James Lovelock: We are all doomed. Malthus was right.

[Karmadillo]

Well, this is depressing. Any good debunking out there?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541748&in_page_id=1770

We're all doomed! 40 years from global catastrophe - and there's NOTHING we can do about it, says climate change expert
By SARAH SANDS
Last updated at 00:34am on 22nd March 2008

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Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. Government targets are "futile". Britain contributes such a tiny amount of emissions compared with countries such as China that our self-regulatory measures are pathetic.

"Everyone could burn coal all day and drive around in 4x4s and it would not make a scrap of difference," he says.

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"If you take the IPCC predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 - between 110F and 120F. It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow. There will be almost no food grown in Europe.

"By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe. We are talking about Paris. As far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position."

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I ask if Lady Thatcher could have saved the world had she acted more decisively. "You couldn't have stopped the evolution of Chinese industry. We have to stop thinking it is all our fault. We could have stopped it if we had all listened to Malthus in 1800 (the economist who said population would outstrip agricultural supply).

"Everyone laughed at him, but he was right. A billion is about the right number of people for the Earth. We are nearly seven billion. Had we stayed at a billion we could have done whatever we liked with technology and there would have been no problem."

lots more...

[tekisui]

1. I'm not one to challenge Lovelock.

He is the genesis of the "Gaia Hypothesis". He knows what he is talking about.

We're screwed.

[zonmoy]

2. been saying that for quite a while now.

[jpak]

10. I saw nobel laureate Sherwood Rowland (CFCs and ozone chemistry) speak a couple of weeks ago

He described Lovelock as "very quirky" and completely wrong on the impact of man-made CFCs on stratospheric ozone.

Biogeochemists, geochemists, palaeoclimatologists and evolutionary biologists examined his Gaia hypothesis and rejected it - completely.

His comments regarding global warming are based on his own biased opinion (not original research) and should be taken with a huge grain of salt...

[depakid]

13. Most of the folks you cite probably aren't versed in systems science

from that perspective, the Gaia hypothesis makes perfect sense in terms of the earth being a larger, self regulating "whole" comprised of multiple sets of subsystems (including both physical and ecological systems) that together act to maintain a climate favorable to life.

[jpak]

15. Ummm...the American Geophysical Union dedicated *two* Chapman Conferences to Gaia

and it was ripped to shreds...

The Earth is not a super-organism - systems ecologists have recognized this for nearly a century.

Biogeochemists and climatologists agree that *all* the biological feedbacks to climate change are positive - not negative - and there is no evidence that negative biological feedbacks have regulated Earth's climate in the past.

Gaia is bullshit - pure and simple.

Oh yeah - Sherwood and Molina accurately modeled the effect of CFCs on stratospheric ozone years before it was confirmed by instruments...now that's systems level geochemistry...

[depakid]

19. You're confusing system dynamics with system theory

And your statement that ALL biological feedbacks that affect climate are positive ones is patently false to the point of being absurd.

There TONS of mechanisms that reestablish equilibrium- biological, ecological and physical ones. If there weren't, you wouldn't be here.

Gaia hypothesis looks at the all these systems as a larger whole, just as one would look at the various chemical processes as a whole in an orgnism. In the systems theory sense, homeostasis is an isomorphism.

Not, as some would have it- a religious or somehow "sentient" process.

[jpak]

21. Name one effective negative biological feedback response to anthropogenic climate warming

:popcorn:

[depakid]

22. How about: enhanced plant productivity in response to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/98/5/2473

[jpak]

24. How about: wrong

Oren, R., et al. 2001. Soil fertility limits carbon sequestration by forest ecosystems in a CO2-enriched atmosphere. Nature 411:469-472.

Schlesinger, W.H., and J. Lichter. 2001. Limited carbon storage in soil and litter of experimental forest plots under increased atmospheric CO2. Nature 411:466-469.

Shaw, M. R., et al. 2002. Grassland responses to global environmental changes suppressed by elevated CO2. Science 298: 1987-1990.

Smith, S. D., et al. 2000. Elevated CO2 increases productivity and invasive species success in an arid ecosystem. Nature 408:79-82.

DeLucia, E. H., et al. 1999. Net primary production of a forest ecosystem with experimental CO2 enrichment. Science 284:1177-1179.

and discussion at realclimate.org...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=93

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It has sometimes been argued that the earth's biosphere (in large part, the terrestrial biosphere) may have the capacity to sequestor much of the increased carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere associated with human fossil fuel burning. This effect is known as "CO2 fertilization" because, in the envisioned scenario, higher ambient CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere literally "fertilize" plant growth. Because plants in turn, in the process of photosynthesis, convert CO2 into oxygen, it is thus sometimes argued that such "co2 fertilization" could potentially provide a strong negative feedback on changing CO2 concentrations.


