woodchurch science

the what? the gaia hypothesis (first postulated by james lovelock in the 1960s) is an ecological hypothesis that proposes that living and non-living parts of the earth are a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. it postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that promotes life overall.

lovelock’s writing makes for gloomy reading. his latest book ‘the revenge of gaia’, predicts that by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global devastation; that by 2040 much of europe will be saharan; and parts of london will be underwater.

lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. so what would he do? find out here

i met this bloke on a train yesterday who just happened to be professor peter f smith special professor in sustainable energy at the university of nottingham who said that lovelock’s outlook is too pessimistic and wrong when it comes to the answer to the problem. he wrote a letter to the guardian which I just happened to be reading which says:

james lovelock is right to suggest we have already crossed the tipping point into irreversible climate change. the time lag between cause and effect means that the momentum in the climate system will inevitably propel us over the critical CO2 threshold of 450 parts per million in the atmosphere. he is right to be sceptical about offsetting schemes and the potential of wind power, but he is wrong to put his faith in nuclear energy. like all fossil fuels, uranium reserves are limited and some put exhaustion of stocks at 2030. nuclear will never be sufficient to power the uk economy after oil begins to run out in about 2040 and gas a decade or so later. even peak coal is put at 2025.
the uk will survive provided it: legislates to achieve dramatic reductions in energy use; embarks immediately on harnessing the power of tidal energy; and changes building and planning codes to cope with everything that escalating climate impacts will inflict on us over the coming decades

i had an interesting conversation with prof smith about climate change, and how we teach it in schools at ks3 and gcse. He agrees with lovelock that we have gone over the ‘tipping point’ and we are now in a period of damage limitation. all is not lost but we must seek out new efficient technologies and pray for more joined up thinking from our leading scientists and government leaders. any thoughts?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 4:41 pm and is filed under C1a, C1b, chemistry, environment, ks3, ks4, warren. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.