215. GREEN GURU PREDICTS MASS HUMAN EXTINCTION
James Lovelock, popularizer of the "Gaia Hypothesis", has stepped up to the plate, and challenged the peak oilers for media doom supremacy:
The world has already passed the point of no return for climate change, and civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive, according to James Lovelock, the scientist and green guru who conceived the idea of Gaia - the Earth which keeps itself fit for life.Note that Lovelock presents zero scientific evidence to justify his certainty in making this prediction, and chooses to make these statements not in the scientific literature, but in the popular press. I will revisit this issue after the details emerge on his book, but at this point, Lovelock is nothing more than a pseudo-scientist, making hysterical public statements based on no hard evidence whatsoever.
In a profoundly pessimistic new assessment, published in today's Independent, Professor Lovelock suggests that efforts to counter global warming cannot succeed, and that, in effect, it is already too late.
The world and human society face disaster to a worse extent, and on a faster timescale, than almost anybody realises, he believes. He writes: " 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."
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In his book's concluding chapter, he writes: "What should a sensible European government be doing now? I think we have little option but to prepare for the worst, and assume that we have passed the threshold."
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He goes on: "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He believes that the world's governments should plan to secure energy and food supplies in the global hothouse, and defences against the expected rise in sea levels. The scientist's vision of what human society may ultimately be reduced to through climate change is " a broken rabble led by brutal warlords."Source
-- by JD
posted by JD @ 7:01 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I must make it clear that I think the whole theory of global warming is completely wrong. The experimental evidences supporting GW are weak and can not stand careful scrutiny. The climate model itself is totally wrong and has not taken into account that radiation is only a small contributing factor amoung three ways heat can be dissipated: Radiation, Evaporation and Convection. The CO2 in the atmosphere only marginally modify the radiation part.
More over, people need to keep in mind that fossil fuels are really not minerals. Fossil fuels ARE as legitimate biomass as the ethanol you manufacture from corns. The only difference is fossil fuels are fossified biomass. But they are of biological origin nevertheless and burning fossil fuels simply releases the CO2 which was trapped by ancient plantation from the atmosphere in the first place. So the carbon in fossil fuels came from the atmosphere some million years ago, and gets released back to the atmosphere some million years later. Why would that be a problem that these CO2 come back to where they came from?
The GW theory is a pseudo-science, but that should not distract us from the peak oil problem, which is real and is happening right now, and is a great threat to civilization itself.
Quantoken
I am totally aware of the web site RealClimate.org, as well as it's opposing peer ClimateAudio.org. I am pretty willing to debate and challenge the Global Warming theory over the RealClimate.org site. But unfortunately their web site is highly censored and sanitized of all opposing opinions. No meanful debate is possible when you have censorship in favor of one opinion and against the other side of the opinion. For this reason I also encourage people to also visit ClimateAudit.org, and hear the opposite opinion, and decide for yourself which side is correct.
Certainly on my own site, oilcrash.blogspot.com, there will be no censorship. I welcome both sides of the GW debate, as well as both sides of the Peak Oil debate, to go there and debate. I am willing to lean towards either side when I see opinions that make sense. I do not have a pre-set agenda and have no vested interest in the debate.
Now, the GW business. No one can deny that the earth's temperature is never constant. The earth has experienced many natural cycles of warming up and cooling down, without human contributing anything to it. They do show satellite photos of the polar icea melting. But it is a known fact that due to regular seasonal change, the ice melt some in the summer and freezes some in the winter. You show me two random photos out of the context of seasonal change and it really can't say anything. All I can tell you is one is taken during a warmer day of the year and another is taken during a colder day of the year. It can't show any trend! Even if there is a warming trend it is more likely just the natural cycle of warming up or cooling down.
The global CO2 concentration does seem to go up some what. That piece of data is more credible. But just because the two events happen at the same time, CO2 going up, and global temperature going up, does not necessarily mean the two are correlated, or even which is the cause and which is the result. One thing is certain, if you calculate the total CO2 released per year by burning fossil fuels, the atmospheric CO2 should go up at a much faster rate than detected. Clearly the bulk of CO2 released from burning fossil fuel gets re-absorbed by plantations, and not contributing to atmospheric CO2 increase. At current rate of increase, 1.5 ppm per year, we would run out of fossil fuel long before we see the concentration of atmospheric CO2 becomes a significant problem!!!
Also keep in mind these facts: In the past history of the earth, it had experience far more higher CO2 concentration and there was never a problem. All the fossil fuels were ancient biomass and the carbon came from the CO2 in the atmosphere in the first place. More over, today's Venus has an atmospheric CO2 3x10^5 higher than the earth's, and the temperature only raised less than 200 degrees. How big an effect CO2 can be, if you reduce the number by 3x10^5 times?
We must separate falacies from realities. The GW theory is a falacy. The peak oil, the fact that the earth has a limited amount of resources, that is a reality.
Quantoken
Philip:
Survival of human is very problematic at this moment. But the Global Warming is the least of problems humen face. Why worry about a virtually none exist problem (GW), while people are tally ignoring a much more realistic, and much more urgent problem, for example the Peak Oil?
It's ironic you use the term "respected climate scientists". Most climate scientists deserves no respect whatsoever because they are not conducting their research in a scientific way. Most "scientific" papers support the GW supposition because that's how Darwinism works in human societies: If you do not endorse the main stream point of view, your paper will not be publishes and you can not get funding or be granted tenureship, and you will not be able to survive in academy. These people refuse to debate with people of opposing opinions.
What I cites are FACTS:
1.The earth had seen CO2 concentration hundreds of times higher in the history and there was never a problem. So why a few percentage increase of CO2 today would be a problem?
2.The biggest contributing green house gas, is none other than water vapor. They don't worry about water vapor, why do they worry about CO2?
3.The CO2 in the atmosphere, at mere 377 ppm, is an extremely thin layer. If you condense it to liquid form, it is a layer no more than 3 milimeters covering the surface of the earth. How warm can a blancket of 3 mm be, in your bedroom?
4.The Venus has an atmospheric CO2 that is 3x10^5 times ticker than the earth's. Consider how big a GW effect CO2 has on Venus, and divide that number by 3x10^5 for the earth.
5.The earth's ground cools dorminately through water evaporation, and CONVECTION. The radiation is only a small factor in how the ground cools, and the CO2 only affects radiation, not evaporation and convection.
For the last point, just look at how cold Moscow is right now. It's not cold because of lack of green house gass to cover it up. It's cold because of convection brings in cold air.
As I said, we must first identify and reject fallacy ideas, before we can concentrate on the real problems that is threatening humanity.
Quantoken
quantoken, as usual your facts are disguised opinions. you really need to look up the definition of the word "fact". everytime you say it you're actually stating an opinion.
rebuttals to your points:
1. yes, there were problems. we haven't quantified what the effects of those temperature changes were yet, but there's definitely evidence of large scale extinctions.
2. water vapor gets recycled and stays constant. CO2 from fossil fuels is an exponentially growing additive.
3. you obviously don't understand how global warming works.
4. the venus comparison is laughable. there never was any life on venus. we know for a fact (a real fact) that small changes in global average temperature have had dramatic effects on the ecosystem here on earth, where this stuff matters.
5. exactly! but if you increase the radiation effects and not the other two you get an imbalance.
once again, thanks for your "facts"
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