Recent experiments and model calculations, however, suggest that this is unlikely to be the case. A set of controlled experiments known as FACE ("Free Air CO2 Enrichment") experiments have been performed in which ambient CO2 levels are elevated in forest stands and changes in various measures of productivity are made over several years. Experiments of this sort that have been done at Duke Forest indicate (in agreement with models), that any elevation of productivity is likely to be short-lived and is unlikely to significantly offset any gradual, long-term increases in co2 due to human activity. This is due in part to the fact that other conditions (e.g. availability of nutrients such as Nitrogen and Phosphorus) appear to quickly become limiting, even when carbon availability is removed as a constraint on plant growth when ambient CO2 concentrations are sufficiently increased.

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[depakid]

26. Just one example- and a reductionlist, biological one that can be argued about

which is what I figured you wanted to see.

As I mentioned, it's absurd to say there aren't negative feedbacks attenuating the larger systems and sets of systems. We don't live on Venus (though, of course it also has negative feedbacks and a dynamic equilibrium of its own).
Similar to these:

[jpak]

27. Richard Lindzen (GW denier) insists that there is a negative water vapor climate feedback

and asked the rhetorical question...

R. S. Lindzen, M-D Chou, and A. Y. Hou (2001) Does the Earth Have an Adaptive Infrared Iris? Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 82: 417-432

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0477(2001)082%3C0417%3ADTEHAA%3E2.3.CO%3B2

The answer is...nope...

D. L. Hartmann and M. L. Michelsen (2002) No Evidence for Iris. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. 83: 249-254

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0477(2002)083%3C0249%3ANEFI%3E2.3.CO%3B2

(BTW: Hartmann and Michelsen used Lindzen's own data)

A. D. Del Genio and W. Kovari (2002) Climatic Properties of Tropical Precipitating Convection under Varying Environmental Conditions. Journal of Climate. 15: 2597–2615

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0442(2002)015%3C2597%3ACPOTPC%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Lin B., B. A. Wielicki, L. H. Chambers, Y. Hu, and K.-M. Xu, 2002: The iris hypothesis: A negative or positive cloud feedback? J. Climate, 15: 3–7.

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&issn=1520-0442&volume=15&page=3

The water vapor feedback loop is positive and hugh...

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.441

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/11/051109091359.htm

[ben_meyers]

3. Well screw it then, I'm buying a Hummer

[bananas]

11. You can get one from a ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyg7IJ-_0F4

[postulater]

4. Lovelock is one smart guy.

This is not good news.

[tinrobot]

5. Only one solution.

Declare war on China to make them stop.

(somewhat sarcastic... but then again...)

[hogwyld]

6. So all of the chinese are moving to Africa?

I don't see how that can happen without a global war. Well, we humans had a good run for a bit. All things must pass.

[diane in sf]

7. Lovelock is wrong for the same reason Malthus was--both are really smart guys

who overlooked the rapid deployment of new technologies. The world population will start falling in mid-century (according to UN figures--growth is already below replacement levels in the richest, most consumptive countries), nontoxic forms of power, wind, solar, conservation are growing exponentially, organic succession farming can be rapidly deployed, etc. And conservation and new forms of energy are good for business's bottom line so expect to see rapid adaptation.

I've lived long enough to see a 5lb, $500 dollar laptop computer take over the functions (actually working better) of a $2 million dollar prepress system, which weighed tons and required a refrigerated room. This took only twenty years. Power generation and storage are headed in the same direction. I've also seen how a river absolutely poisoned could make an amazing recovery.

We've damaged our environment hideously, but we have some ability to turn stuff around.

Are we in scary times? Absolutely.

Is the sky falling? Maybe, but not necessarily.

[tinrobot]

8. We've just moved the industrialization to China

Our rivers are less polluted because we've outsourced the heavy stuff -- they're the ones making steel and doing all the heavy industry. We consume more than ever, so it's not like we're lightening our load, it's just their rivers and their environment that are now taking the biggest hit.

I'm all for new technologies, but I truly wonder if China can turn itself around. Right now they're trying like crazy to clean up their air for the Olympics and can't even do that.

