about the
chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans, and there would have been little reason
for him to wonder if organisms changed their environment as well as adapting to
it.
Had it been known then
that life and the environment are closely coupled, Darwin would have seen that evolution
involved not just the organisms, but the whole planetary surface. We might then
have looked upon the Earth as if it were alive, and known that we cannot
pollute the air or use the Earth's skin - its forest and ocean ecosystems - as
a mere source of products to feed ourselves and furnish our homes. We would
have felt instinctively that those ecosystems must be left untouched because
they were part of the living Earth.
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. Civilisation is energy-intensive and we cannot turn it off without
crashing, so we need the security of a powered descent. On these British Isles, we are used to thinking of all humanity
and not just ourselves; environmental change is global, but we have to deal
with the consequences here in the UK. Unfortunately our nation
is now so urbanised as to be like a large city and we have only a small acreage
of agriculture and forestry. We are dependent on the trading world for
sustenance; climate change will deny us regular supplies of food and fuel from
overseas.
We could grow enough to
feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there
is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous.
We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and
they are the main source of emissions. The worst will happen and survivors will
have to adapt to a hell of a climate.
Perhaps the saddest
thing is that Gaia will lose as much or more than we do. Not only will wildlife
and whole ecosystems go extinct, but in human civilisation the planet has a
precious resource. 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.
We should be the heart
and mind of the Earth, not its malady. So let us be brave and cease thinking of
human needs and rights alone, and see that we have harmed the living Earth and
need to make our peace with Gaia. We must do it while we are still strong
enough to negotiate, and not a broken rabble led by brutal war lords. Most of
all, we should remember that we are a part of it, and it is indeed our home.
The
writer is an independent environmental scientist and Fellow of the Royal
Society. 'The Revenge of Gaia' is published by Penguin on 2 February
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article338830.ece
