The point of no return

Scientist James Lovelock believes we have passed it. I'm bringing you a deeply pessimistic article today but I believe it is imperative that we face what this eminent scientist has to say about the condition of our planet. The excerpt is from the UK Independent and the article is entitled, "Environment in crisis: 'We are past the point of no return'":

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.

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."

In making such a statement, far gloomier than any yet made by a scientist of comparable international standing, Professor Lovelock accepts he is going out on a limb. But as the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on Earth since Charles Darwin, he feels his own analysis of what is happening leaves him no choice. He believes that it is the self-regulating mechanism of Gaia itself - increasingly accepted by other scientists worldwide, although they prefer to term it the Earth System - which, perversely, will ensure that the warming cannot be mastered.

This is because the system contains myriad feedback mechanisms which in the past have acted in concert to keep the Earth much cooler than it otherwise would be. Now, however, they will come together to amplify the warming being caused by human activities such as transport and industry through huge emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ).

It means that the harmful consequences of human beings damaging the living planet's ancient regulatory system will be non-linear - in other words, likely to accelerate uncontrollably. He terms this phenomenon "The Revenge of Gaia" and examines it in detail in a new book with that title, to be published next month.

I remember years ago when I saw a PBS program featuring Lovelock and his assistant. It was the first I had heard of the Gaia theory - the theory that the earth behaves as if it is, itself, a living organism. I was enormously excited by that body of research and it gave me an even deeper reverence for the earth than I already had. I grieve over what we're doing to the planet - more than I can begin to express on this blog. And I remain bewildered and dismayed by humanity's apparent collective death wish as a species. I do believe we are living in the end times - not because I think the Rapture is coming but because we are hell-bent on destroying ourselves. Fortunately, the meditative teaching on impermanence comes to my rescue or else I would despair. All things are impermanent - even this good earth. And I have let go of my strong preference that I not be alive toward the end of the destructive process.