[Hunter Muir]

9. "This is the way the world ends . . ." T.S. Eliot, The Hollow Men

We are living in a Malthusian nightmare - one where the population growth is out of control; but where there seems little that the world can (or will) do about it. Certainly, we are no better for following the commandment to “Be fruitful and multiply. . . .” Genesis 1:28 (KJV). Ours has not been a history of good husbandry. Man may be master on this planet; but we are rapidly laying waste to the land and the sea on which we depend for life's subsistence; for when this goes, then, surely as the earth turns, so shall we go also.

[depakid]

12. That's a cornucopian fallacy

sometime known as "the technological fix."

It ignores the very basic limitations imposed by population biology, ecological and thermodynamic principles.

Not only will technology NOT save the current population base, it can actually INCREASE resource depletion- and effect known as Jevons' Paradox.

[kristopher]

18. That doesn't address the observed decline in population

That doesn't address the observed decline in population of countries with educated females. It is an extrapolation from solid microeconomic theory that has extremely limited applicability on a macroeconomic scale.

[depakid]

20. The world's cuurent population and habits are already well beyond carrying capacity

Unless you believe that it's possible to educate the huge masses of impoverished people (many of whom live in nations with high population doubling times) and provide them with birth control and social security, that's sort of ridiculous argument on the macro level.

Now, "educating" people into a one child policy might ameliorate some problems down the line- but the fact of the matter is that without a large infusion of low entropy energy, neither the world agricultural systems- its ecosystems- and especially the macroeconomic system based on growth, the present patterns are unsustainable.

Without the "technological fix" (manna from heaven) humankind as we know it won't be able to adapt to climate change- certainly not at anywhere close to current levels in terms of numbers and affluence- and perhaps, not at all.

[diane in sf]

23. The birthrate in Bangladesh alone has dropped from 6 kids per woman to below 3 in the last

20 years. This has also true in the countries that have gone literate in the middle east in the last generation. It doesn't take much education to get the birthrate lower--keeping kids in school till 6th grade will do it. How do you keep them in school? Feed them a meal there (Walter Mondale--a great proponent of early childhood education).

Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and The Long Now Foundation gave a brilliant talk at the Commonwealth Club here about the third-world population movement into cities. On the surface it looks really bad--slums, pollution, etc. The facts are it liberates the young women from the village elders, the birthrate drops fairly immediately, the children are schooled and a lot of times the parents as well, and cell phones, internet, TVs and other forms of communication and education are available and used. Also the countryside clears out as fewer people need to subsistence farm (maybe like the Dakotas) leaving nature to try to reassert itself.

I think a lot of the reason for the ever-popular Chicken Little scenario is the fucked up state of our country's economy and the hideously diminishing prospects for most middle-class and poor people here if things continue in this corporate-spawned hell path. This is a form of doom.


edit spelling

[tinrobot]

25. But birthrate is only one variable...

We still need to reduce consumption per person as well. That's one variable that keeps going up.

[depakid]

28. I = PAT is generally how that's expressed

Impact = Population * Affluence * Technology

More: http://www.sustainablescale.org/ConceptualFramework/UnderstandingScale/MeasuringScale/TheIPATEquation.aspx

To understand why technology has an adverse effect on impact, one need only look to at today's high tech fishing fleets.

[The2ndWheel]

14. Unfortunately, we live in physical reality

"who overlooked the rapid deployment of new technologies."

Which have increased our impact.

"The world population will start falling in mid-century (according to UN figures--growth is already below replacement levels in the richest, most consumptive countries)"

Start falling in mid-century? Start? However, before that point, every single person on the planet needs to have the same standard of living, since that is what this whole game is about. The wealthy want stuff, the rest of us chase the wealthy, and it never stops. So we have to reduce our consumption levels(from what they are now) by mid-century, even though there are billions of people not hooked up into the global economic system, and the increased standard of living is the only way to get people to just pop out maybe a kid or two. How is that going to work?

"nontoxic forms of power, wind, solar,"

Just because they're non-toxic doesn't mean that we'll be able to walk on water. It's the activity that we do with the energy that is the fundamental problem.

"conservation are growing exponentially"

Conservation is growing exponentially. Conservation is growing exponentially. Conservation is growing exponentially. Conservation is growing exponentially. Damn, no matter how many times I say that, it still doesn't seem to make sense.

"And conservation and new forms of energy are good for business's bottom line so expect to see rapid adaptation."

And what does business do? It grows. It must grow. What happens with increased growth? The impact of X increases. So it can't both conserve and consume new forms of energy at the same time. It's one or the other.

[kristopher]

17. Spot on post. Thanks for lending perspective.

I keep an old manual typewriter on my desk as a reminder of how far we've come since I entered the labor market. It weighs 80 pounds.

[Dogmudgeon]

16. deleted

wrong location!

--p!