“Gaia” scientist: Earth is not doomed, and neither is mankind
posted at 6:00 pm on September 6, 2007 by Bryan
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Just a year ago, global warming alarmist Prof. James Lovelock warned the world that by 2100, the Arctic would be the only place on earth that would remain habitable for humans:
GLOBAL warming is irreversible and billions of people will die over the next century, one of the world’s leading climate change scientists claimed yesterday. Professor James Lovelock, the scientist who developed the Gaia principle (that Earth is a self-regulating, interconnected system), claimed that by the year 2100 the only place where humans will be able to survive will be the Arctic.
In a forthcoming book, The Revenge of Gaia, Lovelock warns that attempts to reduce levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere may already be too late.
“Our planet has kept itself healthy and fit for life, just like an animal does, for most of the more than three billion years of its existence,” he writes.
“It was ill luck that we started polluting at a time when the sun was too hot for comfort. We have given Gaia a fever and soon her condition will worsen to a state like a coma. She has been there before and recovered, but it took more than 100,000 years.”
For a scientist he talked in lots of mystical mumbo-jumbo, but largely because he was on the “right” side of the issue, the press and other alarmist scientists gave him a pass. But what will they all say now that Lovelock has changed his tune?
Climate change is more serious than we can possibly imagine, but neither the Earth nor the human race is doomed, said Lovelock. The good news is that the Earth itself is in no danger, with world climate likely to stabilize some 5 degrees C warmer than current temperatures - such stable ‘hot’ states have existed in the past, including some 55 million years ago when the world’s own feedback mechanisms took 200,000 years to recover. During that phase no great extinction occurred, but life moved to cooler climes to survive.
Climate-induced migrations could, for example, see Europe’s population concentrated in cooler regions such as the British Isles, Scandinavia and western France - and this could happen within the next century. “If ever nuclear power is needed, it will be then,” said Lovelock. Nuclear is the most reliable and demonstrably safest form of energy in existence, Lovelock later told journalists.
I don’t buy his Gaia nonsense, but he’s right about nuclear power for more than one reason: It is cleaner than anything else that generates as much energy, and extending its use will help free us from Middle Eastern entanglements.
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Bryan, I think there’s a Freudian slip in there. You twice misspelled Lovelock’s name as…well…
see-dubya on September 6, 2007 at 6:09 PM
Heh. So I did… It’s fixed now.
Bryan on September 6, 2007 at 6:11 PM
lol. oh dear.
TexasDan on September 6, 2007 at 6:12 PM
I wouldn’t ordinarily comment on a typo, but that one was pretty funny.
see-dubya on September 6, 2007 at 6:13 PM
That was a good one. The funny thing is, when I was typing it I kept thinking “This name must have made his life miserable when he was a kid.”
Bryan on September 6, 2007 at 6:14 PM
Darn, I missed the typo!
StephC on September 6, 2007 at 6:18 PM
Might have led to his gay-a idea.
JiangxiDad on September 6, 2007 at 6:19 PM
I liked it better mis-spelled Bryan. Switch it back. :)
mustang1 on September 6, 2007 at 6:22 PM
Lovelick? Livelick? Lovedock? Lovebick?
AZCON on September 6, 2007 at 6:24 PM
I wish I could agree with you Bryan, but having been a health physics technician in the nuclear power industry (San Onofre power station) I know just a little too much to agree at this stage in the game. Get back to me when the problem of spent fuel has really been solved, not shuttled off for future generation to suffer with and then we might have something to agree about.
doriangrey on September 6, 2007 at 6:26 PM
I didn’t see the typo, but I can imagine what it said. Don’t try to deny it, Bryan, there was some Freudian slipping going on there.
I think if this radical can come around, most of them should. Except, of course, for the ones for whom a belief in a US-led global warming serves a political purpose. Which, unfortunately, is most of them.
But the fact that he would say this now, is an earthquake. And the fact that he would propose nuclear as a solution, will mean that his house will be egged by hippies on bicycles, and graffiti sprayed on his door - Fascist!
jihadwatcher on September 6, 2007 at 6:29 PM
That is how you know that the Left is not serious about saving the Earth. If their predictions of Global Warming were true, it would mean the greatest humanitarian disaster in history. Their worst fears about nuclear accidents would not even compare. They would demand more nuclear power if they really thought this was going to happen, but they won’t because their “no nukes” narrative (which applies to weapons and power generation equally) is more important.
Couldn’t resist.
Nosferightu on September 6, 2007 at 6:31 PM
I saw the typo, and I’m thinking that it was the effect of too many Larry Craig stories.
