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James Lovelock gained popularity for his Gaia Hypothesis in the 1970s. The premise of Gaia is essentially that Earth is a living organism, and as a whole should be considered as such.
I learned about Lovelock's work while co-developing a climate course at Villa Julie College (now Stevenson University). My co-worker, Tom Hopkins, first introduced me to the depth of this idea. I found it intriguing and bought it. In some ways I still do. According to Gaia believers, Earth is alive, and in essence all lifeforms (animals, plant life, etc.) act like cells. The atmosphere, ocean currents, and everythingl in between can be thought of as respiratory and circulatory systems. Earth can get injured and bear scars. It can get sick, and it can heal itself. There is more about the evolutionary factors that Darwinists disagree with, but that is beyond my purpose here. I am sure a standard Google search will give you more on Lovelock and the Gaia Hypothesis.
A recent Lovelock interview with New Scientist was titled, One Last Chance to Save Mankind. Is it just me, or does the title seem to be yet another way of generating fear among the public? Besides, Lovelock had a few potent statements that might get lost in the mix. In the effort of integrity and professional respect, I encourage you to read the interview. I can't wait to hear the responses. I do want to touch on one aspect here. James Lovelock is credited with helping to end the prodiction and use of CFCs. CFCs were linked to depleting stratospheric ozone and were banned in the US in 1995. Following up on that was this question, as quoted from the New Scientist article:
Do we have time to do a similar thing with carbon emissions to save ourselves from climate change? Not a hope in hell. Most of the "green" stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It's not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it'll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning.
Green industry is a scam! That should be the headline, but if you never read the report, you would not know he said it. Lovelock also believes that our last chance to save mankind is to burn agricultural waste in a low oxygen environment and bury the resulting charcoal. He might be right in the sense that over population could do us in long before any potential warming.
Antarctic Warming Debate
Recently I wrote a post regarding a discrepancy and misleading tone from a NASA report on warming in Antarctica. In my research, I stumbled upon Jennifer Marohasy from Australia. She wrote a more extensive attack of the article in Nature for removing content that contradicted their case. See more in her post titled, "Modellers Remove Evidence of Cooling and Editor Removes Comment by Climate Sceptic". It's quite powerful and charging. It does seem like more people are losing fear and trying to hold scientific publications accountable.
Comments
Tom Hopkins here... Great to see "Gaia" get a bit of PR and nice to know that we both benefited from each other by working together at Stevenson. (I know I learned a lot from you.) Let's remember though that Lovelock says 'most' green stuff, and 'verging' on being a scam. He does not dismiss the entire endevour, but feels that the actions proposed by most of those concerned about climate change are feeble - and are likely influenced by the pursuit of personal wealth.
Indeed he fully embraces the idea that humans have cooked their own goose - even more so than most mainstream climate scientists.
In his usual way, he seems joyful and hopeful for the planet, even as he predicts 90% population loss in the human race within the next 100 years due to climate disaster and related consequences.
Tom,
And he will watch it all gleefully from space!
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