This book has a helpful perspective in assessing the growing dangers of global warming. Lovelock is a scientist...whose career began as a specialist in chemical intrusions into the environment...and continued to evolve as planetary scientist at JPL in California and in Houston. This book goes beyond his early specialty scientific work to focus upon the "big picture" physics of the planet. It's a perspective that goes beyond solely anthropocentric derived concerns. For this reason, it has the potential to be irritating...and even unacceptable...to some early 21st century readers.
To my mind, this is a all the more reason to read it and understand its message.
When the Challenger exploded, Richard Feynman, the Nobel laureate on the study panel, eschewed esoteric specialized explanations for the catastrophe, by focusing upon the contraction of the Challenger's o-rings in ice water. The failure of a complex system like Challenger...as the earth system Lovelock has named, Gaia...could be explained by something as simple as the contraction of the o-ring material in a glass of iced water. Similarly, James Lovelock cuts to the quick concerning the planet's ocean system...and the physics of the continuing melting at the poles...and in fact for 97% of the earth's glaciers.
Whenever, due to greenhouse gases...especially carbon dioxide...ice melts and open water is exposed, 80% of heat is absorbed, instead of reflected. This additional heating then accelerates ocean heating...as once ice melts it's 60 times easier to raise its temperature. It's what's called a positive feedback loop. Except, for one little thing....It's decidedly a negative for humanity.
As this science is fundamentally being accepted by the IPCC, Lovelock then proceeds to connect the dots in a way that the IPCC does not. Lovelock, James Hansen of NASA, and other prominent climate scientists have given their warnings. Locklock in this book, and Hansen in his assertion that 350 ppm must be maintained, in order to avoid the Gaia earth system from flipping to a new equilibrium, at an average mean temperature not to our liking...and in fact, threatening the survival of our civilization. Modern society shows no signs of effectively acting on this most crucial issue. The fact that the Gaia earth system's history demonstrates that this change of equilibrium can be quite abrupt, adds urgency to his warning.
He then ruminates, not only on the negative effects of the increased specialization of science....but also, on the flaws in the modern environmental movement itself. He finds them both wanting.
One of the points I find great sympathy with, is his stance on nuclear power. Though I live but six miles "as the crow flies" from Three Mile Island, I completely agree that the fear mongering regarding nuclear power has been an enormous burden on the truth. Lovelock explodes these myths effectively with several telling examples. Nuclear does not produce greenhouse gases...and storage is not the bogeyman all too many environmentalists assert. Good for James Lovelock.
What he does assert several times, is that the population of the planet, at seven billion and rising, is insupportable for habitable equilibrium...at the high level of culture of advanced countries....no less millions of third-worlders with the same aspirations. In this, he is quite sanguine in his quite correct assessment. He does not expect this historic population surge to cease anytime soon....certainly not in the 20 year span that Jim Hansen proposes. In one swoop, he calls into question the Sisyphean economic imperative of most governments and corporations, to service these growing masses....as well as the many religious scruples associated with population restraint. Good for James Lovelock.
He then takes Lincoln's dictum..."He has a right to criticize who has a heart to help."...to its conclusion, by surveying the possible interventions (and their possible side effects), to delay global warming, while humanity takes to time to reorganize itself to be good stewards of the planet....a term itself, he considers inadequate, and often applied unwisely, in its early 21st century iterations. And there will many such dead-end iterations...including skyscraper farming now being proposed for New York City. How exactly humanity reorganizes its settlement patterns, will be highly dependent upon a flurry of factors, some of which can only be imagined at this point, but the need for planning the reorganization of the world will become apparent, Lovelock posits.
In fact, in spite of this scientist's search for solutions, his realistic assessment is that the physics of warming has already gone too far for a happy conclusion. To him, it's more likely that the Gaia earth system will find a new equilibrium from 6 to 8 degrees hotter than today...a condition that James Hansen, of NASA describes as guaranteeing "a different planet".
It's this pessimistic side of his thesis, which leads him to envision how a new civilization, fully informed through experience, might evolve. In the end for Lovelock, it's his love of the living earth...Gaia, the Greek goddess of the earth...to which humanity must aspire. More than its dominance through force or economics, it is love for Gaia, the earth system, Lovelock proposes...as much as love of ourselves. It's a love, he urges to be put at the center of human civilization itself. In the end, this, he thinks, is the prudent way to honor the dignity of human life...to see ours as one part...the intelligent part...of the ever evolving whole earth system.
I was inclined to like to book and support its thesis, from my following of the work of James Hansen. As I said earlier, some readers might find this work bogus. Certainly James Lovelock has been criticized by scientists...some of whom see his thesis as not rigorous enough.
However, what is rigorous, is that their computer models on ocean rise have been off by 60%....that is, 60% short of reality. The report card of science will be its measure of the real world...not the cloistered laboratory. It's to this real world, that James Lovelock and James Hansen, and other highly qualified climate scientists, refer...and warn us about. In fact, this book is Lovelock's final warning.
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A must have book
To understand the world's complexity. I believe, that James Lovelock is a great scientist "who will go down in history as the scientist who changed our view of the Earth" (John Gray, Independent (UK)) (This text is from the cover of the book). I have also bought a copy in Hungarian - so now I am hesitating which comes first. I recommend everybody to get a copy of any book of Mr. James Lovelock, I wish I could afford it.
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- Shaheed KhanReviewed in India on September 30, 2016
A classic; Mr. Lovelock takes you on a ...
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- S. HenleyReviewed in the United Kingdom on April 23, 2009
Essential reading: a book to read and acted upon