TexasDan on September 6, 2007 at 6:31 PM
The scientists say that the Global cooling trend in the 60’s and 70’s were due to aerosols that were then banned. So I say bring back the CFCs.
.
Branson owes me a cool million!
AZCON on September 6, 2007 at 6:37 PM
That’s hilarious…. Ahem …. trying to bring myself back to a serious tone.
OK… this guy Lovelock is a crackpot, but he is absolutely right about nuclear power. With a couple of dozen nuclear power plants not only would we have cheap and plentiful electricity but the excess power could be used to produce hydrogen and thus, we don’t need no stinkin oil. Hydrogen is an endless supply of power because you make the hydrogen from water and when the hydrogen is burned you get the water back. Absolutely no pollution at all.
The commie LEFTIST would hate the idea because they could no longer gripe about environmental damage and plot all their schemes to destroy your individual rights and get into your pocket. Nuke power is the way to go… no doubt !
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 6:38 PM
LoveRooster!
AZCON on September 6, 2007 at 6:39 PM
Are universities actually doing any research on nuclear power now? Do the feds fund anything in this area? I think the research reactor at my alma mater was shut down over 10 years ago (Cornell), and I thought I remembered reading it was one of only a few left.
TexasDan on September 6, 2007 at 6:39 PM
Equivalence between pollution that is hopefully locked away forever vs that which you might be forced to breathe or drink is kind of silly.
Resolute on September 6, 2007 at 6:40 PM
Lovecock?
Jaibones on September 6, 2007 at 6:41 PM
I missed the typo. I’m assuming lovecock too. That’s a child asking for beatin’s growing up!
lorien1973 on September 6, 2007 at 6:44 PM
The funniest moment when Algore appeared before Congress to speak about global warming was listening talk about “the Earth has a feeeeveeer. If your baybee has a feeeeveeeer, you don’t ignore it……” Algore the crackpot quoting Love**ck the crackpot.
Mallard T. Drake on September 6, 2007 at 6:44 PM
Come on doriangrey… for the amount it would save us in the cost of oil we could afford to shoot the spent rods into the sun. The cost of heavy launch vehicles is not that expensive, maybe less expensive than trying to store it for 10,000 years, or however long it takes. We need nuclear power. What does France do with it’s spent rods ?
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 6:44 PM
.
No thanks, you go ahead.
AZCON on September 6, 2007 at 6:46 PM
Jaibones:
No thank you.
see-dubya on September 6, 2007 at 6:47 PM
Oh great. Were going to have another big migration into the Pacific Northwest. Quick, stop the carbon emissions now!
Mallard T. Drake on September 6, 2007 at 6:47 PM
.
jailbones eats ‘um.
AZCON on September 6, 2007 at 6:48 PM
Oh boy. Me thinks me just figured out what it was…
amerpundit on September 6, 2007 at 6:48 PM
My guess, too.
amerpundit on September 6, 2007 at 6:49 PM
That is nonsense. The fossil record doesn’t show this. Why would plants and animals be turned off by a mere 5 degree increase. The hottest parts of the planet, as long as they have water, are the places where you find the most diverse and concentrated forms of life. The further from the equator, the cooler, the more life thins out.
Lovelock was full of it, but said it just to cover his initial mistake of jumping on the global warming bandwagon to begin with.
jihadwatcher on September 6, 2007 at 6:51 PM
the secret appears to be out. Too funny, Brian.
TexasDan on September 6, 2007 at 6:52 PM
What a great coincidence that the arctic ice is melting just in time to prepare a place for us to move to. Northern lights, here I come!
AZCON on September 6, 2007 at 6:56 PM
[doriangrey on September 6, 2007 at 6:26 PM]
For the US, at least, store the stuff at the Yucca Mountain Repository in New Mexico site in the short term. The site’s deemed to have a 10,000 year life and we only need, at worst, 200 of those years before we find a new use for the stuff or it becomes a common practice to send the waste on a one way trip to the sun for, relatively, mere pennies.
Dusty on September 6, 2007 at 6:57 PM
“For a scientist”? Mystical mumbo-jumbo is about all we get today from “scientists” whether it be in regards to climate or evolution.
One recent example - listen to scientists admit that recent discoveries have only thrown wrenches in their already ridiculous theories of human evolution… yet somehow, a lack of evidence is still evidence to these people.
RightWinged on September 6, 2007 at 7:03 PM
It reminds me of the “Painful Interrogation” scene in The Pink Panther Strikes Again when Clouseau randomly mispronounces everybody’s name and at one point calls Mrs. Leaverlilly, “Mrs. Loveliver”.
