tagged w/ James Lovelock
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"James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his “Gaia” theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being “alarmist” about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.
Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.
He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.’s Independent newspaper, he wrote that “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.”
However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been “extrapolating too far."
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.
“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising -- carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.
He pointed to Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and Tim Flannery’s “The Weather Makers” as other examples of “alarmist” forecasts of the future.""James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental... more
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James Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis” has challenged conventional thinking about the nature of the earth as an integrated system. Gaia proposes that the earth acts like a living organism — that life is part of a self-regulating system, manipulating the physical and chemical environment to maintain the planet as a suitable home for life itself. Lovelock has developed this idea in a series of books, from “Gaia: A new look at life on earth” (1979) through to “Revenge of Gaia” (2006) and “The Vanishing Face of Gaia” (2009). He argues that as changes in the physical earth system occur, living systems respond so as to mitigate such changes.
How can a planet be alive?
In claiming that Gaia is “lifelike”, Lovelock notes the difficulty of defining life. He points out that a biological emphasis on (potential for) reproduction would, for example, exclude postmenopausal women. On the other hand, a physical emphasis on entropy reduction would include refrigerators. This leads Lovelock to emphasise physiological self-regulation as the defining characteristic of life-like systems – networks of interacting processes serve to regulate each other to preserve the functioning of the organism.
In discussing the concept of Gaia, Lovelock now distinguishes:
-Gaia hypothesis: the original version — the Earth’s organisms regulate the physical and chemical components of the earth system so as to maintain the planet as an optimal habitat for life.
-Gaia theory: the revision in response to critics — the combined physical, chemical and biological components of the earth system regulate the planet so as to maintain it as a habitat for life.
Various analyses have tried to distinguish between “weak” and “strong” Gaia, with weak Gaia differing little from conventional earth system science.
But isn’t Gaia for hippies?
The name Gaia has been widely used as a metaphor, as well co-opted for a large amount of pseudo-scientific baggage. This does not invalidate any underlying science any more than the majority of physics is invalidated by similar appropriation of terms such as “relativity”, “crystals”, “force fields” etc.
After stripping away such baggage, one has to confront the question: is what Lovelock is saying science and mysticism? While Lovelock has used the term “geophysiology” to avoid some of the mystical associations, he notes that all that has been achieved is that the term geophysiology now carries the same suspicion as the name Gaia.
The confrontation between Gaian theory and “conventional” science is largely focused on a few key words: “Gaia is like a living organism … whose goal is to maintain the planet in state fit for life”.
A powerful argument against the Gaia hypothesis is the assertion (such as that made by Richard Dawkins in The Extended Phenotype) that Gaia cannot arise from Darwinian evolution of life — the planet as a whole is not a unit of selection.
Dawkins can be answered by an anthropic argument (wherein observations of the physical universe must be compatible with the existence of the conscious life that observes it):
-The emergence of Gaian self-regulation through the course of evolution is allegedly extremely improbable.
-Nevertheless, the long-term survival of life on a planet without Gaian self-regulation may well be even more improbable.
-Therefore, intelligent observers are most likely to find themselves on a planet with Gaian self-regulation.
Personally, I find this sort of argument unsatisfying. However, similar arguments seem to be needed to “explain” the physical universe — it is a very precise combination of physical constants that allows the existence of atoms heavier than hydrogen and helium. Anyway, if Gaian self-regulation has arisen by chance, one would still want to know how it works.
For me, one of the most intriguing possibilities is some form of “innate Gaia” — rather than being highly improbable, some degree of Gaian self-regulation is inevitable.
Writing in Nature Tim Lenton has proposed that if:
-the physical system is stable, and
-the biological system has self-increasing growth, and
-there is a physical optimum for growth
then the steady state will be whichever side of the optimum leads to negative feedbacks, thus enhancing the stability of the physical system. The “optimal for life” in the original Gaia hypothesis is replaced by “mutually enhanced stability of the physical and biological systems”.
A theory with gaps is still a theory
While Thomas Henry Huxley famously talked of “the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact” such discrepancies can also mean that the “ugly facts” are being misinterpreted.
For example, the gap in Wegener’s account of continental drift was that the continents aren’t ploughing through the crust — they are being carried by the crust. The gap in Darwin’s argument 150 years ago was the implicit assumption of blending of characteristics, so that new traits would be diluted. Mendel’s experiments showed that this is not so. Working out the details has been the work of subsequent generations of population geneticists.
Returning to Dawkins’ argument as quoted above, the hidden assumption that may represent a weak point is the assumption of a single level of selection.
In Revenge of Gaia, Lovelock quotes William Hamilton: “Just as the observations of Copernicus needed a Newton to explain them, we need another Newton to explain how Darwinian evolution leads to a habitable planet.” This echoes Alfred Wegener: “The Newton of [continental] drift has not yet appeared. His absence need cause no anxiety.”
To summarise: gaps and discrepancies in a theory imply a case for serious further study, not necessarily a reason to panic and immediately abandon any consideration of the idea.
What does Gaia mean for humankind?
In his recent books, Lovelock argues that humanity is like an army with over-extended supply lines — there is no option but to retreat (allowing Gaia to recover). Depending on humanity’s choices the retreat could be comparable to the British from Dunkirk or Napoleon from Moscow. We can take control of population ourselves, or see it plummet as Gaia kills us off.
By Ian Enting | 12 February 2012
Continued at linkJames Lovelock’s “Gaia hypothesis” has challenged conventional... more
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Father of the Gaia Theory --not to mention certified donavon-- mister James Lovelock, blames too-much-talk as the reason we're all basically doomed, before he pops out to space later this year for his 90th birthday party aboard Richard Branson's Thunderbird 2.
[from New Scientist:]
"I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again.
"I don't think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing's been done except endless talk and meetings."Father of the Gaia Theory --not to mention certified donavon-- mister James Lovelock,... more
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Scientist, inventor, author and futurist Doctor James Lovelock, is most famous for originating 'Gaia Theory', which proposes that the earth functions as a self-regulating super-organism. Many of Lovelocks predictions about the state of the Earth and the fate of humanity are becoming alarmingly true...
Camera & sound Vanessa Stockley
Produced & narrated by Daniel Abineri
Scientist, inventor, author and futurist Doctor James Lovelock, is most famous for... more
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Planetary scale engineering might be able to combat global warming, but, as with nineteenth century medicine, the best option may simply be kind words and letting Nature take its course, says James LovelockPlanetary scale engineering might be able to combat global warming, but, as with... more
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lecoke
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added this
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3 years ago
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Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?
I found this part of the article an interesting snap shot:
"Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when "we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn't know what to do about it". But once the second world war was under way, "everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday ... so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose - that's what people want."
There are some good points in what he says. ... The part about people not wanting to change. I think he is a bit of a cranky old man and I will keep my hope and faith that we can change but what do you think? Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon... more
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twodee
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added this
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4 years ago
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"Lecture in The Royal Society, UK 29.10.2007 James Lovelock - Climate change on the living Earth""Lecture in The Royal Society, UK 29.10.2007 James Lovelock - Climate change on... more
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One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century.One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is... more
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