Gaia theorist delivers apocalypse message
Wednesday, 29 Nov 2006 09:16
Professor warns global warming could affect Earth for 200,000 years
Gaia theorist James Lovelock has predicted global warming will accelerate to such an extent within a century that much of the planet will become uninhabitable.
In apocalyptic tones, Professor Lovelock told a news conference before his John Collier Lecture to the Institution of Chemical Engineers yesterday that global warming would be a reality for the next 200,000 years.
He equated the heating up of the planet to the common cold and the human body's immune system. Even if humans did all they could now to reduce CO2 emissions it would take 200 millennia to bring temperatures down.
Equatorial regions were bound for desertification, and much of Europe would dry up due to 'global heating', the British Isles is set to remain relatively cool, just 8C hotter on average by 2100.
Although species extinction was not on the cards for the human race, he said the Earth would be sustainable for only 500 million people, just a sixth of today’s population.
"We are not all doomed," he said. "An awful lot of people will die, but I don't see the species dying out."
He contended global 'heating' was a more adequate phrase to spell out the sense of urgency vis-a-vis the ecological problem facing humankind.
Action to quell carbon dioxide emissions in the here-and-now would not be able to solve the problem, but would merely buy humans more time, he said.
There is nothing humans can do now to "save the earth," he counselled.
"People will try to do things but the way to really look at them is they are a bit like when your kidneys fail you can on dialysis - and who would refuse dialysis if death is the alternative?" he said.