"GAIA" SCIENTIST SAYS LIFE DOOMED BY CLIMATE WOES
By Peter Griffiths
Reuters
February 25, 2009

uk.reuters.com/article/us...5EU20090225 <uk.reuters.com/article/us...EU20090225>

LONDON - Climate change will wipe out most life on Earth by the end of this
century and mankind is too late to avert catastrophe, a leading British
climate scientist said.

James Lovelock, 89, famous for his Gaia theory of the Earth being a kind of
living organism, said higher temperatures will turn parts of the world into
desert and raise sea levels, flooding other regions.

His apocalyptic theory foresees crop failures, drought and death on an
unprecedented scale. The population of this hot, barren world could shrink
from about seven billion to one billion by 2100 as people compete for
ever-scarcer resources.

"It will be death on a grand scale from famine and lack of water," Lovelock
told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. "It could be a reduction to a
billion (people) or less."

By 2040, temperatures in European cities will rise to an average of 110
Fahrenheit (43 Celsius) in summer, the same as Baghdad and parts of Europe
in the 2003 heatwave.

"The land will gradually revert to scrub and desert. You can look at as if
the Sahara were steadily moving into Europe. It's not just Europe; the whole
world will be changing in that way."

Attempts to cut emissions of planet-warming gases such as carbon dioxide
(CO2) in an attempt to reduce the risks are probably doomed to failure, he
added.

Even if the world found a way of cutting emissions to zero, it is now too
late to cool the Earth.

"It is a bit like a supertanker. You can't make it stop by just turning the
engines off," he said before the release of a new book on climate change.

"It will go on for a long, long time. If by some magic you could suddenly
bring the C02 down, it wouldn't suddenly cool off."

SAFE HAVENS

Campaigns to promote recycling and renewable energy sources such as wind and
solar power are a waste of time, Lovelock adds, although he concedes that
nuclear power will help meet growing demand for energy.

While financial markets and politicians promote carbon emissions trading
schemes to reduce emissions and help the environment, Lovelock says they,
too, will have little effect.

"I don't see the efforts of governments around the world succeeding in doing
anything significant to cut back the emissions of carbon dioxide," he said.

Efforts should instead be focused on creating safe havens in areas which
will escape the worst effects of climate change.

In his book, "The Vanishing Face of Gaia," he adds: "We have to stop
pretending that there is any possible way of returning to that lush,
comfortable and beautiful Earth we left behind some time in the 20th
century."

The destruction of natural ecosystems for farmland, deforestation and the
rapid growth of the human race and livestock have all exacerbated the
problem, he added.

Scientists should not underestimate the crucial role of the oceans as an
indicator of rising temperatures and tool for reducing carbon dioxide,
Lovelock argues.

"Most of the Earth's surface is the ocean. That holds 800 times more than
the atmosphere or the land. And there is no question that the ocean is
steadily warming," he said.

A former skeptic of doom-laden predictions, Lovelock admits he is not
entirely comfortable with his role as a modern-day Cassandra, the cursed
prophetess of Greek mythology whose counsel was ignored.

However, he says the scale and speed of the looming crisis are so great he
must speak out. He is still struck by the public's apparent lack of urgency
about the problem.

"Don't blame me for the terrible predictions," said Lovelock, a sprightly,
trim figure with silver hair who looks younger than his age and was soberly
dressed in navy jumper, tie and casual trousers.

"The U.N.'s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) even in its
2001 report was suggesting temperatures by 2040 and 2050 that were
devastatingly hot. All I'm doing is drawing people's attention to it."