FloatingRock on September 6, 2007 at 7:05 PM
Well, I used to work in astronomy and the scientists in that field tend to be pretty mumbo-jumbo free.
Bryan on September 6, 2007 at 7:10 PM
Imagine, in just several months we went from total destruction, to being uncomfortable. I can hardly wait for the next several months…we’ll be in paradise.
right2bright on September 6, 2007 at 7:19 PM
As for disposal of used fuel rods;
(This is the quote as best I remember it, as someone “borrowed” my copy of EU a long time ago, and I haven’t seen it since.)
I might add that the “shooting them into the Sun” idea has another drawback besides a launch accident- namely, the possibility of deliberate sabotage by said technology-haters. After all, what would be better grist for their mill than a nice, horrific launchpad blowup that scattered radioactive material all over a county-sized area?
I can imagine some eco-radical group having mental paroxysms at the prospect. Blow up the rocket, blame the nuclear-power people, and then watch as Greenpeace helps the “progressives” ram through laws banning nuclear power forever.
All the while piously claiming both utter innocence, and that they are “doing it for the children.”
Why give them the opportunity to begin with?
cheers
eon
eon on September 6, 2007 at 7:23 PM
Well, I used to work in astronomy and the scientists in that field tend to be pretty mumbo-jumbo free.
Bryan on September 6, 2007 at 7:10 PM
Science is just getting a bad rap these days because of all the junk-science that gets put out on the wire for political purposes. And there must be at least a dozen, so called “science” web sites that are purely political… like “Live-Science” for example. These sites have practically no real science content, but lots of nonsense for various political purposes.
I’m surprised the scientific community hasn’t start a campaign to stop or at least to discredit the majority of these crackpots giving science a black eye. What’s really sad is our kids read this crap and think it’s real.
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 7:28 PM
“It is cleaner than anything else that generates as much energy, and extending its use will help free us from Middle Eastern entanglements.”
Only when we convert to electric cars. Oil is extremely minor fuel for electrical plants in the US.
Golden Boy on September 6, 2007 at 7:54 PM
But you can run cars on hydrogen directly, the hydrogen engine is a reality. In fact, the engines at this site are normal internal combustion engines that have been converted to run on hydrogen.
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 8:10 PM
It’s also a hell of a lot safer than it was a few decades ago.
Troy Rasmussen on September 6, 2007 at 8:16 PM
What to do with nuclear waste?
Send it to the great incinerator in the sky.
I argued this point with someone who insisted “what goes up must come down”, but in the words of the great Carl Segan, “We are all star stuff”, so why not send it back to whence it belong. Carl also said he couldn’t think of a better place to do nuclear experiments but in outta space. Dude, think of the industry that would spin off!
Kini on September 6, 2007 at 8:17 PM
Wow, I have an answer to a question.
France recycles its fuel rods. A by-product of the process produces weapons-grade plutonium. So, in 1977 under the direction of President Carter (following a hypothesis that limiting the amount of available weapons-grade plutonium would serve to lessen the proliferation of nuclear weapons), the U.S. banned the fuel rod recycling process France uses.
Jens on September 6, 2007 at 8:19 PM
Hey Bryan, have you seen the universe/brain cell pictures that Paul Harvey mentioned?
Troy Rasmussen on September 6, 2007 at 8:22 PM
Jens on September 6, 2007 at 8:19 PM
Really ? So what you are telling me, is that technology has already solved the problem of what to do with spend rods and for anti-nuclear political reasons we don’t do it. America really needs to wake up.
It makes perfect sense that Jimmy Carter was behind it.
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 8:35 PM
Correct.
And it won’t be long before he and his iilk water down their extreme opinions even more–when their doomsday predictions continue to NOT HAPPEN.
Bob's Kid on September 6, 2007 at 8:47 PM
GLOBAL warming is irreversible and billions of people will die over the next century
Now that is a stock market sell signal if I ever heard one.
Maybe this guy is in cahoots with Cramer and they want to buy on a big dip.
MB4 on September 6, 2007 at 8:53 PM
I did some more reading after my post. Reagan apparently reversed the ban, but no recycling has ever been done since the ban anyway.
Here are a couple links about the issue and process:
Nuclear Chemistry Recycling Spent Reactor Fuel
and
Should we recycle spent nuclear fuel
Jens on September 6, 2007 at 8:54 PM
If you truly are looking for the huge mountain of evidence for evolution, that site is not the place you should be looking.
Science grows by new evidence, and the more evidence that is found the better we understand how things went, how they work now, and how they might happen in the future. That’s not a fault, it’s the strength of science. I can assure you that evolutionary theorists do not need to pull GW types of slight of hand to find many data for changing gene frequencies in populations over time.
