James Lovelock’s Gloomy Vision
Posted by Big Gav
RealClimate has a post on James Lovelock's "Gaia's Revenge" that looks at both the history of his Gaia theory and the likelihood of his prediction that humanity will be reduced to a few breeding pairs in the Arctic by catastrophic climate change. They point out that there aren't any climate models that predict such a scenario, and the possibility is low (though not zero).
I'm sure the more doomer oriented amongst you will quickly point out that experts don't know everything and that global warming isn't the only problem we face - and you'd be quite right. But it is encouraging nevertheless to see the people who worry daily about global warming aren't as freaked out by it as Mr Lovelock is.
James Lovelock, renegade Earth scientist and creator of the Gaia hypothesis, has written a gloomy new book called “Revenge of Gaia”, in which he argues that we should be stashing survival manuals, printed on good old-fashioned paper, in the Arctic where the last few breeding pairs of humans will likely be found after a coming climate catastrophe. The book is not published in the U.S. yet, but it is available from amazon.co.uk. Lovelock has never been one to shrink from a bold vision. What is it he sees now?
In the first biogeochemistry class I took, I was assigned to read the first few chapters of Lovelock’s 1978 book, “Gaia: A new look at life on earth”. Since then, I have assigned those same chapters to every biogeochemistry class I have ever taught. Lovelock wrote very eloquently about the eerie stability of the earth system. The sun has been warming throughout its lifetime, and yet the climate of the earth has remained stable between the relatively narrow range of the boiling and freezing points of water. This observation was labeled the “faint young sun” paradox by Carl Sagan [1972], and now has at least a partial explanation in terms of the weathering of silicate rocks, the silicate weathering thermostat [Walker et al., 1981]. Lovelock also points out that the oxygen concentration of the atmosphere has been remarkably stable over the half-billion years since multicellular life appeared in the fossil record, never high enough to explode (doubled atmospheric oxygen would lead to unstoppable continent-scale forest fires), nor low enough to wipe out the animals. Nitrogen, Lovelock points out, ought thermodynamically to exist as nitrate dissolved in the oceans; the reason that most of Earth’s nitrogen exists as nitrogen gas in the atmosphere is because of life.
Lovelock’s bold leap was to envision life on Earth as a single unified organism, capable of regulating the environment on Earth for its own well-being, analogous to the way that you or I regulate the temperature and chemistry of our bodies.
...
We should be very clear. No one, not Lovelock or anyone else, has proposed a specific, quantitative scenario for a climate-driven, all out, blow the doors off, civilization ending catastrophe. Mr. Lovelock has a feeling in his gut that something terrible is going to happen. He could be right, but for what it's worth, there aren't any models that explode as catastrophically as this. We can never say that it's impossible that something might fall out of balance, something we haven't thought of. But I think in general the consensus gut feeling among small-minded working scientists like me is that the odds of such a catastrophe are low.
RealClimate also notes that it is Charles Darwin's birthday - and uses the occasion to compare the motivations of people who deny the theory of evolution with those who deny global warming.
Another relation between the two issues is that Evolution skeptics are motivated by ideology to deny a well-established scientific theory. In the case of Evolution, the ideological motivation is a perceived conflict between the picture of the operation of the natural world presented by the Theory of Evolution, and the tenets of certain faiths (a perceived conflict that, I am happy to see, is not shared by all people of faith, as witness the extensive "Evolution Sunday " activities ). Similarly, most Global Warming denialists are for the most part motivated not by abstract curiosity about the behavior of climate systems, but by a perceived conflict between the actions that would need to be taken to avert unacceptable climate change, and their beliefs about the extent to which economic growth and material prosperity based on fossil-fuel energy use should be unfettered. (Again, not all economists or members of the business community perceive a conflict here). In both cases, the skeptics prosecute not just an attack on the policy implications of science, but on the scientific method itself, often using similar rhetorical devices. In fact, sometimes skepticism about global warming and about evolution are combined in one and the same person, as is the case for Roy Spencer, for example
The BBC reports that Greenland's glaciers are sliding towards the sea much faster than previously believed and the amount of ice dumped into the Atlantic Ocean has doubled in the last five years. They note that if the Greenland ice sheet melts completely, it would raise global sea levels by about 7m.The BBC also has a report that US conservation groups have begun a new legal case aimed at forcing government action on climate change. I wonder if the same tactic could be tried here in Australia ?
US conservation groups ... have filed a petition with the UN arguing that Waterton-Glacier Peace Park, a protected area, is being damaged by rising temperatures. Similar actions have been lodged over sites in the Himalayas and Andes.
