AlterNet / By Alexander Zaitchik
comments_imageCOMMENTS: 341

The Dark Side of Climate Change: It's Already Too Late, Cap and Trade Is a Scam, and Only the Few Will Survive

Father of the Gaia Theory, James Lovelock says we can't stop climate change, but that humanity will continue in some smaller form.
July 7, 2009  |  
 
 
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The recent narrow passage of the Waxman-Markey energy bill, better known as cap-and-trade, marks halftime in Congress' first attempt to put a lid on national carbon emissions. The bill’s supporters ended the half on top in a squeaker -- 219 yeas to 212 nays. But it’s far from clear what this lead means, either for the bill or the climate. The legislation’s fate remains as uncertain as our own.

We can, however, be sure about one thing. Between now and the autumn Senate debate, cap-and-trade’s right-wing critics will escalate their all-cannons assault on the idea that climate change is real and demands a response. They will call "crap-and-tax" the mother of all scams, a poorly cloaked state power grab, and a major goose step down the road to eco-fascism. Given the demagogic hyperbole already on display, it can’t be long before some conservative howler warns that the bill's green facade shares hues with the Koran.

As the fight over cap-and-trade intensifies, human-driven climate change denialists like Rush Limbaugh and James Inhofe will draw the lion's share of the media spotlight reserved for the bill's critics. This is unfortunate. The real debate is not between the bill's supporters and the dead-ender climate clown club. It is between cap-and-trade’s supporters and its critics within the scientific and environmental activist communities. Groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have science if not politics on their side when they decry Waxman-Markey as an industry diluted half-measure with soft gums that falls far short of what is necessary to avoid cataclysmic climate change later this century.

“The giveaways and preferences in the bill will actually spur a new generation of nuclear and coal-fired power plants to the detriment of real energy solutions,” said Greenpeace in a statement the day before the House vote. “To support such a bill is to abandon the real leadership that is called for at this pivotal moment in history. We simply no longer have the time for legislation this weak.”

This view is shared by leading climate scientists like James Hansen and his peers around the world at leading research centers such as the UK's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, which urge more significant and immediate cuts than the finance-sector friendly cap-and-trade system can deliver.

There is another, fourth voice in the debate over cap-and-trade, one ringing out from shadows rarely approached by the media. In these shadows dwell scientists who believe the time has passed for any sort of legislation at all, no matter how radical. The best known of these frightening climate gnomes is the legendary British scientist James Lovelock, father of Gaia Theory and inventor of the instrument allowing for the atmospheric measurements of CFC's. In recent years, Lovelock has emerged as the world’s leading climate pessimist, raining scorn on the new fashionable environmentalism and arguing that the time is nigh to accept that a massive culling of the human race is around the corner.

“Most of the ‘green’ stuff is verging on a gigantic scam," Lovelock told the New Scientist shortly before the release of his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. "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.”

Those who read Lovelock’s controversial 2006 book, The Revenge of Gaia, know that hope junkies should keep a safe distance from the 90-year-old scientist. Lovelock, who has been compared to Copernicus and Darwin, years ago arrived at a disturbingly stark conclusion about Earth’s climate future. His prognosis is now starker than ever. The small window of short-term hope he left open in Revenge is closed in this year’s Vanishing. In its place is a long-term hope that humanity in some form will survive the present century, though barely. The result is a dark and contrarian work that seeks to demolish the terms of the climate debate while mocking our response to the crisis at the personal, national, and species level.

Lovelock has not arrived at his views lightly. They are the product of years spent carefully considering the known science through the revolutionary and frequently misunderstood lens he began developing 40 years ago while working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Gaia Theory holds that Earth possesses a sophisticated planetary intelligence that responds to levels of heat from the sun in such a way as to maintain a climate homeostasis supportive of life. In four decades of research and experiment, the most famous being the “Daisyworld” model, Lovelock has overcome the once-widespread skepticism of his peers to officially move Gaia from a Hypothesis to a Theory. He has established that the various components of the biosphere -- plants, animals, minerals, gases, the sun’s heat -- interact in such a way as to create and maintain a climate amenable to life. Far from a passive collection of independent actors responding to conditions, the biosphere’s contents, including humans, form a living web which actively creates and maintains those conditions. Gaia prefers these conditions and will do her best to maintain them. But there is a limit to how much Gaia can do if we keep running over the safety mechanisms -- negative feedback loops -- she puts in our path. Lovelock believes that we have pushed Gaia beyond the point of return. The cold seas, for example, can only pump down so much of our carbon before they cry mercy and turn to acid.


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Alexander Zaitchik is a Brooklyn-based freelance journalist and AlterNet contributing writer.
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Are we idiots beyond hope, or can we evolve beyond idiocy?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: pelican beak on Jul 7, 2009 12:50 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Stay tuned.

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» What Lovelock means by "culling" Posted by: truthlover
» Sun spot deficit Posted by: truthlover

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Won't happen that way ...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: mmckinl on Jul 7, 2009 12:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First - "“Most of the ‘green’ stuff is verging on a gigantic scam," Lovelock told the New Scientist shortly before the release of his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. "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.”

This is exactly correct only worse than described ... The Cap and Trade Market will be another market for Wall Street to game once again sending the bill to consumers and tax payers while ruining even more viable businesses along the way ... The only way forward is a carbon tax ... straightforward, uncomplicated and transparent ...

Second ~ Once Global Warming becomes undeniable to the Elites there will be a mass population reduction through disease and starvation. Already they can engineer a flu virus that will wipe out billions while the ensuing breakdown of society will disrupt and destroy food production and distribution.

It will probably be agreed upon by all the world's major countries and the disease of choice will hit those of dark skin hardest. Yes, they can generate a race specific pathogen. The pathogen will however also be deadly to those that are already ill, saving countries the money to treat those people.

The latest out break is a case in point hitting people of color harder than whites ... they will say socioeconomic status ... but be forewarned it has already been "gamed".

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» RE: Won't happen that way ... Posted by: richholland
» Carbon Tax OK Posted by: johnwinthrop
» Finally, some depth of thought! Posted by: jillipooh
» A few thoughts Posted by: willymack
» RE: Won't happen that way ... Posted by: herronsmith
» RE: Won't happen that way ... Posted by: HoboHomo

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Unfortunately...
[Report this comment]
Posted by: graemebacque on Jul 7, 2009 1:08 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... The best equipped to survive the coming crisis are the same people who created this mess in the first place. There's no justice!

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» RE: Unfortunately... Posted by: racetoinfinity
» Barbarian Dark Ages loom in the horizon Posted by: ScoobyDoobyDoo
» RE: Unfortunately... Posted by: herronsmith
» RE: Unfortunately... Posted by: Shey

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missing link
[Report this comment]
Posted by: yirrp on Jul 7, 2009 1:36 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Who was the Nobel Laureate noted for the comment " mankind is the missing link between the ape and human being." The comment is more of a disservice to the ape, a creature of raw physical power rarely abused.

To be sane is to show reasonable sound judgment, yet somehow I can't see an intelligent species such as ours rising above our self serving behaviour which overwhelms all so called progress. There are generations coming through which welcome global warming because they will live in more temperate climates. Our disconnect with reality evens engineers species extinction as a means to max out profits for their increasing rarity.


More than ninety percent of all life forms that have existed on earth are extinct. Extinction is the norm rather than the exception, so are we witnessing the evolution or devolution of the human race, a species which for whatever collective reason, still appears content to maintain the status quo and live under an illusion of materialism which somehow disconnects from the whole. Basic algebra can't even support such stupidity.

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» Not about our species Posted by: mgmyers79

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Out of 7 billion, a few hundred million survive
[Report this comment]
Posted by: CRaPWHiSPeReR on Jul 7, 2009 1:40 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just making sure everyone saw that part..

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» more bullshit Posted by: Shey
» bullshit Posted by: Shey

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Prof Bob
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Posted by: ProfBob on Jul 7, 2009 1:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Great article. Little doubt that we can't save ourselves. But for those who still have hope it is worth reading the non-fiction/sci fi series on overpopulation and how it might be effectively reduced at http://andgulliverreturns.info

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The whole thing is a scam.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: joebanana on Jul 7, 2009 1:55 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Earth has been going through natural warming, and cooling cycles since it's beginning. I aint too worried about the warming cycle, it's the ice age (or, the giant snowball)part that makes me nervous. But then again, I aint gonna be here for it.

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» RE: The whole thing is a scam. Posted by: themotie
» RE: The whole thing is a scam. Posted by: peacefullaim1

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All Good and Bad Things Come to an End
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Posted by: bryangalt on Jul 7, 2009 1:59 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We the People, like 99.9% of all species that have ever lived, had our shot at greatness. We the People were given a chance by God if you will, or Nature if you prefer, to rise up above the pettiness, greed, envy and desire so that we would be able to travel from here to greater destinations in the stars.

But, we the people just couldn't let it go. We just could put down our toys, stop thinking about money, stop bombing our neighbers, stop poisoning our waters, stop raping our forests, our wildlife and our atmosphere.

What have we gained in the end? Well, the real surprise for the millions that are predicted to survive will come when they emerge from whatever hole they hid out in and discover that the surface of the Earth has been scorched by a chemical gas release that will kill every air breathing animal (stupid ones like humans too) plus virtually wipe ouot the entire plant ecosystems as well.

I guess thats when the rich will get to start eating their hearts out, and their neighbors too. As for the rest of the people I can only say that Nature always has the last word, but we could have had a say in our final destination too if we had only grown up to see what really matters, and it certainly isn't gay marriage, Jesus in schools, or Al Queda.

Soon, it will be a fight for the very survival of every species, thanks to our arrogance and stupidity.

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people do not need jobs, they need food, water and shelter
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Posted by: Suzon on Jul 7, 2009 2:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Much--possibly most--organized human activity is detrimental and the corporation's role is criminal.

In 1067 William the Conquerer granted the first charter of his dynasty (his direct descendants are still in charge of what should be called the Norman-English Empire) to the Corporation of the City of London. The City (or 'Square Mile') is like the Vatican, a law unto itself. It specializes in 'financial services' and poses a great threat to the world because it controls (blackmails) governments.

The dynasty founded by the rapist, arsonist and murderer William the Conquerer has always needed powerful supporters. It once gave away huge estates and it continues to grant favors to corporations. I have over 80 royal charters which show that the current 'sovereign' has commanded her ministers to serve and her judges to protect vested interests. Favorable treatment is to be given to international bankers, the arms trade, huge construction companies, insurers, brewers and distillers, big accounting companies, etc.

Corporations are designed to concentrate power at the top and (in the US through campaign donations and in the UK directly through ministers and judges) have driven and protected reckless and damaging legislation. (Do you think that the US and UK governments would have thrown billions at the big banks out of choice?)

Corporations are responsible for warfare. Take the profit out of war and it won't happen. No profit, no war. Corporations are 'extensions' of William the Conquerer--his inclination to rape, pillage, burn and kill lives on in the corporation.

Remove the damage done by self-serving CEOs and Gaia will suffer less and so will all human beings.

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It's not too late
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Posted by: shellius on Jul 7, 2009 2:20 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's not too late and Lovelock doesn't believe that it is. Some of the things in this article contradict one of Lovelock's latest speeches. He thinks we will need to use nuclear power and biochar. (Waxman-Markey provides some money for nuclear power and that's a good thing. Look up "fourth generation nuclear power" and you will see that it uses it's own nuclear waste.)

We have to get over our "fear" (bias) of nuclear power. We have to start building them ASAP because they will take 10 years to build.

If you want to hear Lovelock's latest speech on this subject from only a few weeks ago, check out this recording:
Lovelock speech

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» No Fear of Nuclear Posted by: LeaderofMen
» RE: No Fear of Nuclear Posted by: QuestionAuthority
» RE: No Fear of Nuclear Posted by: themotie
» RE: Technological hubris Posted by: marid
» RE: Technological hubris Posted by: dingham
» RE: Technological hubris Posted by: jsong123

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Humans, another species whose time will end
[Report this comment]
Posted by: sfortuna on Jul 7, 2009 2:37 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like the dodo, sabretooth tiger, passenger pigeon and mastodon, it is the destiny of homo sapiens to lie as scattered fossils some day. If the earth's ecosystems comprise a unified, living, biological entity, no one species will be able to dominate or do it in. The planet's natural defenses will kick in like antibodies sensing infection from the human bacteria producing toxins. We will either drown in our own filth, eradicate ourselves with increasingly complex and expensive weapons, the livestock we raise will turn toxic or we'll starve for lack of resources. Our rivers will divert underground, our GMO crops will fail, or a virus will mutate for which we have no sdefense. Failing that, there are the mainstays of science fiction, mass earthquake or meteor strike. We know the planet has had several End of Life events and most of us want box seats for the fourth.

I do not fear for the long term safety and sanctity of the earth. It will spin in its orbit, blissfully unaware of us, heating and cooling through seasons of solar tides and gamma storms. In the end, the Democrat, the Republican, tycoon and pauper, saint and sinner will be forgotten and irrelevant. I used to try to save the world from itself, but I soon realized the futility and even arrogance of that stance.