Which is all evolution is.
http://www.douglasjacoby.com/view_article.php?ID=5505
Bob's Kid on September 6, 2007 at 8:54 PM
the only place where humans will be able to survive will be the Arctic.
Maybe this guy foolishly bought land in the Arctic and is trying to pump and dump.
MB4 on September 6, 2007 at 8:55 PM
My ice flow, flow no mo!
Or, the incredibility shrinking igloo!
Kini on September 6, 2007 at 9:21 PM
Jens on September 6, 2007 at 8:54 PM
Good articles Jens, thanks.
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 9:35 PM
UW Madison has a nuclear engineering program, but I’m not sure how big it is.
BadgerHawk on September 6, 2007 at 9:43 PM
So, you’re another evolutionists who wants to attack the messenger… rather than observe that the messenger is linking you to mainstream evolutionist scientists, and simply pointing out how ridiculous their statements are… and this isn’t an isolated incident, but it’s one of the more silly ones.
RightWinged on September 6, 2007 at 10:42 PM
Your point is brilliant…. I wish I would have thought of it first. So the question to Al Gore and his global warming cheerleaders becomes….
Why not nuclear power, it’s clean and could never produce the kind of cataclysmic disasters your global warming scenarios predict ?
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 11:10 PM
Hey doriangrey, honest question; does that include the newer, smaller, safer pebble reactors? I thought the waste was one of the problems pebble reactors solved.
techno_barbarian on September 6, 2007 at 11:12 PM
This looks like the answer to spent fuel rods to me… thanks to Jens for the research.
Maxx on September 6, 2007 at 11:17 PM
All of this supposes that oil is a finite resource, which it isn’t if oil is abiogenic. Both big oil and the environmentalists would like everyone to think we’re running out of oil but where are the shortages?
To borrow a rant from Dennis Miller… if we are running out of oil exactly why shouldn’t we be burning it up like crazy if for no other reason than to leave the Middle East with nothing but sand to base their economies on.
I find it disturbing that we’re basing our beliefs that we’re running out of oil on exactly the same people who are making unbelievable amounts of profit off of telling us we’re running out of oil. I have a sneaking hunch that there will always be plenty of oil and gas to buy if you can afford it.
Buzzy on September 6, 2007 at 11:54 PM
When the choice is between a little warmer and losing some low-lying coastlines (which are always shifting anyway) or 2 mile thick ice sheets overwhelming the northern hemisphere -down to Switzerland’s latitude- give me the SPF 45 and a Gimlet instead.
I’ll make my own ice.
(If the reactors’ spent fuel rods’ nuclear material were powdered and scattered in minute amounts gradually throughout the seas, so that they essentially equalled the constant backround radiation, they could be dispersed harmlessly. It would be more time-consuming, but safer than trying to shoot them into the Sun.)
profitsbeard on September 7, 2007 at 1:28 AM
Like “global warming” the alarmism of “peak oil” has been around for the last 2 centuries… the wild predictions of when we are going to run out have come and gone every time. Part of the problem is that we’ve been told oil is a “fossil fuel” created by dead dinosaurs… but we’ve seen, in recent years, abiotic oil. The “peak oil” community tries to say these are flukes… I think I’ll say “the jury’s out” on it.
But more immediately interesting, is the fact that many drilling locations that have “tapped out” weren’t really tapped out, we just lacked the technological ability to harvest all of the oil. I actually read this in an odd place a while back, and have seen it confirmed elsewhere, that the majority of oil in many sites remains in those sites, untouched, because we simply couldn’t get to it. But there are new technologies coming online (I think some involve blasting hot air (oddly enough) in to unaccessible areas, sending the oil up to accessible areas. I wish I had the link because I’m murdering that story, but it was really interesting. BTW, I’m not even sure about the oil discussion that was being had, I just saw your comment and felt like replying.. perhaps this has already been covered.
RightWinged on September 7, 2007 at 1:34 AM
If interested Buzzy, I dug up the NY Times article…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/business/05oil1.html?ex=1189310400&en=4f54904a486e9587&ei=5070
RightWinged on September 7, 2007 at 1:39 AM
Afew years ago… I think it was over at FR, or maybe Lucianne….
I wrote a long essay on ‘global warming’; about how the global warming mongers might pretend to believe in Gaia , but they had no real faith in ‘her’ NOR of God.
They all see themselves as little individual gods… They believe that only they know how to manage the Earth…. They believe that neither God nor Gaia has the power to create a long-term equilibrium in in our environment. Because their vision is only self-referential, limited to their own short lives (and VERY short attention spans), they are unable to grasp the raw power of planets, Solar systems and galaxies.