The case, filed on the first anniversary of the Kyoto Protocol's entry into force, could compel the US to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Petitioners argue that the US, as a signatory to the UN World Heritage Convention, has a legal duty to protect areas with World Heritage status, including Waterton-Glacier. "The effects of climate change are well-documented and clearly visible in Glacier National Park," said the petition's lead author Erica Thorson from the International Environmental Law Project. "Yet the US has not taken action to protect the world heritage of the park by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions pursuant to its obligations under the World Heritage Convention."
In 2004 conservation groups co-ordinated by the legal environmental organisation Climate Justice filed similar petitions on behalf of the Sagarmatha National Park in the Himalayas, the Belize Barrier Reef, and Huascaran National Park in Peru. The Sagarmatha petition is supported by Everest pioneer Sir Edmund Hillary, who said: "The warming of the Himalayas has increased noticeably over the last 50 years... this has caused several and severe floods from glacial lakes, and much disruption to the environment and local people."
On other matters atmospheric, the hole in the ozone layer is still growing and isn't expected to begin shrinking until the end of the decade - so its probably a good thing thing I'm going back to work next week after 2 solid weeks at the beach (highlight of todays session at Bondi - a penguin swam past me)...
Grist has their usual witty headline writers hard at work, with another story about climate scientists in the US being prevented from talking about global warming "What the Bleep Do They Know".
NOAA scientists join NASA's with accounts of global-warming censorship
Government censorship: It's what's for dinner. Some climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration whose views on global warming contradict Bush administration policy say they're being prevented from giving particular interviews or being closely monitored by press handlers. A recent NOAA press release claiming "consensus" around the fact that global warming had nothing to do with the intensity of 2005's hurricanes was recently changed after outraged protest from agency scientists who don't share that view.
Meanwhile, over at NASA, which has been plagued for weeks by censorship charges, some press officers are giving new accounts of interference from political appointees, including pressure to cut the flow of climate-related news during and after the 2004 presidential campaign. And the U.S. doesn't have a monopoly on censorship: Australian climate scientists say their government is muzzling them too.
The Palo Alto Research Center, the storied Xerox subsidiary responsible for many of the computer world's breakthrough technologies, is making a move into clean technology and sustainable products and services. It's a watershed moment of sorts: the birthplace of today's user-friendly computing wants to be the birthplace of tomorrow's clean and green innovations.
PARC, as it's more commonly known, recent launched a Clean Technology Initiative, focused on key areas of clean and sustainable technologies: solar, energy distribution, energy conservation and efficiency, clean water, air quality, and some paper-reduction technologies (the latter, of course, aimed at Xerox's core business).
The initiative evolved over the past year, like many PARC projects do, as a grassroots initiative based on "the instincts and interests of PARC's research community," Jennifer Ernst, PARC's communication manager, told me recently. The group brought in speakers and held roundtable discussions to learn more about the sustainability and clean-tech space. "We started carving out places where we thought we could make a difference."
The first result of those efforts, just announced, is a partnership with SolFocus, Inc., which is developing concentrator photovoltaic systems. SolFocus aims to employ PARC technology to cut the cost of solar power by as much as half. The Saratoga, Calif., company began working in 1999 to develop hydrogen delivery systems for fuel cells, but has since turned its focus on bringing down the cost of solar "in a dramatic fashion," says the company.
PARC is helping SolFocus develop a second-generation of its concentrating solar collector that dramatically improves cost, durability, and scalability.
WorldChanging also wants to expand into some new areas and is looking for some help with funding - so if you have a few spare dollars (or whatever other currency you use) go along and donate some.
Local stockmarket newsletter Huntley's has been making occasional comments about peak oil for a couple of years now - todays summary also mentioned it - apparently there is no shortage of peak oil devotees in the markets here...
My best guess is that we will see correcting markets through the first half of this year, possibly out to September. There will be rallies. And there could be significant sector rotation – sections of the industrial market could rise, as the resources market comes off.
My bottom line is that I don’t think the super cycle China/India story is over by a long shot, with the main risk here being a slow down in the US consumer caused by a significant softening in their residential real estate market as has occurred here and in the UK.
Nor do I think the longer term bullish story for oil/energy is over, but I do think in the short term it has been overdone, and that oil could easily come back to US$50, tipping cold buckets of cold water over many a speculator. As I comment in YMW Overview, I am a Peak Oil fan, but I now see every corner store galah parroting this view.
The hedge funds have been running riot in these commodities markets, and I fear that there will be rogue traders among them with highly geared speculative positions which could rapidly crumple and cause short term panic sell offs.
In one of those strange pieces of synchronicity, after mentioning Phillip K Dick in yesterday's post, I read in the news today that his replicant is missing.
Posts