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Hemp and Marijuana
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Carts on Jul 7, 2009 2:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hemp can save the planet and we can all get high on Marijuana then.

Thanks to America we destroyed the world with oil - those bastards at Du Pont and the FDA.

America - the Neo Nazi state - thanks a lot!

An Aussie

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» I see a Rope. Posted by: johnwinthrop
» RE: Hemp and Marijuana Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» RE: Hemp and Marijuana Posted by: warphead

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Koran
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Zxyler on Jul 7, 2009 2:42 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Given the hyperbole already on display, it can’t be long before some conservative howler warns that the bill's green facade shares hues with the Koran.

I don't understand this statement. What has the Koran to do with this argument?

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» RE: Koran Posted by: alexandra_hamilton
» RE: It is not a conspiracy Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Kind of a joke
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Perry Logan on Jul 7, 2009 3:20 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What a strange race we are.

We invented science.

We used science to destroy the world.

When the scientists tried to warn us the world was being destroyed --we called them hoaxers. Kind of a joke.


Proof that Torture is GOOD for You

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» RE: Kind of a joke Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Most morons gone?
[Report this comment]
Posted by: johnwinthrop on Jul 7, 2009 4:04 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Finally Alternet publishes some good news.

Enough with the same old stories about too many people "suffering" because of choices they make.

Ironically "climate change" is not one of those choices, as it is barely affected by human choice(no "AGW" for you nerds out there).

But food shortages, water shortages, nonCO2 pollution and bad diet diseases are thinning out an excessive, basically unintelligent mob. Africa, Asia and Latin America in particular will improve significantly.

Finally the apes, elephants, fauna and small mammals as well as fish will have a fighting chance. Why DO so many people on Alternet assume lots of healthy people spreading everywhere on the globe is a good thing?

When the major product several nations produce is AIDS, you know it's time to winnow the crop.

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Population management.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: thethinkingman on Jul 7, 2009 4:26 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So a lot of people are going to die.

That sounds like a solution to me, particularly as they aren't going to die because it's more a case of a lot of people aren't going to be born.

I have no idea what is driving this current bout of mass hysteria but if in fact man made global climate change is a fact then the only solution, as opposed to postponement, is to get the planet's population down and then hold it down.

It's time for one world government with a rational approach to population reduction instead of this endless quest for more fertility.

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good news for Wall Street
[Report this comment]
Posted by: richholland on Jul 7, 2009 4:48 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
10.000 years ago England and Europe were one landscape(see Wkipedia)

then sealevel rose and rose..
from France till Denmark hundreds of villages in meantime disappeared, .
NOW Wallstreet found the trick;
step 1 tell the peasants they are white and sinfull and destroyed the earth.....
step 2 make a corporation to sell shares and make money...
step 3 as usual people will spend their last penny.
step 4; CO2 or the devil cannot be stopped by bringing money to the rich.

Wisdom number 5;
Everybody reading this will die within 99 years from new.

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If Anyone...
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Posted by: LeaderofMen on Jul 7, 2009 4:53 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...if anyone actually thinks this planet can sustain 6, 7, 8 or 9 billion people indefinitely, you have never lived in a closed system before.

Oh, sorry. We ALL live in a closed system.

The problem we have is that the last 50 years has been totally, utterly and radically unique in human history. The last half century's progress will never happen again in the history of this planet. It's rapidly coming to an end because we've nearly sucked out all the resources we depend on for that progress. Once the metals, liquids and gasses we absolutely need to have modern civilization are no longer profitably extractable, we're done. There's no more.

Then the inevitable decline of the 6, 7, 8 or 9 billion of us, emitting wastes like no tomorrow, will come to an end. It will take, what, 1000 years for an equilibrium to occur. By that time, humans will no longer be 6, 7, 8 or 9 billion 'strong', but rather remnants - tatters.

What an excellent scifi novel to write. I'll have to get started.

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» RE: If Anyone... Posted by: QuestionAuthority
» RE: If Anyone... Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» Dibs on that... Posted by: HoboHomo

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It can't happen soon enough
[Report this comment]
Posted by: Klaus on Jul 7, 2009 5:07 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is no question that human population has far exceeded the earth's ability to stain it. A 5 to 6 BILLION person die off is inevitable. I for one would very much like to see the other side of this. Who know's maybe.... But on the other side, if I see a gawd damned republican i will not hesitate to exterminate the bastard. The road to hell is paved with republicans!!!! Thanks assholes!!!

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LifeBoat or Rapture Bus??
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Posted by: Purple Girl on Jul 7, 2009 5:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Several hundred Million or just 144,000.
Gaia or God- which will seek it's wrath upon the offending Humans.
Only difference is this 'End of Dayer' is too old to call a seat.
although I am a avid believer that the planet is warming- both as a result of Our activities and responsiblitiy, and from nature cyclical phenomena- I am not one to run around like the Futilitic 'Chicken Little'.
Whether the result of a 'homostatsis' or Judgement- We as humans are limited in our ability to avoid such 'almighty' actions.
Granted by ending Wars as the means to resolving problems and curbing our use of pollutants- we could stave off these 'inevitables'...But according to both an 'Apocalyptic' event still remains "inevitable".
The only thing they both inspire is the unbecoming attitude of self Righteousness to be one of the 'Chosen' few on the Boat or the Bus. Ah how to elicit the apathetic attitude of Self preservation in humanity- play Musical Chairs with the 'End of Times'.
Similar to the attitude of the Holey Rollers- why tend to the AIDS patient- 'God will judge them sinners and banish them to Hell anyway. Why get involved when their fate is sealed'- Right? So will this become of attitude when victims of 3rd world countries face droughts and flooding- 'Oh it's just the process of Culling the herd, no need to send aid'.
This End of Days scenario is as myopic and destructive as "Revelations" to the Human psyche and condition.Does he fancy himself the modern day St John? Nostradamus? Does he hope to get a fervant blind following like these previous "soothsayers" in the decades to come?
I reject this 'Prophecy', this morbid Facination with Global Devastation and mass extinction. Because both ultimately put forth that underlying claim that 'Redemption' is impossible. Granted if God Choose to destroy mankind by slipping the Earths Crust off it Core, shaking Us off like Fleas- there won't be a damn thing we can do to stop it ...And then which camp will be able to claim their "End of Times' Theory was the 'winner'- Would it really fucking matter?
How many zealots of this Theory will committ mass suicide to spare themselves the pre-ordained 'Wrath' of Gaia as foretold by their 'Oracle'? What makes this End Game Scenario any different than the ones expoused by Jim Jones? Keresh? Heavensgate?

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The U.S. needs to be liberated
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Posted by: Karlh on Jul 7, 2009 5:15 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just as the U.S. liberated Europe and Asia from Fascism in the 1940's, we now are the ones who need to be liberated from Fascism. We are a threat to the planet. Unfortunately, there's no military power on Earth that is strong enough to threaten us. We still have a whole lot of nukes and anyone who would try anything, our fascist leaders would make sure the planet is destroyed. One way or the other our so called leaders and the oligarchy they serve is determined to destroy all life on Earth.

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» RE: The U.S. needs to be liberated Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» RE: There is no outside force Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» RE: There is no outside force Posted by: HoboHomo
» RE: There is no outside force Posted by: HoboHomo

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Soylent Green is back
[Report this comment]
Posted by: grindermonkey on Jul 7, 2009 5:17 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Or grow less hair.

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Here's an idea
[Report this comment]
Posted by: snowhound on Jul 7, 2009 5:33 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How about the US government nationalize all forms of energy and use it's profits to create new technologies for green energy. It's obvious that corporations like Mobil uses it's power to prevent alternative energies. If every nation did this and made a commitment to clean energy, I'm sure new technologies would become more affordable. Also, the Cap and Trade bill will only pass higher energy costs to the consumer, while the Oil companies will continue to make huge profits.

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» RE: Here's an idea Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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rgd
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Posted by: rgd on Jul 7, 2009 5:57 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Up to a year ago I used to build houses for a living. Now I read Alternet. I agree with going nucleaor(sp?) It can't be as bad for us as all the alternative building products from recycled whatever and stuck together with loads of chemicals that give off gases and odors that make people sick living in their own houses. Just wait until all the new energy codes kick in and we all start paying for them.
How many of us reading this article have been hearing this for decades. I remember hearing about spray deodorant depleating the ozone back in the mid sixties and we were going to all die from pollution in just a few years. And lets not forget the ice-age idea a little over 30 years ago.
My point is this: So many "credible scientist" have had so many different points of view over the last fifty years, why should we believe them now? Especially when politicians and wall streeters jump on the band wagon.

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» RE: rgd Posted by: Charlow
» RE: rgd Posted by: cplot

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James Lovelock Is a Silly Old Fool But His Predictions of a Mass Die Off May Well Come True
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Posted by: tony_opmoc on Jul 7, 2009 6:00 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Die Off will not be a result of Climate Change, but because ruling Governments and Elites believe all This Nonsense. In fact the Policies for Population Reduction Have Been Ongoing Covert And Active For The Last 50 Years with Africa as The Number One Genocide Target.

Lovelock is Correct in Identifying Sea Level Changes as a Primary Indicator of The Extent of The Real Problem.

But any old fool can make Doomster Predictions. Doomsters have been predicting the End of The World throughout recorded human history. Their Predictions Have always Turned Out To be Complete Nonsense.

So admittedly we have had Global Warming and Cooling and Sea Level Changes Over Time Immemorial. It's what happens. It's Natural and Normal. It's always happenned and it always will.

More recently with the Doomsters Shouting With All Their Might for the Last 30 Years - "The End is Nigh" - what Has Actually Happenned?

Have The Maldives disappeared under a Flood? Surely by Now, Venice must have sunk without Trace?

Yet the Reality Bares Absolutely No Relation to The Dire Predictions.

Here is a Scientific Paper Submitted as Evidence To The UK Parliament on The Subject of Sea Level Change.

Read it and Weep. You believe a load of Religious Garbage produced from an Extremely Powerful Rich Group of Genocidal Psychopaths.

FACTS AND FICTION ABOUT SEA LEVEL CHANGE MAY LOW-LYING ISLANDS AND COASTAL AREAS BE FREED FROM THE CONDEMNATION TO BECOME FLOODED IN THE NEAR-FUTURE

Tony

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» Supercalifragalistic Posted by: LeaderofMen
» RE: Supercalifragalistic Posted by: tony_opmoc
» Superbly stated sir... Posted by: zigy
» Bad choice of a link Posted by: CKat

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The dawn of the dead
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Posted by: solrev on Jul 7, 2009 6:04 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
“Gaia Theory holds that Earth possesses a sophisticated planetary intelligence that responds to levels of heat from the sun in such a way as to maintain a climate homeostasis supportive of life.”
The problem with Lovelock is statements like this, planetary intelligence, please. This makes him easy to dismiss, if he would just stick to the science and leave the mysticism to us mystics he would be better off. “The loss of reflective ice cover, the death of carbon eating algae as oceans warm, and methane released by thawing permafrost—will soon accelerate the heating trend already underway, leading to sudden and dramatic shifts in global climate.” There is not a reputable scientist and a lot of people who do not believe this. Lovelock criticizes scientific models for accuracy, ignoring the fact that only in this current interracial period were we even able to collect data and create models. His support for nuke energy is misplaced. I live in Illinois we have 11 nuke plants, and we still get more energy from coal. We would need 15 new nuke plants to replace coal just in Illinois. That would make 26 plants producing 40 to 50 tons of nuke waste annually. For you nuke fans, yea you can reuse some waste and reduce the quantity, but the waste you end up with is a lot more powerful than the waste you started with.

What does Illinois use so much energy for? People need jobs and jobs require energy. Most of the jobs being done in Illinois are a waste of time. But they create wealth for the wealth creators and subsistence for the slaves. That is what needs to change, reduce demand or many will not survive. At least for those who do survive they will be prepared to also survive the next ice age. So, Gabriel blows the first trumpet and a third of the planet is burned up. We were unable to use the sweat of our brow to prevent it. It is not the wrath of God it is our own stupidity. That’s what pisses God off. It was always here for the taking.

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» RE: The dawn of the dead Posted by: themotie

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An Alternate View
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Posted by: PaulK on Jul 7, 2009 6:21 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I look at the same world but I don't share Dr. Lovelock's opinions.

He's correct in saying that the seas are becoming more acid. 70% of the earth's species, especially species in the oceans, are scheduled to become extinct. This will be a tragedy. If we are wise we'll immediately start freezing the eggs of thousands of various species in liquid nitrogen.

What actually will happen in the oceans is that a few species will adapt and thrive. Just as an ailanthus tree can grow in a crack in a parking lot, just as insects can now live in a DDT-filled field, so certain plankton and certain fish can survive in acid seas. They will expand to fill an open ecological niche.

