More "apocaphilia" from James Lovelock, co-author of the Gaia hypothesis, who said in a news conference that "the earth has a fever that could boost temperatures by 8 degrees Celsius making large parts of the surface uninhabitable and threatening billions of peoples' lives." Reuters reports Lovelock's prediction of a "planetary wipeout," though not quite an apocalypse. "We are not all doomed. An awful lot of people will die, but I don't see the species dying out." The Reuters piece is based on a lecture he gave yesterday to the Institution of Chemical Engineers in the UK, but this is pretty much his argument from his book, The Revenge of Gaia, published last January. Following the book's publication, RealClimate posted a
critique of his "gloomy vision":
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.
You might think that it makes sense to emphasize the extreme ("planetary wipeout"), that the apocalyptic argument will create a sense of urgency about climate change. Hasn't worked so far – in fact, extreme arguments might produce extreme denial. Google "climate change apocalypse" and you get, as first reference, Christopher Monck's denial published in the Telegraph.
Climate change is confusing because there's so much we don't know, and the complexity of climate systems is daunting. Consider the difference in the last two hurricane seasons – the volatility that produced Katrina and Rita vs the unexpected calm this year (described in retrospect as an effect of unpredicted wind patterns and dust storms in the Sahara). Experts tend to think 2006 is just a respite, a calm before greater storms, but the fact that the expected 2006 volatility didn't materialize creates in the minds of many sufficient doubt so that denial is easier. Easier still when predictions, like Lovelock's, ignore the WorldChanging possibility, which is that we can think and act our way into a plausible better future.
A solution to the problem of global warming begins with a cautious, balanced, and rational approach, and getting there is as much about our psychological and social frameworks than our ability to analyze and predict. We have to be careful about analogies that work on the emotions (e.g. Lovelock's metaphor, the earth is a patient with a fever), and avoid a quite arguable conclusion that something like "planetary wipeout" is inevitable. The increasingly obvious fact that climate is changing, and that human factors are associated with that change, should create a sense of urgency about the problem, not a sense of despair. Our WorldChanging challenge is to incubate and engineer solutions that will mitigate potentially catastrophic effects, without diminishing our quality of life. Consider, for instance, the possibility of a carbon-free future.
Walt Kelly famously coined the phrase "We have met the enemy, and he is us." If that's true, it's time to declare a truce and start negotiations. A better world is possible... "the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us."
