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Have
We Passed the Point of No Return?
by
Chuck Hall
 Dr.
James Lovelock is a former NASA scientist who proposed the Gaia
Theory while helping NASA look for signs of life on Mars. In the
1960s the theory was considered revolutionary, but now it is widely
accepted. According to the Gaia Theory, the entire Earth is a living
organism, and all the living things on the planet are part of its
metabolism. All of these systems self-regulate, just as any other
living organism self-regulates. Think of people, plants and animals
as ‘cells’ in the organism of the Earth.
According to Lovelock, the Earth has a fever. Climate
change caused by global warming could make large parts of the Earth
uninhabitable and could potentially threaten the lives of billions
of people. Earlier this year Lovelock published a paper in which he
states that in his opinion we have “already passed the point of no
return” to avoid planetary climate change on a catastrophic scale.
Lovelock, no stranger to climate research and planetary modeling, said
that a traumatized Earth, one impacted by global warming, might only
be able to support and sustain less than a tenth of the current
world population. “A hot Earth couldn’t support much over 500
million,” Lovelock told reporters at a press conference recently.
"Almost all of the systems that have been looked
at are in positive feedback, and soon those effects will be larger
than any of the effects of carbon dioxide emissions from industry
and so on around the world," he added.
The rise in average temperature worldwide could bring floods, famines,
much stronger storms and hurricanes, and global chaos as nations
fight over dwindling resources.
"It is a bit like if your kidneys fail you can go
on dialysis, and who would refuse dialysis if death is the
alternative. We should think of it in that context," he said.
Lovelock believes that although we have passed the
point of no return to prevent continued global warming, if we take
drastic, firm action now to cut carbon emissions we could minimize
the damage. He doesn’t think that the entire human race will be
wiped out if this disaster strikes, but he does think that we are
facing a dramatically different future.
"In the change from the last Ice Age to now we
lost land equivalent to the continent of Africa beneath the
sea," he said. "We are facing things just as bad or worse
than that during this century."
As global warming progresses, Lovelock sees vast
global migrations as humans and other life forms move to the Polar
Regions. These regions will be warmer, whereas areas currently
occupied will be intolerably hot, especially near the equator.
Developing nations like China and India could tip the
scales one way or another very rapidly. Both countries are building
coal-burning power plants to fuel their increasing energy needs. If
they stopped such developments they would be facing rebellion and
revolution, yet if they continue, rising carbon emissions will cause
even higher temperatures, which will kill of plants and animals and
produce famine in these countries.
"If climate change goes on course, I can't see
China being able to produce enough food by the middle of the century
to support its people. They will have to move somewhere and Siberia
is empty and it will be warmer then," he said.
If
Lovelock is correct in his assessment, global change may be on us
even sooner than we expected, possibly as early as the end of the
century. Unless drastic measures are taken, the world in which our
grandchildren live will be vastly different from the world in which
we grew up.
Chuck
Hall is a Sustainability Consultant and author. His latest book, Green
Circles: A Sustainable Journey from the Cradle to the Grave, is
now available at Booklocker.com.
You may contact Chuck by email at: chuck@cultureartist.org or visit
the Culture Artist Web site at www.cultureartist.org.
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