Lovelock sees a massive human dieoff. I do too, if we do nothing. However, I see precisely what kills the humans. 200 years ago, a person's chance of getting cancer was 1 in 1800. A baby born today has a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer. The decision to get cancer or to not get cancer is largely a family decision. Mom and Dad choose to bring home the fatal carcinogens. For example, the nipple on that baby bottle is made of a 100% hard plastic endocrine disruptor. Safer baby bottles are on the market. The functional idiots will cluelessly watch their family members die off one by one until the survivors painfully reach the conclusion that their government isn't keeping them safe. Then the survivors will buy the safe stuff and their families will live. The same can be said about heart attack food and diabetes drinks.

When I was young I heard of "Simonian optimists" who believed that technology would cure all of our problems. I often see technology creating many problems, but I have reason to believe that technology may attack both the sources and the symptoms of climate change.

I forecast that the price of most forms of renewable energy (electricity, fuel in a tank, on-site heat) will drop by 50% per decade for the next three decades. Currently, wind and solar aren't really competing with strip-mined coal (if our economic system doesn't count all the pollution, and it doesn't). However, in 10 to 20 years we will have the technological tools to switch over, and the world will have the economic need to switch over.

My most radical forecast is that the floating polar ice caps can be restored for a total cost of maybe $10 billion dollars, hopefully with low ecological damage to the plankton and other species in local under-ice waters. The forecasted collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the possible seawater undermining of the much greater East Antarctic Ice Sheet may then be prevented. Florida, New York, London and Silicon Valley need not be flooded.

I'm not exactly a futurist. I'm an inventor. I pretty much know where I want to put the glass, the steel, the wood, the nails, the motors and the software routines.

My forecasts take into account that we had an idiot in the White House last year, this term we have a notably smarter guy who still may or may not understand lone inventors, and next term we may still have an imperfect guy in the White House. IF, and this is a big if, the Obama Administration ACTUALLY, none of this baloney as usual, wants to transform the American economy, create jobs, shut off the worldwide market for Iranian oil, lower air pollution and turn CO2-spewing smokestacks into a valuable raw material, then we might make surprising progress before November of 2012.

However, my fear is that President Obama will be successfully sandbagged by "smart guys" who turn out to be real idiots with no sense of perspective whatsoever. Various hungry governments the world over will eventually find a way to take up this leadership, and America can remain a bankrupt, polluted mess. We can always emigrate.

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These comments are BAFFLING
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Posted by: Beck on Jul 7, 2009 6:26 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Has anyone mentioned US CHANGING? Did I miss that? I keep reading population and something about Alexander the great, but who is driving today? Anyone have a flight coming up? Are you using a dryer in your future? Do you have your air conditioner on? Transportation is the biggest source of global warming. Can't we address THAT? REad all this and you see what the problem is: let an article introduce the problem and everyone finds intelligent or cynical or downright hostile ways to say, "well, someone else should certainly do something about all that."

We make as much sense as people sitting in a burning house saying the following:

You know, rich Republicans always get rescued from THEIR burning houses.

That other house caught fire and didn't burn to the ground.

There's no such thing as burning houses.

All houses that catch fire burn to the ground. Assholes.

I might just light another match; everyone else is.

I just lit another match, and there are too many people in Africa.

MY matches don't start real fires; only other matches start the fires that matter. Ow!

Oh, I shouldn't light THIS match, but everyone else is, and I've been told all my life it would be very satisfying. Huh, it is! I should light another one.

I'd get up and walk out but in the Middle Ages people were burned at the stake.

I guess I could start putting this out, but first I have 1,000 intellectual-sounding reasons that it wasn't my fault it started, and I should list them instead of taking action. You know, if it wasn't my fault to begin with, I should dump some gasoline on the problem.



It's not the sheeple that are the problem, unless ALL the people faced with the biggest problem that seems to ever have become evident included intellectualizing instead of hanging a clothesline, stopping use of the car to the greatest degree possible, NO flying whatsoever unless you also would toss around gasoline while you're sitting in your burning house, all of it. We all know what needs done. Everyone here. Why isn't anyone writing about it? Can't we inspire each other, goad each other? I truly do not understand this. We're like a bunch of people in a boat, each with a hammer bashing holes in the bottom, and we have some kind of crazy idea that we should continue because we see others doing it and we've been told what fun it would be. I guess I can continue smashing holes in the boat because there are other holes being smashed, but maybe sinking the ship earlier won't be the non-event my sense of entitlement or cynicism or blame-passing told me it would. There is only one solution. Each person does the most available. people do follow. That's already been made evident.

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» coal powers the internet, too Posted by: inverse_agonist
» Thank You Posted by: psmitten

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I agree
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Posted by: aawindoze3 on Jul 7, 2009 6:37 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Personally, I think we passed the "point of no return" many years ago. Not much of anyting we can do about it now. Its just too late.

RIff
Online Privacy when it Counts

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» RE: I agree Posted by: sirios
» RE: I agree Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» ID THEFT ABOVE Posted by: u2r1

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We have known but Ignored
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Posted by: HillbillyRob on Jul 7, 2009 6:43 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That we cannot continue raping the worlds resources. The world will be here after we are gone, unless we actually managed to blow it up.
The ecology on the other hand is the part we need to breathe, eat, etc.
It is a closed system.
So many people whine and bitch, but I see few actually trying to do something about it.
I live on a small subsistence eco farm start up. We knew for years, but like most people we did not really pay as much attention as we should have, when we lived in the city(several cities), but we did recycle, did not buy a bunch of crap we did not need, I always made shopping and errands trips count by doing at least 2 or more things that needed to be done while I had the car out. Knowing about mountain top destruction for electrical power, I turned off lights and such that were not being used or needed.
Even so our house hold carbon foot print was about 12tons. Over the last 4 years or so we have steadily decreased in small amounts to less than 3 tons for our household. We are not sitting in the cold and dark, this summer though we are dealing with heat as the ac died and I don't have the funds to fix it. Added insulation, heavy curtains, mylar on the windows in summer, painted the roof white with reflective paint. Before I did these things it got to 110 degrees in this place even with ac on now the hottest has been 88, not comfortable but we manage. We have cut our power use from 3300kwhrs to 1100 (or 450$ to 150$ a month)and we expect to make that 500kwhrs when we get solar water heater and solar power for the well and spring-house and roof rain catchments for food garden irrigation, limited but we have been having summer droughts. WE have replaced about 30% of our lights with LEDs as the CFLs we put in 5 years ago die off. (Sams club 15$)It has not been as expensive to do as we first thought, even replacing clothes and dishwashers with energy star units. I some of the parts to build a solar oven(300+degrees will cook about anything).
So instead of piling into the SUV to go a mile to the store..walk (we live too far from anything but grow a lot and trade with our neighbors for other food stuffs and buy only what we need and try to get no or low processed/packaged stuff. There is a local mill that does corn, wheat and oats with a water wheel. It is impossible to do all at once, but we did in steps to make each thing a good habit to replace a bad habit..
Now that I have blathered all that. I also think that we should be already building space habitats and asteroid mining. WE have the power for so much destruction why can't we turn that to constructive uses...we have to cap the corpse power first. Nukes are not the answer either, spending the same amount for a solar farm produces nearly the same amount of power during the day, and the boiling salt system in use in Spain produces 24/7.

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» Thank you for your inspiring post Posted by: stellabloo

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What a bunch of CRAP
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Posted by: dstauff on Jul 7, 2009 7:01 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is really too ridiculous. Alternet has completely become a joke.

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» Agreed! Posted by: zooeyhall
» RE: Deep wisdom is often overlooked Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Are We There Yet?
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Posted by: CTC123 on Jul 7, 2009 7:22 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Consider the Connection to:
The Slippery Slope
We the CONSUMER have a choice.
Please Search:
CTC123GREEN
Thank you for what you can do.

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A few definitions of "intellectualize"
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Posted by: Beck on Jul 7, 2009 7:35 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
1. To furnish a rational structure or meaning for.
2. To avoid psychological insight into (an emotional problem) by performing an intellectual analysis.

to examine or interpret rationally, often without proper regard for emotional considerations

To endow with intellect; to bestow intellectual qualities upon; to cause to become intellectual.



Intellectualization will not touch this problem. It's as much a diversion as the oft-criticized American Idol.

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BA
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Posted by: mnstra on Jul 7, 2009 7:39 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
good article, but the gaia hypothesis is a turn off. he looses creditability as soon as he brings that up. Stick to the hard science , that is the language of modern humans. also,How much can we save our earth, when it is acceptable to blow tops of mountains off for coal?
Is that not the worse insanity in the world?
Is that a modern form of stewardship?

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"Global Warming" is Al Gore (the NWO/globalist whore) propaganda!!!
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Posted by: JohnTruth2001 on Jul 7, 2009 7:43 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Of course the corporations & unregulated countries like China & India are polluting/poisoning us to death, but "Global Warming" is a scam to further tax & control us sheeple!!!

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» Yeah, blame India and China ... Posted by: tommy_slothrop

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I don't buy it.
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Posted by: r3s0n4t0r on Jul 7, 2009 7:49 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We are constantly bombarded with this notion that a population reduction is inevitable and that it's us the people who are to blame.
Can you not see the main agenda here?
The banking/corporate elites and government are supporting this pseudo-science of man made global warming for their own selfish needs. They WANT you to think that all hope of saving our species is gone. They WANT you to be apathetic and to accept that the end is inevitable. After all who is going to suffer when the economy collapses and there are food shortages? They WANT a population reduction as it is in their best interests to use the Earth's resources for themselves. You people sicken me with your defeatist, doomsday, all hope is gone attitudes. What use is that?
I for one do not trust a thing Al Gore says or any of the governments or this article for that matter. If they were so concerned about the Earth then why are they creating taxes and cap and trade to profit from the hysteria created?
I've heard plenty of scientists who have tried to speak out against this false science. You need to question the majority not accept it.
It reminds me of Nazi Germany and the whole eugenics science popular in Europe during the early 20th century(yes a majority of their scientists supported it). A false science adopted by the elites as a means to carry out a genocide of an unimaginable scale.
We have more than enough resources to go around on this planet and technology is helping to create a greater abundance for everyone. Isn't it about time we restructured society to align it with the planet? We need to end this current cyclicle consumption driven capatalist society and create something for all the people in which or species is realligned with nature and the planets precious resources. People outlining how we have 6 billion on this planet seem to completely overlook the aspect of technology. Yes 6 billion is detrimental to the planet as our society does not work to ensure that we live sustainably. I think the Earth is capable of supporting far more people with some of the technologies on the horizon of human discovery just as long as we restrucure our society.

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» RE: I don't buy it. Posted by: warphead

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Gaia: How Can It Sustain Billions That Don't Know It Even Exists
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Posted by: edgar_michel on Jul 7, 2009 8:26 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I agree with Lovelock that life on Earth is an integrated web with each component depending on all the rest and that we as a species are intimately woven into that web whether we recognize it or not, I disagree that civilization will begin anew after the die-off.

First during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries we have depleted most of the easily available natural resources that allowed a technological society to develop in the first place. It would seem to me that the form humanity would take after the die-off would be a much more primitive form than today. Without the easily available resources to maintain an advanced society, humanity will thrive in pockets of remaining forests in the northern latitudes as Lovelock suggests, but they won't be the progenitors of an advanced society because they will be strapped just to keep life and limb together not to mention the fact that easily available resources in pure form just won't be laying around on the ground as they were before the beginning of the industrial revolution. I therefore see a primitive exist for those who are tough enough to make it to the 22nd century. It would take 10 million years for earths crust to be recycled and new natural resources to once again found strewn all over the ground; until then, the human species will struggle to hang on as it did for so many millions of years before it first came into its own.

I do agree with Lovelock that nuclear power is the one thing that could, and I believe, might still pull us out our current downward spiral, but with a slightly different twist:

I believe that nuclear fusion holds the key, because nuclear fusion can lead to a solid state electric power plant, with no moving parts to wear out, that produces zero radioactive by-products and near zero emissions. Unfortunately the current holders of the purse strings don't have the imaginative capacity to understand this and so any project for the continued development of nuclear fusion gets only a trickle of financial support and also because the return on investment is measured in decades instead of days, months or years. There is the Helium 3 - Helium 3 fusion process that would lead directly to a solid state electric power plant that could eventually produce terawatts of power to light up our grid and the only waste product other than heat would be helium 4, the stuff you fill balloons with, eliminating greenhouse gasses entirely. The heat we produce in generating power isn't what leads to global warming, it is the greenhouse gasses that is produced in the process of generating power that fills our atmosphere and acts as a blanket that leads to global warming; eliminate the green house gasses and you eliminate global warming.

But that means transforming our entire society which has bull-headedly plowed forward on the notion that we can burn ever increasing volumes of oil and gas and that somewhere down the road God will save us from our folly. The fact that we now have an infrastructure, at least in the United States, wholly dependent on fossil fuels means that an enormous amount of energy will have to be spent transforming that fossil fuel infrastructure to something benign to the web of life that makes this planet habitable in the first place.

