James Lovelock: give up trying to save the world from climate change

[Second Summer]

Saving the planet from climate change is ‘beyond our ability’ and we should stop wasting time trying to tackle global warming, a leading scientist has claimed.

James Lovelock, who first detected CFCs in the atmosphere and proposed the Gaia hypotheses, claims society should retreat to ‘climate-controlled cities’ and give up on large expanses of land which will become uninhabitable.

Lovelock, who has just published his latest book A Rough Ride To The Future, claims we should be ‘strengthening our defences and making a sustainable retreat.’

Full article: We should give up trying to save the world from climate change, says James Lovelock (The Telegraph, 8. April 2014)

Well, it certainly seems quite hopeless, since there are so many countries, and there is no way to force them all to agree to emission targets, or to decide what would be fair emission targets, whether developing countries should be largely exempt etc.

 

[rainforests1]

Governments decided decades ago the human population worldwide would be very large, and it's inevitable that humans will have to suffer from the consequences of that down the road. His view in another article about renewables being a waste of time bothers me a lot more than this does.

 

[Blobbenstein]

I don't see what the point of retreating to cities would be. Food will still have to come from the countryside, and while that is habitable why shouldn't people live there.?

 

[kibbleforlola]

I don't see what the point of retreating to cities would be. Food will still have to come from the countryside, and while that is habitable why shouldn't people live there.?

Two words: Soylent Green.

 

[Trinity]

I read this and the part that really made my jaw drop was this:

"He also claimed that life on Earth could move away from organic creatures towards computerised life-forms"... it would be easy to let the eyes glaze of that part but if really think about it we all know what that means.

 

[Mr Crunchy]

I don't see what the point of retreating to cities would be. Food will still have to come from the countryside, and while that is habitable why shouldn't people live there.?

Read further in the article:

“In a changing climate, cities are much less vulnerable to external heat than are individuals. If most of us lived in cities, as it seems we soon will do, the regulation of the climate of these cities might be far easier, more economic and safer option in a hot climate than the regulation by geoengineering of the whole planet. “

 

[Mr Crunchy]

I tend to agree with him, by the way. Which is why I've stayed out of the debate for the most part. In the end, survival will depend on adapting to the change rather than trying to stop it. Our ability to adapt to almost any climate is an important part of why humans are the dominant species on Earth.

 

[Second Summer]

Two words: Soylent Green.

Yeah, the food will be grown in labs. It'll be GM algae growing in giant tanks, GM mushrooms etc.

 

[Blobbenstein]

Read further in the article:

“In a changing climate, cities are much less vulnerable to external heat than are individuals. If most of us lived in cities, as it seems we soon will do, the regulation of the climate of these cities might be far easier, more economic and safer option in a hot climate than the regulation by geoengineering of the whole planet. “

but climate change is about massive changes in weather patterns, not really the rise in temperature itself. unless we end up with a runaway global warming. We are no more able to run away and hide in protective cities, at the moment, than we are able to live on the moon.....we still need farming, and farming is heavily dependent on the weather.

I suppose he might have a point in the distant future, but even if we no longer need the farm land, then we still wouldn't need to live in bubble cities....why would we? They don't need them in hotter countries.....maybe he is thinking about run away green house effect. But I don't think that will happen, myself.

 

[Clueless Git]

I don't see what the point of retreating to cities would be. Food will still have to come from the countryside, and while that is habitable why shouldn't people live there.?

We already allow culls, by starvation, of people who live in countryside(s) that are no longer productive enough to sustain them.

The next logical step, vis-a-vis a final harvest from such places, would be to eat them.

 

[Blobbenstein]

we should genetically engineer rats so that they have giant brains, and hands, and then they can build our brave new world....then we can live in a bubble bath.

 

[Blobbenstein]

We already allow culls, by starvation, of people who live in countryside(s) that are no longer productive enough to sustain them.

The next logical step, vis-a-vis a final harvest from such places, would be to eat them.

You could go on the Dragon's Den with that idea, CG......Bumpkin Burgers™

 

[Mr Crunchy]

but climate change is about massive changes in weather patterns, not really the rise in temperature itself. unless we end up with a runaway global warming. We are no more able to run away and hide in protective cities, at the moment, than we are able to live on the moon.....we still need farming, and farming is heavily dependent on the weather.

I suppose he might have a point in the distant future, but even if we no longer need the farm land, then we still wouldn't need to live in bubble cities....why would we? They don't need them in hotter countries.....maybe he is thinking about run away green house effect. But I don't think that will happen, myself.

Sure, it does sound rather utopian, or perhaps distopian. He doesn't address the negative aspects of such high-density living arrangements. Still, I think his main premise is still valid. From what I understand, even if we eliminated all greenhouse gas emissions, it would not reverse the trend, only slow it down. We'll have to deal with it one way or another, so applying resources toward that inevitability makes sense.

 

[Mischief]

I for one hope that humankind meets the same fate as the other animal species affected by our heedlessness.

 

[Mr Crunchy]

We've got it coming, no argument here.