They don’t believe that either God nor Gaia has a long-term plan; They believe that poor, pitiful, and weak humanity has the power to make a significant difference in the equilibrium of the planet and the universal plans of God or the planetary plans of Gaia.
They aren’t willing to concede that POSSIBLY the REGIONAL warming (and reigonal cooling, by the way) that is occurring Might all be part of God’s or Gaia’s plan… That it might be necessary, and maybe even beneficial to humanity overall.
You know (or at least SHOULD know), that if humanity put ALL of their efforts into totally destroying the Earth during the next ten years….. A few thousand years after we wiped ourselves out, a team of thousands of archaeologists from a different Galaxy would have to really search to find a clue that we even existed.
Anyone who has seen as much of the remote places of Earth as I have would know how little the actions of humanity make a difference in the overall earth environment.
One of my old sayings is; If you put ALL the works of humanity throughout our entire history, in one spot at one time, it would amount to no more than a pimple on the posterior of Gaia. Irritating for a while, but insignificant on a geologic scale.
LegendHasIt on September 7, 2007 at 4:58 AM
Yes indeed.
Nearly thirty years ago (GAD! how can it have been so long ago! Seems like only a few years ago) I was working on geology and mining engineering degrees at a small (but significant) earth sciences institution when the petroleum department there started coming up with not only technology to produce significant oil from old, supposedly long ‘dry’ oil wells/fields, but that apparently ‘Mother Earth’ was still ‘creating’ oil.
My actual understanding of it was quite limited (as my area of study was ‘hardrock’ metals mining), but I was quite impressed with the results of the research and findings of some of my friends and acquaintances in the Petroleum Recovery and Research Center. To sum it up from their (now rather old, but then ‘earthshaking’) findings, we will never run out of oil…. It may get kind of scarce eventually, but Mother Earth is going to keep making a few million barrels of it every year for us.
(Nonetheless, I’m all for developing non-petroleum energy sources …. (Even when it doesn’t make short term or medium term sense economically… I just LIKE alternatives, as long as they aren’t governmentally MANDATED.)
LegendHasIt on September 7, 2007 at 5:22 AM
Since nuclear power seems to be a side issue in this thread I’ll chip in. I was an operations shift manager at the North Anna plant for many years and ended my carrer as the outage coordinator there. Yucca mountain is just a money pit, probably never be viable. Could be but the government is involved and it’s nothing more than a pork pie. We don’t actually need to blast the spent fuel into the sun or do anything so drastic. The Surry adn North Anna plants spearheaded an initiative, in this country, to deal with spent fuel. It’s called dry cask storage. It’s been hugely successful there and is now spreading throughout the industry. I won’t go into details but suffice it to say that the stuff just sits there in a safe storage condition relatively unattended. The room it takes up is miniscule compared to ash disposal sites at a coal plant and it can sit there for eons if necessary. In addition it’s relatively inexpensive and the utilities don’t have to rely on the government. The fuel could be reprocessed but again the government would have to be involved and that’d be a disaster and nothing would get done. Of course as with any technology there are those who have a differing viewpoint but until something new comes along dry cask storage is the way the industry is headed. OBTW Dominion Energy is in the process of obtaining a license to build the first new nuclear unit in the US since TMI. It’s going to be built at the North Anna site in Virginia.
Oldnuke on September 7, 2007 at 7:34 AM
Sorry to have to correct you, but Yucca Mountain Repository is in Nevada. WIPP is in New Mexico.
Catseye on September 7, 2007 at 9:21 AM
BULLETIN!! BULLETIN!! SPENT FUEL PROBLEM SOLVED (over 40 years ago)!!
The technical solution (invented in the US), is the Breeder Reactor. They work and recycling the fuel is not only safe but economical. Unfortunately, meddling and hysterical anti-nuke Luddites in Congress almost immediately outlawed this solution in order to guarantee that nuclear power in the US will always be a problem, and killed all funding for development of this kind of plant in the US.
So the ultimate solution is to replace the nuts behind these stupid, dysfunctional, petty political acts and simply embrace and begin use the same proven technology we have spread to the rest of the world.
landlines on September 7, 2007 at 1:15 PM
The world will do just fine until the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ. Eventually it will undergo an extreme celestial makeover and remain thus for eternity.
The only warming that need concern people is whether they end up in hell or not during that aforementioned eternity.
Mojave Mark on September 7, 2007 at 6:54 PM
Mojave Mark
Amen
Bucko36
bucko36 on September 8, 2007 at 2:04 AM