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Gaia: Continued
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Posted by: edgar_michel on Jul 7, 2009 8:27 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Before George W. Bush came to office we still had a chance to make that transition before millions of people begin dying off as a result of habitation loss. The United States could have redirected it financial might to research projects that had promise of leading to sustained nuclear fusion and the beginning of the transformation of our society into one that walks lightly on the planet while still providing 21st technology for communication and transportation; instead we got the 9/11 coup designed to precipitate oil acquisition wars at the expense of developing any alternative to oil. That is why 9/11 is such a water shed in history, because it cost the world another 10 years of holding on to the misguided notion that our current, and very profitable for some, technology was somehow the future, when it was in fact the unsustainable and decrepit past.



I also disagree with lovelock on his position on sustainable development. I think sustainable development weaves many technologies together, including, nuclear fusion, passive heating and cooling in housing design, water treatment systems that continually replenish water supplies just like an old fashion mountain stream, and agriculture that is responsive to the ecosystem in which it resides and includes a wide diversity of plant and animal life in its inventory. I think what we need to lose is profit motive and exchange it for a responding to exigencies motive.



The most crucial piece of the puzzle however, is nuclear fusion, because when that is developed, the transformation of the world infrastructure can begin without producing more life threatening green house gasses. We can get rid of cars and replace them with efficient high speed commuter rail that takes but a small fraction of the real estate that highways and roads require; and also doesn't require near the amount of CO2 producing concrete to build. All industry can stop using coal, oil and gas while maintaining current levels of production.



No More 9/11's and fossil fuel acquisition wars, tell your governments now that you want to move into the future, not die in the past.

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» RE: Nuclear fusion will be obsolete Posted by: edgar_michel

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making distinctions
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Posted by: chrysalis124812 on Jul 7, 2009 8:49 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All this is impossible to understand without making some basic distinctions about what we really need to live. We need clean water and air to breathe, we need to be able to find or grow food, protect ourselves from extreme weather, have the company of others. Electric gadgets are conveniences, flush toilets are conveniences, AC and hot water is a convenience. Motorized travel of any kind is not necessary, merely a convenience. Granted, we all like them, but we don't require them to live. Those who think they would "die" without their conveniences probably will.

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» RE: Want to find clever new solutions? Posted by: chrysalis124812
» RE: Want to go back to a neolithic life? Posted by: chrysalis124812

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Climate Change is like Shit .....
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Posted by: jal64 on Jul 7, 2009 8:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
.... It happens!

The only thing constant about climate change is that it is constantly changing. Nothing we puny humans can do to effect that, one way or the other. IMO the best we can do is learn to live with it. Our bux are much better spent trying to mitigate the worst of the social damage.

The doom-sayers have no proof of their predictions. They have only computer models that are so in-accurate they don't even reliably predict the past. Don't forget, the models "predicted" sea & temperature changes between 1995 & 2008 more than double what actually occurred.

Re Cap&Trade, I heartily echo others who label it a SCAM. The AlGores of the world stand to gain millions if not Billions. When attempting to analyze anything political these days, first and foremost, Follow the Money and/or Power. C&T thus viewed is a simple old fashioned robber-baron power grab, nothing more, nothing less. PLUS, it accomplishes nothing, look to Europe's C&T record if you don't believe me.

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I'd like to get in the business! Sounds just like the moonshine industry...
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Posted by: ABetterFuture on Jul 7, 2009 8:53 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So, I don't grow corn for a living. Therefore, I missed out on the ethanol boom--an effort by Congress to enrich agricultural and monied interests at taxpayers' expense.

The cap and trade system is different. I own a computer and a laser printer, so I want to know who I need to buy in Congress in order to be "the guy" who prints carbon creds. You get your feel good control over your ideological devils--the folks who make energy, and I get filthy rich. Jimmy Swaggart, watch out!

I mean, if you're going to create an artificial economy out of whole cloth for your buddies, shouldn't at least a few of us benefit? Isn't that the way the Big Green operates?

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Cap and Trade
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Posted by: ClassAct on Jul 7, 2009 9:25 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The cap and trade principle offers the perfect free market alternative to imprisonment by the government. For instance, those of us who do not commit murders can sell our rights to kill to those who feel compelled to commit them. Then we can all be rich and happy! Except for the victims.

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THE DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL GROWTH
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Posted by: RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Jul 7, 2009 9:39 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Once again... we shall post the comment as given below.

Old Coyote Knose... that the DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL GROWTH of the human population and the global consumer economy on Planet Over-Birth Earth, a fragile HOST ORGANISM of finite space and finite resources, cannot be sustained much longer.

Wake up baboonies! PERPETUAL GROWTH in a closed looped system (the Gaia body called Earth) is NOT progress. It is cancer! Full blown cancer! And Jeeezass, Mohammad-mad, L.Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones, etc. will not save ewe folks from the coming calamity, a major extinction event. Only common sense can do that.

Alas! I don't have much faith in corrupt, sheep minded people clinging to outdated religious dogmesses, arrogant tribe-all-eeego and discredited economic theories. Humankind (a.k.a.: ewe-man-unkind) is a clever 'especies'... but it lacks common sense and prescience. I rest my case with the fools who $upported eight years of George W. Bush, the dry drunk $ociopath who planted and nutured the seeds for Amerika's ongoing economic collapse. Obama et al can't fix it! Amerika's karma suggests that it's too late.

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I believe that Lovelock is overly optimistic. I doubt any mammals can survive the H2S feedback loop.
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Posted by: Paul_C on Jul 7, 2009 10:17 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A recent Alternet article discussed the hydrogen sulfide feedback generated when the anaerobic boundary in the oceans rises close to the surface and "belches" unfathomable quantities of the gas into the atmosphere, forming sulfuric acid in the lungs of all that breathe.

It will kill everything, just like it did in the Permian Period, if I recall properly, some 250 million years ago.

peace,
Paul

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Who are the real culprits?
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Posted by: richard0a37 on Jul 7, 2009 10:37 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. The earliest evidence for life on earth suggests it first appeared about 3.4 billion years ago. If this period of time is reduced to 1 year, then Man first appeared about a minute ago. A couple of seconds ago, the dark side of climate change made its appearance. Should we be worried?

Assuming the human being occupies a volume of space = 7 x 3 x 2 = 42 cubic feet, what volume of space would be required to pack in all the 6 billion people who live on this planet?

Well, there are 5,280 feet in a mile, so a cubic mile equals that many cubed. That’s 5.28 x 5.28 x 5.28 billion cubic feet.

Therefore, number of people packed in a cubic mile = 147.197952 / 42 = 3.5 billion.

Therefore, you could pack the entire human race in the square mile of the city of London, and it would be less than 2 miles high.

Somehow, manmade catastrophic climate change just doesn’t ring true. Oh by the way, I’m writing this in Ghana where the average afternoon temperature is in the mid 30s.

If Man is in some way responsible for frightening levels of climate change, perhaps we could ask what sections of which populations are generating it. Are the people of Iraq and Afghanistan worried for example, or don’t they count? How many bombs and missiles have blown up in these two countries?

What percentage of global warming are the military responsible for with vehicles that consume horrendous quantities of fuel? Are those vehicles subject to emission controls, or are they designed to choke the enemy?

What about all the nuclear bombs that have detonated? What has been their impact on climate change? What about North Korea’s latest detonations? How much shit have they thrown into the atmosphere?

Take a look at the earth from Google Earth. See how much of the earth is not populated. It is true that major cities across the planet are heavily populated, but relatively speaking they occupy miniscule areas of land, the rest of which is mainly open fields and terrain that is unpopulated.

And this goes for practically all countries and regions.

In fact, the UK is almost totally fields. You can drive for hours and hours and see only open fields and pasture. Same goes for USA. And as for Africa, population wise vs land area, it is nearly all open space.

If people really want to get het up about climate change, then they need to be far more specific about who really is causing the problem. The answer is government and the military.

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» RE: Who are the brain police" Posted by: wolvedrive

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The end of a civilization
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Posted by: JJdazer on Jul 7, 2009 10:39 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Civilizations come, civilizations go.
We just happen to be living at a time when we will become a witnesses.

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» RE: The end of a species Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Confessions on Being Prepared
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Posted by: Merel on Jul 7, 2009 11:04 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hmmm...I wouldn't say that the conclusions/warnings that Dr. Lovelock has are 'dark'. Rather, I think that they are realistic. I don't think that humankind can actually put the breaks on detrimental climate and environmental change. I mean, try putting just ten people in a room to come to an agreement to see how difficult it is. Now, get 7 billion involved. So, given that I am of the same general opinion as Dr. Lovelock, I have slowly been preparing for 20 years in the event of a catastrophe.

I moved to an area that is not going to be inundated (I am what I term an 'environmental refugee');
I bought books on survival, growing foods, foraging, storing foods, etc., and I am learning how to do all this.
I bought good survival gear including a compass, (should the north still be the north), good boots, warm clothing, etc.;

I'm ready for the backpack revolution.

Is this extreme? Who knows, but I have always felt that something huge is going to go down in my life time and I am prepared to be one of the ones who survives.

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Human beings = stupidity
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Posted by: wireup on Jul 7, 2009 11:19 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I've always felt that there is something truly wrong with the human race. NO OTHER form of life does what he have done: destroys where it lives, makes it uninhabitable.

We are a mistake - like the dinosaurs (although sometimes I think the dinosaurs, had they survived, would have been a hell of a lot smarter) - a genetic anomaly and Mother Nature is now about to correct her mistake. Makes me glad I never had children.

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» RE: Human beings = stupidity Posted by: r3s0n4t0r

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U blockhead Charlie Brown,DOA's got the Bo!o_?
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Posted by: wolvedrive on Jul 7, 2009 12:12 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
WHATEVER YA DO DON'T SAY Bo!o_?, ok,allrighty then,,,The nuclear thing would that be the irrational fear of the current regime or just the way it all turned out after the hittite oppenhiemer einstien phlyer phere thing,boy we sure ripped those guys off,ha ha,and isn't it fun being the worlds lone super evil with all those super duper powers,huh ,i think were all pretty much in agreement on that one ,a vote won't even be nessacerry to the furtherment of our organazations final blueprinted intent and haphazzard plans,were so smart (like a snake)or just the sorta program without the exteneded 1/2 lifes or just the kinda protocalls whair the actual end product is a source of degeneration and waste which one A B or C,maybe F thats where we just make it up as we merrily go along and keep alert for commercially exsploitable uses along the merry little way (mining,demolition,trickle down aeronautics and a remote sources of electro radio isotope enegy decay,spread around all over the free market evolving as it does,guided by the principals greed and the rest of the deadly sins,a perpetual crisis,an on going state of war,cuz only the truly proliterite are qualified,thair by requiring a strata and security caste and i promise wi'll pass the savings right back to U,the end "user,offcourse your children will probably become dependent on the foreign alien and queer energy source and employed in the maintanience of the artificial energy as a critical state of alert will perpetually be a mandatory imposition,I'm really glad we'ev all thought this out so well ,ok ready lets half cock whatever tOOlge the bankrupt capitolist security state has left, OO yeah or Z,the way the sun does it without division,ya really gotta be a rocket scientist to figure that one out or should i say in,hydrogen,oxygen,water,electricity, THAT & god speed,,,maybe a little platneum(P)(TM)(R)(C)OO argue with that,fyre

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hemp and the weed
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Posted by: darkmark on Jul 7, 2009 12:56 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
yep its hemp and marijuana that could bring us out of this. with marijuana its just eat it or smoke it no extras and its well known that we need something to entertain us. hemp for clothes, housing, paper whatever get over it dow and all you other corporatist entities. and as for food well hemp again and then there's always the rich for those of us that can't give up meat.

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GLOBAL FRAUD
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Posted by: lastmanstanding on Jul 7, 2009 12:57 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
On average, the last couple of winters in Canada have been the coldest in over a decade with many regions experiencing snowfall and hail in June. 

Listening to the Weather Channel report these oddities, you'd think one of the announcers would make light of Global Warming and that it's seemingly missing in action. 

But you will hear nary a word regarding a climate change during these cold snaps -- only that “Mother Nature” is to blame, and that things will soon be back to “normal”. 

Isn’t it curious that freezing temperatures are a "natural" occurrence but hot spells "man-made"? It would appear a gag order has been placed on weather reporters referring to Global Warming or Climate Change when it comes to abnormally low temperatures. 

30 years ago, scientists were predicting a cooling trend. Of course, opportunistic fear mongers like Al Gore and junk scientist David Suzuki would have a hard sell with a climate change/carbon credit scheme based on "Global Cooling". 

“Dirty drivers” with their gas-guzzling SUVs and pictures of distraught looking polar bears standing on tiny icebergs make it far easier for consumers to accept a punitive tax on practically every aspect of their lives. 

We’ll even throw away our incandescent bulbs for those energy efficient mercury filled ones, and abandon purified water for the chemical soup that flows from our taps. GMO’s have become acceptable and since the FDA recently approved cloned meat for market, that must be good as well. Anything to save the planet, right? 

Less than thirty minutes into "A Convenient Lie", Gore was already spewing the “carbon tax” mantra and pointing the finger at the general public. No mention though of the biggest polluters on the planet -- like the military, airline, chemical, energy, plastics, forestry, factory farming or mining industries. 

Here’s a fat-cat who had a zinc mine on his farm, pays a $2500 a month utility bill on his estate and flies everywhere on a private jet. Isn’t it funny he’s so concerned with our lives being ruined by the ecology? 

Just follow the money trail. It’s not all that complicated. 

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» RE: GLOBAL FRAUD Posted by: Sekhmetnakt

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Our Jurassic Park
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Posted by: Ptah on Jul 7, 2009 1:11 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Science and religion were rudely separated by the 18th century leading to uncontrolled capitalization of Earth's resources and the tyranny of (monotheistic) religion (as opposed to indigenous spirituality) which deprecated the life force of the Earth. But take heart, when our species' ascendancy has come to its inevitable end, the earth will survive and other kinds of life will reach for the apex of the pyramid of existence. In the meantime we must try, sincerely, to restore what we can of our precious Mother and of ourselves as a species. I like the following passage from Jurassic Park in this regard. It was voiced by the chaos theory mathematician (Jeff Goldblum):

"Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."

- Ian Malcolm

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Lovelock's right in his contempt for liberal environmentalists and their cap-and-trade scam.
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Posted by: tommy_slothrop on Jul 7, 2009 1:13 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
But his pessimism is counterproductive since it discourages people from making the changes in their lives to prevent the worst from happening. People seem to be waiting for the government to force everybody to do what is necessary. This won't happen. If we are lucky the government will follow after enough people have taken action on their own. Pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lovelock himself refuses to take personal action and has ruled out limiting his air travel, for instance.

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If anything could make me question climate science...
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Posted by: kenhymes on Jul 7, 2009 1:41 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If anything could make me question climate science... it's the gleeful pscychotics celebrating the predicted death of billions, in response to a "scientist" who replaces dubious religious notions of creation with his own dubious notions of Earth as a single organism. The Gaia hypothesis doesn't stand the smell test. Does a single organism stop having arms and replace them with some other sort of appendage (dinosaurs to mammals)?

I'm persuaded by the models (as well as I am able to grasp them), and by the broad consensus in the field, that SOMETHING is happening. I'm also convinced that none of the climate scientists are smart enough or informed by their research enough to know exactly how it will all play out. Assuming (as I do) that it is happening, it is an unprecedented event with unpredictable consequences. So when Lovelock or whoever starts saying "here's how it's going to be," I question his motives and his assumptions.

It is truly shocking how many Alternet readers resemble the douchebags I used to run into at Rainbow Gatherings back in the day, slavering after an urban "die-off." It's certainly not a phenomenon that encourages confidence in any shared values of pluralism, humanism, or justice among self-identified leftists. Not that the right is any better.

How about this: our polluting, plastic, consumption-is-bliss lifestyle sucks NOW, and is both bad for us and basically no fun, so it should be replaced as soon as possible, regardless of what the Earth might or might not do to kick back at our sorry asses. Can we agree on that and get on with it?

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Can't wait till soltice 2012!
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Posted by: -matti on Jul 7, 2009 1:54 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All of this is just the rationalization for the "millenial zeitgeist" of apocolyptic change.

(All completely arbitrary of course, since the "millenia" are arbitrary.)

This millenium, it has been extended by the mayan calander "prediction" of the ending of the "Fifth Sun" at or around the winter soltice in 2012.

Until we pass that date, people will still feel a strong desire to anticipate apocolyse.

Its happened before, it'll happen again.

The basic facts about climate change and industrial civilizationare these:

1. The climate is complex. Epochal change is to be anticipated. The fact that we ARE anticipating it is cause for hope, not gloom.

2. The current form of Industrial Civilization was NEVER sustainable. It is entirely dependent on extraction of finite resources and accelerating entropy in order to allow paradigm shifts and a general increase in the complexity of our machines and machine understandings.

Relax.

You're gonna die NO MATTER WHAT.

Get used to the idea.

And stop trying to project your fear of death onto the entire biosphere, 'kay?

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The thing you have to love about Lovelock
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Posted by: gsmiley on Jul 7, 2009 2:44 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
is that he's such an incurable optimist. Somewhere in the future a cultured and urbane society that controls its numbers and environmental impact, and manipulates its eugenics to create a better species. They better have some iron in their souls - when that poor little rabble of neo-Israelites or Aztecs shows up out of the desert to beg shelter in the shade of one of the digester tanks, the name of God on their lips and murder in their hearts - not to be hamstrung by rights activists and zoning regulations: they have to be SHREDDED lest our progenitors become our descendents, for that would be a very great shame.

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Population control
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Posted by: CosimoRondo on Jul 7, 2009 3:42 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We can beat around the bush all we want, but we simply have to reduce demand for all the useless crap and wasteful lifestyle that we all seem to crave. A global one-child policy for a generation or two, and a seizure of existing energy companies to pay for green energy sources and planning/implementation for the elder care of the current generations, since there will be fewer people to care for them. Humane and voluntary euthanasia would also help.

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» RE: Population control Posted by: HoboHomo

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If You had taken the trouble.....
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Posted by: jal64 on Jul 7, 2009 3:53 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
to actually read what I wrote, you would not have accused me of being climate change denier. In fact, my very first sentence agrees the climate is changing....CONSTANTLY. FYI, there have been 2 periods within the last 2000 years when the temps have been about as high as currently predicted. NOT caused by man. There have been 2 times that we know of in the last 200 years where the Northwest Passage was free of ice. NOT caused by man.

What I did say is the computer models that are predicting such cataclysm have a record of missing what has actually occurred in the past 2 decades. Don't forget the computer models that predicted global COOLING and concomitant famines in the 70's. Regardless of the CC howler monkeys, the science is NOT proven.

Also what I said is Al Gore et al stand to make gazillions on this scam. They are intimately biased and cannot be trusted to be straight with us.

Europe's Cap'n Trade scheme has become a laughingstock. 10+ years and not one country has succeeded in even beginning to move off the fossil fuel paradigm. C&T is a SCAM, no 2 ways about it.

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This comment has been removed from the site due to non-compliance with AlterNet's community policies.
» Don't click....ad naseum. Posted by: drone

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Henny Penny Prevails
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Posted by: Dickinseattl on Jul 7, 2009 4:54 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If there is a basis for giving up hope it lies in the fact we have allowed and even promoted converting our science into politcs. Witness this authors article. That the Republicans get it right is a tribute to the odds that a broken clock can be correct at least twice a day, but in this case the more objective science is on their side as well as simple common sense, something now lacking on the Liberal Henny Penny side.
Have you seriously considered the psycological implications of elevating the powers of humans on Earth above the overiding enormous powers of our poorly understood Sun? The dominant agenda here may have good intentions (or not) but what about that "road to hell"? When agenda is substituted for truth in science it is no longer science but just politics, Al Gore politics at that. To embrace this new religion you have to ignore much of what we already know; The Sun sets and predominantly controls temperatures and weather, CO2 is the weakest of major greenhouse gases and is increased with heat with a lag time of about 800 years, we have at least an 800,000 year record of past 100,000 year glaciation and warming cycles (=/- 10,000), its been hotter in the past in the current cycle now approaching killer glaciation (attn. Henny), thermohaline ocean cycles of 800 years have a far greater weather/temperature impact, and solar wind effects on cosmic rays and their impact on clouds and temperature is significant.
In this science we use computer models to predict future patterns but are dependent on good data. This is speculative and has been inaccurate. We were in a learning process, now short circuited by politics.

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I am sceptical of Lovelock, his credentials notwithstanding...
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Posted by: zigy on Jul 7, 2009 4:57 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is a school of thought among some physicists that the activity on the photosphere of the sun (particularly sunspot activity) has much greater influence over the periodic heating and cooling the earth experiences rather than anything we as humans do. Dr Kerry Mullis, winner of the 1993 Nobel prize in chemistry explains why humans do not and can not cause global warming in his biography, "Dancing Naked in the Mind Fields". Dr. Mullis certainly has knowledge and experience equal to that of Dr. Lovelock.

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» Dr. Mullis is a nutcase. Posted by: Paul_C

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I have a new idea !!
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Posted by: Sgellero on Jul 7, 2009 5:18 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
1. Tax 'carbon' or whatever
2. End mining
3. Close down heavy industry.....fumes!.....fumes!
4. Make all the windmills and solarpanels in China and India ( why not...it will benefit the consumer ! )
5. In fact, let China and India make ALL our airplanes ( Airbus & Cessna are already there ), appliances ( that LG brand is real good for dishwashers ! ), and cars ( or course they can make them cheaper ).
6. Keep the border open so we can have cheap lawnboys ( for those of us who can still afford a lawn ) ride their John Deere made in China mowers.
8. Keep all the smoke on the other side of the World....let THEM do it.
9. Have everyone (*see # 10 ) work in retail, give them 'free' medical care and retirement...... they'll be content !!
10. Let the brightest and most clever ( with some affirmative action thrown in ) work the Financial - London - Wall Street World and create their derivative cum ponzi scam magic on the producers of the world .....so we can at least get some of our money back !!

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Let's make a wager!
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Posted by: AJR Journal on Jul 7, 2009 5:23 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
On one side, you spin the most ridiculous,unlikely, catastrophic scenario (like the author).
On my side, I bet that NONE of that happens and mankind is still here in (name your time frame) years.
AlterNet is always peddling these apocalyptic "theories" Each one is more absurd than the one before.
How about the hydrogen-sulfide catastrophe theory? That was a good one.

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Global cooling ?
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Posted by: sirios on Jul 7, 2009 6:14 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just thought i would mention, that the spring and summer here in Calif. have been breaking records for unseasonably cool temps. Hmm ?

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» Given the context Posted by: tommy_slothrop
» RE: Given the context Posted by: sirios

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Hysteria just like right-wing nutballs
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Posted by: chief of okeefe on Jul 7, 2009 6:30 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
But their propaganda says we are going to be taken over by the Muslim hordes and subjected to Sharia law. Left-wingers scream that the world is going to end soon if we do not stop CO2 emissions.

Sorry, most of us are too busy trying to live to get all hysterical. Substitute "Muslims" for "C02 emissions", and "Sharia Law" for "Climate disaster" and the propaganda reads pretty much the same.

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Competing Belief Systems
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Posted by: dayahka on Jul 7, 2009 7:22 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The whole climate change business and what to do about it is, like all other subjects, beset by problems caused by competing belief systems. We have the cornucopians on one side arguing that we will find scientific ways to survive and continue our growth and "success." Other people, the doomers, range from the anarcho-primitivists who say we should abolish agriculture and return to hunter-gatherers to the really gloomy doomers who see the immanent extinction of all life on the planet. Lovelock appears to be a sort of middle-of-the-road doomer.

The problem with all these competing belief systems is that they all have some evidence on their side, but very little science. Prediction of doom are a dime a dozen these days, as are predictions of around-the-corner bull markets. But no one knows which of these predictions have merit, no one. There is no consensus on which way climate change will go--slow warming, slow cooling, or sudden and rapid variability (as Lovelock claims). Basing political programs on predictions without evidence is the biggest problem we have. Carbon cap and trade is just a minor scam in the major scam of global warming dommerism.

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Bottom line
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Posted by: cplot on Jul 7, 2009 8:11 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
• The idea that greenhouse gas emissions is an Al Gore orchestrated conspiracy perpetrated by the entire scientific community is absurd
• There’s way too much propaganda here (in the article and this discussion) and elsewhere that uses PR spin to defend the fossil fuel industries and nuclear power industries
• There’s a lot of other propaganda that seeks to blame China, India, brown peoples all around the globe for problems that the US should face on its own
• Regardless of climate change, we already have proven renewable energy technology and the natural resources to affordably replace nearly all fossil fuel use and likely nuclear power as well (desert solar, pv, wind farms, run-of-the-river hydroelectric, pumped storage hydroelectric)
• We have highly efficient grid connected electric vehicles (trains, streetcars and trolley buses) are a proven technology for over 100 years that can provide transportation solely with renewable electrical energy
• We appear to be on the verge of suitable plugin hybrid technology to bring grid-liberated stored-electricity vehicles that can meet 90%+ of most commuter needs with no fossil fuel use at all
• The renewable energy and transportation technologies already available will not only address all of our greenhouse gas concerns (whether they're your own personal concerns or not) as well as countless other problems of sulfur dioxide, mercury, acid rain, nuclear waste, mountaintop removal, black lung, war in the middle east, urban air quality, oil spills, etc.

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Lovelock is an optimist
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Posted by: yesman on Jul 7, 2009 8:45 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
By asserting that human beings can survive the coming climate cataclysm, albeit in reduced numbers, Lovelock shows himself to be an optimist, not pessimistic at all. While such an outcome may be possible, it's far from a certainty, and each day it seems less and less likely that human beings (and most of the other creatures with whom we currently share the planet) will survive more than a few more decades. I hope Lovelock is right, but it seems more likely that if the coming huge ecological disturbances don't kill us off outright, then the ensuing chaos and violence will.

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This is beyond disappointing
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Posted by: cyberfarer on Jul 8, 2009 7:12 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I am sorry, but I hate to Lovelock's myopic views being trumpeted on a progressive site.

Yes, Lovelock invented the means to detect CFCs in the atmosphere, but why didn't he detect the hole in the ozone they were causing? Because Lovelock didn't believe CFCs could be a problem so he never looked for one.

Lovelock has always despised environmentalists. In his Revenge he rants against Rachel Carson and her expose of pesticides and DDT in particular. He doesn't believe biodiversity, a key to the complexity and health of the planet, as being important. He dismisses the Chernobyl disaster and claims there were no victims.

Lovelock is not and never has been an ecologist. He is a product of his time and his generation. He made his life and wealth from the very practices that have poisoned our earth, waters, and air and that now threatens our survival and he regrets none of it.

His is the most selfish generation that ever was and so it remains. He is prepared to write off the lives of the vast majority of humanity but he demands nuclear power to sustain his own comfort for the remainder of his life.

And he foresees this blonde, blue-eyed, northern utopia where a smaller, leaner human race will live a utopian existence not in concert with the earth but within a technological wonderland.

It is all childish nonsense. When the shit hits the fan we will all suffer and the race to the north will neither be welcomed nor will it be orderly and once there we will war over what few resources there are.

Lovelock's interests are no different from the day he stood with his wife in a darkened apartment and recognized the peril presented by a failed grid. His interests are his own.

True humanitarians and people of the earth, recognize, must recognize, that our only hope isn't further scarring the earth to mine heavy metals for the purpose of keeping Lovelock clean and warm in his declining years but in a fundamental change in human behaviour toward our planet and ourselves.

If we fail in that, we have no hope even if we do make it to the Arctic to eat what we can dig from the melted tundra.

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Why not wind, solar, geothermal? Fatalism doesn't help
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Posted by: charlesp210 on Jul 8, 2009 10:30 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I've never understood Lovelock's pro-Nuclear argument. We already have technology much better than terrestrial nuclear, we can tap into the 5 billion year fusion reserve of the sun with wind and solar, and the residual decay inside the earth with geothermal. Combining all available renewal sources over large areas, and with large amounts of multilevel energy storage (such as grid managed transport batteries) we can integrate time variable energy sources to meet all our needs. It's safe, renewable, doesn't require mining or endless storage of toxic wastes. It's also scalable up or down to meet future needs, including the future society that Lovelock predicts. Nuclear isn't, nuclear requires a global imperial system to mine resources and stick the poor with unmanageable wastes. And, truly renewable energy IS the cheapest. Wind by itself is already the cheapest source of energy on a nameplate basis, though it does require integration with other renewable energy sources and energy storage for full utilization. The other renewable energy sources are catching up. Nuclear is by far the most expensive energy source, it always costs much more than expected and the true costs, including waste recycling, risk, and decommissioning, have yet to be added up. The breeder reactor system required to keep nuclear going for a few more centuries is at least 10x as costly as the low efficiency nuclear we have now. And, with the added risk of terrorism, sodium cooling and so on, it's also far more dangerous. Renewable energy sources are the only ones that can last the remaining 5 billion year remaining lifetime of the Sun. So why not get started building these systems now, with a global committment like the one used to build armaments in World War II. Right now, seeing the collapse of Demand to keep the world economy going, it is just the thing we need economically also, to provide decent livelihoods for all. This is the perfect moment for renewable energy.

Second, while I agree that Lovelock's pessimistic scenario is indeed the most likely outcome, mainly because the fossil mining profiteers exert great control over our governments and minds, that bleak outcome isn't certain, and while there is still some hope for something better, all opinion making leaders should be pushing for the changes that would make that better outcome possible, and not encouraging fatalism, which is almost always counterproductive, except at the first moment when all hope for something better has unequivocally vanished, and before a new hope can be formulated.

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There is a solution...
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Posted by: dolfen on Jul 8, 2009 1:32 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Here we are like lemmings on the precipice mostly trying to bury our heads in the sand in hopes that all this will just go away and a solution will magically appear. Oddly enough, there is a solution but no one in power wants us to know about it for fear of upsetting their current agenda of continued use of fossil fuels and nuclear energy and denying that global warming and climate change are happening right before our eyes.

Its ironic and insane that the keepers of the knowledge initially discovered by Nicola Tesla over 100 years ago and those that have rediscovered what he did have been consistently suppressed and hidden from the public. Knowledge that shows provably that energy sources exist that would solve all our problems related to the current paradigm of fossil fuels and nuclear energy. Its unfathomable to realize that there are those who continue to actively suppress this knowledge even while the evidence accumulates that we need to change now drastically how we go about our daily lives. Unless we do change a scenario similar to what Lovelock predicts will surely play out. Is this the legacy we want to leave. Will our epitaph be that we knew but didn't act in time? What a travesty it will be.

Please educate yourselves and read these two books. There are many others but these two put the information together in a very easily understood way. Please read them asap.

The Energy Solutions Revolution by Brian O'Leary

Break Through Power by Jeane Manning and Joel Garbon

We have a chance to overcome what we've wrought due to our inattention and the outright deception on the part of those who know. Our leaders and politicians have not had our best interest at heart either due to ignorance or manipulation. Act now before its to late for our children and future generations. Read these two books and learn.

If not you, who? If not now, when?

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HAS END OF EARTH LIFE CHANGED?
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Posted by: reelman on Jul 9, 2009 12:29 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
HAS THE END OF EARTH LIFE CHANGED?

OBAMA BACKS PLAN TO ‘HALT GLOBAL TEMPERATURES’…Sen. Byrd blasts climate bill…
As a retired college science prof I read for over 30 years about the end of humanity on Earth.
Not a single time in any textbook was any mention of this “global anything”.
So, what was in ALL science texts before the GW-Gore alarmists appeared?

Remember any physical science or chemistry at all?
I taught college Physical Science for ten years. Every single text until recently had the full explanation of nuclear fission and fusion.
What was the most common example given in the natural world? It was our huge Sun producing the light needed to keep humans here alive.

Our huge sun produces light by a nuclear reaction that turns matter into light-heat energy. Recall the Einstein equation (E=Mc squared)?
This means matter is (was) lost from our Sun every minute century after century for many eons.

So what happens as our huge Sun shrinks day after day? It produces LESS light-heat energy, therefore, LESS heat. Repeat, LESS heat.
Most all texts went on to theorize that someday, maybe in 10,000 years or so, the sun would not have the matter left to produce enough light-heat energy for humans to survive on Earth. Translation: cool-cold-colder.

Now… is there anything in this decades old college science text explanation that has changed?
Anything that reverses the nuclear reaction of our Sun or its shrinking?
Does this not even suggest that humanity eventually needs some warming temperatures to survive longer on Earth?

http://conservablogs.com/theconservativecrawfish

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cap and screw
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Posted by: Rusty Shackleford on Jul 9, 2009 1:40 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When I finally learned what the cap and trade issue entailed, I was pretty shocked. I was already disillusioned with Obama, but after this... wow.

Perhaps I'm still not very clear on the issue, but the cap and trade issue basically sounds like Washington made it up DELIBERATELY and SPECIFICALLY for Wall Street to play gambling games.

I just looked at it and thought, "How again does this help the environment?"

One company has an excess of credits and sells them to another company, you still have BOTH companies polluting, except now, one is polluting more than they were allowed to in the first place, and the first company is making money off of the second. You still have money changing hands amid the rich, you still have pollution.

We voted for change. There is no change. In fact, things are getting even worse.

Lovelock is right. Humanity is not long for this world. Regardless of how hard you try to make a difference, the old, rich, white, conservative male Christian, homophobic, status-quo loving ilk will always be there to use, abuse, and suck us dry, for all our good intentions.

Two words of hope though....

"vertical farming"

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» RE: cap and screw Posted by: cplot
» RE: cap and screw Posted by: Rusty Shackleford

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The futility of it all.
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Posted by: richard0a37 on Jul 9, 2009 11:20 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Well, I have read all the comments from the contributors, and my conclusion is – if Paul_C is able to deduce that manmade global warming is a real and grave threat to the future and well being of Mankind, then so be it.

The point is, outside of this forum, does anybody care?

I am a software engineer for a large company that develops and sells computer systems to a large and environmentally friendly customer base. Within my department, we have other software engineers, helpdesk personnel, quality assurance staff, consultants, account managers and so on. Oh yes, plus the managers.

Of all the disciplines and skills required from each staff member, software engineering is, in my view, a cut above the rest, for it requires specialised skills, creativity, an alert mind, and an attention to detail and a thorough knowledge of what makes software work in order to deliver perfectly working programs, and to ensure that bugs can be isolated and fixed in a timely manner.

Writing computer programs is not a 9 to 5 job. Sometimes, one’s creativity is at its peak very early in the morning, or at weekends, and the true software engineer will often sacrifice his or how own personal time for the art and science of software engineering.

So what is the view of the managers? Well, they don’t really give a toss about the excellence of the software you produce, or the technical assistance you are able to give Helpdesk, or the supervision you give to your junior programmers, or the speed with which you can identify software bugs, or the new areas of software development you have been asked to get involved in.

Or that you were required to interrupt a project in order to quickly write a new program for an existing customer because the one you supplied was based on the wrong specification that the consultant provided you with.

No, what really bothers them is that you arrived for work 10 minutes late the other day, and it is vital that you spend from 9 till 1, and then 2 till 5.30 sitting at your desk.

In a nutshell, the managers are all failed software engineers. They just don’t have the mental agility to hack the skills that are actually responsible for the company’s existence and their employment. Without the software engineering, they’d be no computer systems to sell.

Their mentality is thus broadly Dickensian, and so long as you’re seen to be sitting at your desk between the prescribed hours, and so long as you keep your nose to the grindstone, and you go through the motions of working, that seems to satisfy them.

In the meantime, things like global warming, the truth of 911, the evil of the financial system, the corruption within the political system, all these things can go to hell as far as they’re concerned. They don’t even care about the bottom line, except when review time comes, and then it’s: ‘sorry mate, can’t give you a pay rise, we’re in a recession didn’t you know', even though the company last year grossed billions of pounds with profits exceeding 10%.

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arctic ice is melting
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Posted by: Shey on Jul 12, 2009 6:56 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... and antarctic ice as well. In Antarctica, a year or so ago, a chunck of ice the size of Pennsylvania, simply broke off the continent. Polar bears are drowning in the Arctic, trying to swim from one shrinking ice flow to the next.

Glaciers are melting, from Alaska to Greenland to the Himalayas - that's right, the glaciers in the highest mountain range on earth are melting, at an alarming rate.

What the hell else do you moronic global warming deniers need to know?

This is not some "normal" cycle of climate change, it's man-made and it's rapidly becoming catastrophic. The science is there, it's overwhelming and indisputable (accept by the born-again deniers who think the earth is only 6,000 years old, and those "scientists" who have sold there souls to the oil companies).

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Trolls with nothing to say
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Posted by: Shey on Jul 12, 2009 11:37 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Love the "1" rating but no reply to my comment. It proves the Trolls are lurking, but have absolutely nothing to say, to rebut the points I made.
With the new AlterNet guidelines, the right-wingnuts must be finding it harder to derail every conversation by turning it into something about conspiracy theories.

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Tia
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Posted by: tia122 on Jul 13, 2009 8:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While the debate over whether or not climate change is human caused, there is still much that needs to be done to help the environment and it concerns me that this debate is taking away from the overall importance of being environmentally responsible. There are serious environmental issues that are not in dispute such as water and food resources and deforestation devastating an entire country in the case of Haiti as well as other life-threatening issues. It is important to not let the debate about global warming "cloud" the dire need for us to take action now on all global eco issues. We need your help to push forward - please visit the EcoChamber to see what we are doing to help as many fronts as possible.

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Try, just try--
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Posted by: bobtr900 on Jul 12, 2009 6:40 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just try telling all of that to the GOP and the Religious Right who endlessly support them, in their satanic conflation of Big Religion and Big Business.

Their immersed in this notion of the End Times already having begun on 4/29/07 and reaching full expression on or before 2014. So saith their prophet GWB, and family of followers, the GOP and their Religious Right, like the Pope and his brethren Pat Robertson.

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Doe4s the Religious Right of...
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Posted by: bobtr900 on Jul 13, 2009 8:37 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...the GOP recognize this and do they regard it as God's work. Maybe that is the reason why they are so unafraid of this event and the ensuing destruction that is sure to occur. Do they actually think of it as God's punishment being visited upon the entire Family of Man. Maybe they don't really want it stopped, they actually want it enhanced because they actually think it IS god's work. And even if they regard it as being caused by the actions of man and especially of the GOP business people, do they feel God is working through the GOP business people.

I wouldn't put it past the Religious Right to arrive at such a self serving conclusion.

And then we must ask ourselves, how do they think it benefits them. The convoluted thinking of the Repub Religious Right is at the very least beyond comprehension and very dangerous to all of mankind.

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So we should give up (and smoke pot)?
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Posted by: tmginnova on Jul 13, 2009 12:30 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The scientific consensus is that climate change will continue but that if meaningful action is taken soon (and the time period is shrinking), most of the worst outcomes can be avoided.
Which is why it's essential that the US take action now.
The biggest threat, of course, is the GOP deniers.
But a growing threat is from unrealistic greens who won't take "yes" for an answer.
As flawed as Waxman-Markey is, it sets a cap, finances renewables, and starts us down the road. It's failute would likely lead to worse outcomes, not better.
See the indispensable Climate Progress blog today: http://climateprogress.org/

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The bright side of the dark side
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Posted by: smendler on Jul 13, 2009 7:47 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The next civilization will, if it has any memory at all, ban modern-style capitalism.

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Alternet Comments:

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Are we idiots beyond hope, or can we evolve beyond idiocy?
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Posted by: pelican beak on Jul 7, 2009 12:50 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Stay tuned.

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» What Lovelock means by "culling" Posted by: truthlover
» Sun spot deficit Posted by: truthlover

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Won't happen that way ...
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Posted by: mmckinl on Jul 7, 2009 12:51 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First - "“Most of the ‘green’ stuff is verging on a gigantic scam," Lovelock told the New Scientist shortly before the release of his latest book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia. "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.”

This is exactly correct only worse than described ... The Cap and Trade Market will be another market for Wall Street to game once again sending the bill to consumers and tax payers while ruining even more viable businesses along the way ... The only way forward is a carbon tax ... straightforward, uncomplicated and transparent ...

Second ~ Once Global Warming becomes undeniable to the Elites there will be a mass population reduction through disease and starvation. Already they can engineer a flu virus that will wipe out billions while the ensuing breakdown of society will disrupt and destroy food production and distribution.

It will probably be agreed upon by all the world's major countries and the disease of choice will hit those of dark skin hardest. Yes, they can generate a race specific pathogen. The pathogen will however also be deadly to those that are already ill, saving countries the money to treat those people.

The latest out break is a case in point hitting people of color harder than whites ... they will say socioeconomic status ... but be forewarned it has already been "gamed".

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» RE: Won't happen that way ... Posted by: richholland
» Carbon Tax OK Posted by: johnwinthrop
» Finally, some depth of thought! Posted by: jillipooh
» A few thoughts Posted by: willymack
» RE: Won't happen that way ... Posted by: herronsmith
» RE: Won't happen that way ... Posted by: HoboHomo

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Unfortunately...
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Posted by: graemebacque on Jul 7, 2009 1:08 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... The best equipped to survive the coming crisis are the same people who created this mess in the first place. There's no justice!

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» RE: Unfortunately... Posted by: racetoinfinity
» Barbarian Dark Ages loom in the horizon Posted by: ScoobyDoobyDoo
» RE: Unfortunately... Posted by: herronsmith
» RE: Unfortunately... Posted by: Shey

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missing link
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Posted by: yirrp on Jul 7, 2009 1:36 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Who was the Nobel Laureate noted for the comment " mankind is the missing link between the ape and human being." The comment is more of a disservice to the ape, a creature of raw physical power rarely abused.

To be sane is to show reasonable sound judgment, yet somehow I can't see an intelligent species such as ours rising above our self serving behaviour which overwhelms all so called progress. There are generations coming through which welcome global warming because they will live in more temperate climates. Our disconnect with reality evens engineers species extinction as a means to max out profits for their increasing rarity.


More than ninety percent of all life forms that have existed on earth are extinct. Extinction is the norm rather than the exception, so are we witnessing the evolution or devolution of the human race, a species which for whatever collective reason, still appears content to maintain the status quo and live under an illusion of materialism which somehow disconnects from the whole. Basic algebra can't even support such stupidity.

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» Not about our species Posted by: mgmyers79

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Out of 7 billion, a few hundred million survive
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Posted by: CRaPWHiSPeReR on Jul 7, 2009 1:40 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just making sure everyone saw that part..

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» more bullshit Posted by: Shey
» bullshit Posted by: Shey

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Prof Bob
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Posted by: ProfBob on Jul 7, 2009 1:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Great article. Little doubt that we can't save ourselves. But for those who still have hope it is worth reading the non-fiction/sci fi series on overpopulation and how it might be effectively reduced at http://andgulliverreturns.info

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The whole thing is a scam.
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Posted by: joebanana on Jul 7, 2009 1:55 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Earth has been going through natural warming, and cooling cycles since it's beginning. I aint too worried about the warming cycle, it's the ice age (or, the giant snowball)part that makes me nervous. But then again, I aint gonna be here for it.

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» RE: The whole thing is a scam. Posted by: themotie
» RE: The whole thing is a scam. Posted by: peacefullaim1

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All Good and Bad Things Come to an End
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Posted by: bryangalt on Jul 7, 2009 1:59 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We the People, like 99.9% of all species that have ever lived, had our shot at greatness. We the People were given a chance by God if you will, or Nature if you prefer, to rise up above the pettiness, greed, envy and desire so that we would be able to travel from here to greater destinations in the stars.

But, we the people just couldn't let it go. We just could put down our toys, stop thinking about money, stop bombing our neighbers, stop poisoning our waters, stop raping our forests, our wildlife and our atmosphere.

What have we gained in the end? Well, the real surprise for the millions that are predicted to survive will come when they emerge from whatever hole they hid out in and discover that the surface of the Earth has been scorched by a chemical gas release that will kill every air breathing animal (stupid ones like humans too) plus virtually wipe ouot the entire plant ecosystems as well.

I guess thats when the rich will get to start eating their hearts out, and their neighbors too. As for the rest of the people I can only say that Nature always has the last word, but we could have had a say in our final destination too if we had only grown up to see what really matters, and it certainly isn't gay marriage, Jesus in schools, or Al Queda.

Soon, it will be a fight for the very survival of every species, thanks to our arrogance and stupidity.

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people do not need jobs, they need food, water and shelter
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Posted by: Suzon on Jul 7, 2009 2:16 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Much--possibly most--organized human activity is detrimental and the corporation's role is criminal.

In 1067 William the Conquerer granted the first charter of his dynasty (his direct descendants are still in charge of what should be called the Norman-English Empire) to the Corporation of the City of London. The City (or 'Square Mile') is like the Vatican, a law unto itself. It specializes in 'financial services' and poses a great threat to the world because it controls (blackmails) governments.

The dynasty founded by the rapist, arsonist and murderer William the Conquerer has always needed powerful supporters. It once gave away huge estates and it continues to grant favors to corporations. I have over 80 royal charters which show that the current 'sovereign' has commanded her ministers to serve and her judges to protect vested interests. Favorable treatment is to be given to international bankers, the arms trade, huge construction companies, insurers, brewers and distillers, big accounting companies, etc.

Corporations are designed to concentrate power at the top and (in the US through campaign donations and in the UK directly through ministers and judges) have driven and protected reckless and damaging legislation. (Do you think that the US and UK governments would have thrown billions at the big banks out of choice?)

Corporations are responsible for warfare. Take the profit out of war and it won't happen. No profit, no war. Corporations are 'extensions' of William the Conquerer--his inclination to rape, pillage, burn and kill lives on in the corporation.

Remove the damage done by self-serving CEOs and Gaia will suffer less and so will all human beings.

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It's not too late
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Posted by: shellius on Jul 7, 2009 2:20 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's not too late and Lovelock doesn't believe that it is. Some of the things in this article contradict one of Lovelock's latest speeches. He thinks we will need to use nuclear power and biochar. (Waxman-Markey provides some money for nuclear power and that's a good thing. Look up "fourth generation nuclear power" and you will see that it uses it's own nuclear waste.)

We have to get over our "fear" (bias) of nuclear power. We have to start building them ASAP because they will take 10 years to build.

If you want to hear Lovelock's latest speech on this subject from only a few weeks ago, check out this recording:
Lovelock speech

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» No Fear of Nuclear Posted by: LeaderofMen
» RE: No Fear of Nuclear Posted by: QuestionAuthority
» RE: No Fear of Nuclear Posted by: themotie
» RE: Technological hubris Posted by: marid
» RE: Technological hubris Posted by: dingham
» RE: Technological hubris Posted by: jsong123

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Humans, another species whose time will end
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Posted by: sfortuna on Jul 7, 2009 2:37 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Like the dodo, sabretooth tiger, passenger pigeon and mastodon, it is the destiny of homo sapiens to lie as scattered fossils some day. If the earth's ecosystems comprise a unified, living, biological entity, no one species will be able to dominate or do it in. The planet's natural defenses will kick in like antibodies sensing infection from the human bacteria producing toxins. We will either drown in our own filth, eradicate ourselves with increasingly complex and expensive weapons, the livestock we raise will turn toxic or we'll starve for lack of resources. Our rivers will divert underground, our GMO crops will fail, or a virus will mutate for which we have no sdefense. Failing that, there are the mainstays of science fiction, mass earthquake or meteor strike. We know the planet has had several End of Life events and most of us want box seats for the fourth.

I do not fear for the long term safety and sanctity of the earth. It will spin in its orbit, blissfully unaware of us, heating and cooling through seasons of solar tides and gamma storms. In the end, the Democrat, the Republican, tycoon and pauper, saint and sinner will be forgotten and irrelevant. I used to try to save the world from itself, but I soon realized the futility and even arrogance of that stance.

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Hemp and Marijuana
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Posted by: Carts on Jul 7, 2009 2:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hemp can save the planet and we can all get high on Marijuana then.

Thanks to America we destroyed the world with oil - those bastards at Du Pont and the FDA.

America - the Neo Nazi state - thanks a lot!

An Aussie

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» I see a Rope. Posted by: johnwinthrop
» RE: Hemp and Marijuana Posted by: JenniferBedingfield
» RE: Hemp and Marijuana Posted by: warphead

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Koran
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Posted by: Zxyler on Jul 7, 2009 2:42 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Given the hyperbole already on display, it can’t be long before some conservative howler warns that the bill's green facade shares hues with the Koran.

I don't understand this statement. What has the Koran to do with this argument?

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» RE: Koran Posted by: alexandra_hamilton
» RE: It is not a conspiracy Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Kind of a joke
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Posted by: Perry Logan on Jul 7, 2009 3:20 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What a strange race we are.

We invented science.

We used science to destroy the world.

When the scientists tried to warn us the world was being destroyed --we called them hoaxers. Kind of a joke.


Proof that Torture is GOOD for You

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» RE: Kind of a joke Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Most morons gone?
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Posted by: johnwinthrop on Jul 7, 2009 4:04 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Finally Alternet publishes some good news.

Enough with the same old stories about too many people "suffering" because of choices they make.

Ironically "climate change" is not one of those choices, as it is barely affected by human choice(no "AGW" for you nerds out there).

But food shortages, water shortages, nonCO2 pollution and bad diet diseases are thinning out an excessive, basically unintelligent mob. Africa, Asia and Latin America in particular will improve significantly.

Finally the apes, elephants, fauna and small mammals as well as fish will have a fighting chance. Why DO so many people on Alternet assume lots of healthy people spreading everywhere on the globe is a good thing?

When the major product several nations produce is AIDS, you know it's time to winnow the crop.

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Population management.
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Posted by: thethinkingman on Jul 7, 2009 4:26 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So a lot of people are going to die.

That sounds like a solution to me, particularly as they aren't going to die because it's more a case of a lot of people aren't going to be born.

I have no idea what is driving this current bout of mass hysteria but if in fact man made global climate change is a fact then the only solution, as opposed to postponement, is to get the planet's population down and then hold it down.

It's time for one world government with a rational approach to population reduction instead of this endless quest for more fertility.

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good news for Wall Street
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Posted by: richholland on Jul 7, 2009 4:48 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
10.000 years ago England and Europe were one landscape(see Wkipedia)

then sealevel rose and rose..
from France till Denmark hundreds of villages in meantime disappeared, .
NOW Wallstreet found the trick;
step 1 tell the peasants they are white and sinfull and destroyed the earth.....
step 2 make a corporation to sell shares and make money...
step 3 as usual people will spend their last penny.
step 4; CO2 or the devil cannot be stopped by bringing money to the rich.

Wisdom number 5;
Everybody reading this will die within 99 years from new.

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If Anyone...
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Posted by: LeaderofMen on Jul 7, 2009 4:53 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...if anyone actually thinks this planet can sustain 6, 7, 8 or 9 billion people indefinitely, you have never lived in a closed system before.

Oh, sorry. We ALL live in a closed system.

The problem we have is that the last 50 years has been totally, utterly and radically unique in human history. The last half century's progress will never happen again in the history of this planet. It's rapidly coming to an end because we've nearly sucked out all the resources we depend on for that progress. Once the metals, liquids and gasses we absolutely need to have modern civilization are no longer profitably extractable, we're done. There's no more.

Then the inevitable decline of the 6, 7, 8 or 9 billion of us, emitting wastes like no tomorrow, will come to an end. It will take, what, 1000 years for an equilibrium to occur. By that time, humans will no longer be 6, 7, 8 or 9 billion 'strong', but rather remnants - tatters.

What an excellent scifi novel to write. I'll have to get started.

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» RE: If Anyone... Posted by: QuestionAuthority
» RE: If Anyone... Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» Dibs on that... Posted by: HoboHomo

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It can't happen soon enough
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Posted by: Klaus on Jul 7, 2009 5:07 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
There is no question that human population has far exceeded the earth's ability to stain it. A 5 to 6 BILLION person die off is inevitable. I for one would very much like to see the other side of this. Who know's maybe.... But on the other side, if I see a gawd damned republican i will not hesitate to exterminate the bastard. The road to hell is paved with republicans!!!! Thanks assholes!!!

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LifeBoat or Rapture Bus??
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Posted by: Purple Girl on Jul 7, 2009 5:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Several hundred Million or just 144,000.
Gaia or God- which will seek it's wrath upon the offending Humans.
Only difference is this 'End of Dayer' is too old to call a seat.
although I am a avid believer that the planet is warming- both as a result of Our activities and responsiblitiy, and from nature cyclical phenomena- I am not one to run around like the Futilitic 'Chicken Little'.
Whether the result of a 'homostatsis' or Judgement- We as humans are limited in our ability to avoid such 'almighty' actions.
Granted by ending Wars as the means to resolving problems and curbing our use of pollutants- we could stave off these 'inevitables'...But according to both an 'Apocalyptic' event still remains "inevitable".
The only thing they both inspire is the unbecoming attitude of self Righteousness to be one of the 'Chosen' few on the Boat or the Bus. Ah how to elicit the apathetic attitude of Self preservation in humanity- play Musical Chairs with the 'End of Times'.
Similar to the attitude of the Holey Rollers- why tend to the AIDS patient- 'God will judge them sinners and banish them to Hell anyway. Why get involved when their fate is sealed'- Right? So will this become of attitude when victims of 3rd world countries face droughts and flooding- 'Oh it's just the process of Culling the herd, no need to send aid'.
This End of Days scenario is as myopic and destructive as "Revelations" to the Human psyche and condition.Does he fancy himself the modern day St John? Nostradamus? Does he hope to get a fervant blind following like these previous "soothsayers" in the decades to come?
I reject this 'Prophecy', this morbid Facination with Global Devastation and mass extinction. Because both ultimately put forth that underlying claim that 'Redemption' is impossible. Granted if God Choose to destroy mankind by slipping the Earths Crust off it Core, shaking Us off like Fleas- there won't be a damn thing we can do to stop it ...And then which camp will be able to claim their "End of Times' Theory was the 'winner'- Would it really fucking matter?
How many zealots of this Theory will committ mass suicide to spare themselves the pre-ordained 'Wrath' of Gaia as foretold by their 'Oracle'? What makes this End Game Scenario any different than the ones expoused by Jim Jones? Keresh? Heavensgate?

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The U.S. needs to be liberated
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Posted by: Karlh on Jul 7, 2009 5:15 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Just as the U.S. liberated Europe and Asia from Fascism in the 1940's, we now are the ones who need to be liberated from Fascism. We are a threat to the planet. Unfortunately, there's no military power on Earth that is strong enough to threaten us. We still have a whole lot of nukes and anyone who would try anything, our fascist leaders would make sure the planet is destroyed. One way or the other our so called leaders and the oligarchy they serve is determined to destroy all life on Earth.

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» RE: The U.S. needs to be liberated Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» RE: There is no outside force Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» RE: There is no outside force Posted by: HoboHomo
» RE: There is no outside force Posted by: HoboHomo

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Soylent Green is back
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Posted by: grindermonkey on Jul 7, 2009 5:17 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Or grow less hair.

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Here's an idea
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Posted by: snowhound on Jul 7, 2009 5:33 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
How about the US government nationalize all forms of energy and use it's profits to create new technologies for green energy. It's obvious that corporations like Mobil uses it's power to prevent alternative energies. If every nation did this and made a commitment to clean energy, I'm sure new technologies would become more affordable. Also, the Cap and Trade bill will only pass higher energy costs to the consumer, while the Oil companies will continue to make huge profits.

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» RE: Here's an idea Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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rgd
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Posted by: rgd on Jul 7, 2009 5:57 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Up to a year ago I used to build houses for a living. Now I read Alternet. I agree with going nucleaor(sp?) It can't be as bad for us as all the alternative building products from recycled whatever and stuck together with loads of chemicals that give off gases and odors that make people sick living in their own houses. Just wait until all the new energy codes kick in and we all start paying for them.
How many of us reading this article have been hearing this for decades. I remember hearing about spray deodorant depleating the ozone back in the mid sixties and we were going to all die from pollution in just a few years. And lets not forget the ice-age idea a little over 30 years ago.
My point is this: So many "credible scientist" have had so many different points of view over the last fifty years, why should we believe them now? Especially when politicians and wall streeters jump on the band wagon.

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» RE: rgd Posted by: Charlow
» RE: rgd Posted by: cplot

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James Lovelock Is a Silly Old Fool But His Predictions of a Mass Die Off May Well Come True
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Posted by: tony_opmoc on Jul 7, 2009 6:00 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The Die Off will not be a result of Climate Change, but because ruling Governments and Elites believe all This Nonsense. In fact the Policies for Population Reduction Have Been Ongoing Covert And Active For The Last 50 Years with Africa as The Number One Genocide Target.

Lovelock is Correct in Identifying Sea Level Changes as a Primary Indicator of The Extent of The Real Problem.

But any old fool can make Doomster Predictions. Doomsters have been predicting the End of The World throughout recorded human history. Their Predictions Have always Turned Out To be Complete Nonsense.

So admittedly we have had Global Warming and Cooling and Sea Level Changes Over Time Immemorial. It's what happens. It's Natural and Normal. It's always happenned and it always will.

More recently with the Doomsters Shouting With All Their Might for the Last 30 Years - "The End is Nigh" - what Has Actually Happenned?

Have The Maldives disappeared under a Flood? Surely by Now, Venice must have sunk without Trace?

Yet the Reality Bares Absolutely No Relation to The Dire Predictions.

Here is a Scientific Paper Submitted as Evidence To The UK Parliament on The Subject of Sea Level Change.

Read it and Weep. You believe a load of Religious Garbage produced from an Extremely Powerful Rich Group of Genocidal Psychopaths.

FACTS AND FICTION ABOUT SEA LEVEL CHANGE MAY LOW-LYING ISLANDS AND COASTAL AREAS BE FREED FROM THE CONDEMNATION TO BECOME FLOODED IN THE NEAR-FUTURE

Tony

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» Supercalifragalistic Posted by: LeaderofMen
» RE: Supercalifragalistic Posted by: tony_opmoc
» Superbly stated sir... Posted by: zigy
» Bad choice of a link Posted by: CKat

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The dawn of the dead
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Posted by: solrev on Jul 7, 2009 6:04 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
“Gaia Theory holds that Earth possesses a sophisticated planetary intelligence that responds to levels of heat from the sun in such a way as to maintain a climate homeostasis supportive of life.”
The problem with Lovelock is statements like this, planetary intelligence, please. This makes him easy to dismiss, if he would just stick to the science and leave the mysticism to us mystics he would be better off. “The loss of reflective ice cover, the death of carbon eating algae as oceans warm, and methane released by thawing permafrost—will soon accelerate the heating trend already underway, leading to sudden and dramatic shifts in global climate.” There is not a reputable scientist and a lot of people who do not believe this. Lovelock criticizes scientific models for accuracy, ignoring the fact that only in this current interracial period were we even able to collect data and create models. His support for nuke energy is misplaced. I live in Illinois we have 11 nuke plants, and we still get more energy from coal. We would need 15 new nuke plants to replace coal just in Illinois. That would make 26 plants producing 40 to 50 tons of nuke waste annually. For you nuke fans, yea you can reuse some waste and reduce the quantity, but the waste you end up with is a lot more powerful than the waste you started with.

What does Illinois use so much energy for? People need jobs and jobs require energy. Most of the jobs being done in Illinois are a waste of time. But they create wealth for the wealth creators and subsistence for the slaves. That is what needs to change, reduce demand or many will not survive. At least for those who do survive they will be prepared to also survive the next ice age. So, Gabriel blows the first trumpet and a third of the planet is burned up. We were unable to use the sweat of our brow to prevent it. It is not the wrath of God it is our own stupidity. That’s what pisses God off. It was always here for the taking.

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» RE: The dawn of the dead Posted by: themotie

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An Alternate View
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Posted by: PaulK on Jul 7, 2009 6:21 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I look at the same world but I don't share Dr. Lovelock's opinions.

He's correct in saying that the seas are becoming more acid. 70% of the earth's species, especially species in the oceans, are scheduled to become extinct. This will be a tragedy. If we are wise we'll immediately start freezing the eggs of thousands of various species in liquid nitrogen.

What actually will happen in the oceans is that a few species will adapt and thrive. Just as an ailanthus tree can grow in a crack in a parking lot, just as insects can now live in a DDT-filled field, so certain plankton and certain fish can survive in acid seas. They will expand to fill an open ecological niche.

Lovelock sees a massive human dieoff. I do too, if we do nothing. However, I see precisely what kills the humans. 200 years ago, a person's chance of getting cancer was 1 in 1800. A baby born today has a 1 in 2 chance of getting cancer. The decision to get cancer or to not get cancer is largely a family decision. Mom and Dad choose to bring home the fatal carcinogens. For example, the nipple on that baby bottle is made of a 100% hard plastic endocrine disruptor. Safer baby bottles are on the market. The functional idiots will cluelessly watch their family members die off one by one until the survivors painfully reach the conclusion that their government isn't keeping them safe. Then the survivors will buy the safe stuff and their families will live. The same can be said about heart attack food and diabetes drinks.

When I was young I heard of "Simonian optimists" who believed that technology would cure all of our problems. I often see technology creating many problems, but I have reason to believe that technology may attack both the sources and the symptoms of climate change.

I forecast that the price of most forms of renewable energy (electricity, fuel in a tank, on-site heat) will drop by 50% per decade for the next three decades. Currently, wind and solar aren't really competing with strip-mined coal (if our economic system doesn't count all the pollution, and it doesn't). However, in 10 to 20 years we will have the technological tools to switch over, and the world will have the economic need to switch over.

My most radical forecast is that the floating polar ice caps can be restored for a total cost of maybe $10 billion dollars, hopefully with low ecological damage to the plankton and other species in local under-ice waters. The forecasted collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and the possible seawater undermining of the much greater East Antarctic Ice Sheet may then be prevented. Florida, New York, London and Silicon Valley need not be flooded.

I'm not exactly a futurist. I'm an inventor. I pretty much know where I want to put the glass, the steel, the wood, the nails, the motors and the software routines.

My forecasts take into account that we had an idiot in the White House last year, this term we have a notably smarter guy who still may or may not understand lone inventors, and next term we may still have an imperfect guy in the White House. IF, and this is a big if, the Obama Administration ACTUALLY, none of this baloney as usual, wants to transform the American economy, create jobs, shut off the worldwide market for Iranian oil, lower air pollution and turn CO2-spewing smokestacks into a valuable raw material, then we might make surprising progress before November of 2012.

However, my fear is that President Obama will be successfully sandbagged by "smart guys" who turn out to be real idiots with no sense of perspective whatsoever. Various hungry governments the world over will eventually find a way to take up this leadership, and America can remain a bankrupt, polluted mess. We can always emigrate.

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These comments are BAFFLING
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Posted by: Beck on Jul 7, 2009 6:26 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Has anyone mentioned US CHANGING? Did I miss that? I keep reading population and something about Alexander the great, but who is driving today? Anyone have a flight coming up? Are you using a dryer in your future? Do you have your air conditioner on? Transportation is the biggest source of global warming. Can't we address THAT? REad all this and you see what the problem is: let an article introduce the problem and everyone finds intelligent or cynical or downright hostile ways to say, "well, someone else should certainly do something about all that."

We make as much sense as people sitting in a burning house saying the following:

You know, rich Republicans always get rescued from THEIR burning houses.

That other house caught fire and didn't burn to the ground.

There's no such thing as burning houses.

All houses that catch fire burn to the ground. Assholes.

I might just light another match; everyone else is.

I just lit another match, and there are too many people in Africa.

MY matches don't start real fires; only other matches start the fires that matter. Ow!

Oh, I shouldn't light THIS match, but everyone else is, and I've been told all my life it would be very satisfying. Huh, it is! I should light another one.

I'd get up and walk out but in the Middle Ages people were burned at the stake.

I guess I could start putting this out, but first I have 1,000 intellectual-sounding reasons that it wasn't my fault it started, and I should list them instead of taking action. You know, if it wasn't my fault to begin with, I should dump some gasoline on the problem.



It's not the sheeple that are the problem, unless ALL the people faced with the biggest problem that seems to ever have become evident included intellectualizing instead of hanging a clothesline, stopping use of the car to the greatest degree possible, NO flying whatsoever unless you also would toss around gasoline while you're sitting in your burning house, all of it. We all know what needs done. Everyone here. Why isn't anyone writing about it? Can't we inspire each other, goad each other? I truly do not understand this. We're like a bunch of people in a boat, each with a hammer bashing holes in the bottom, and we have some kind of crazy idea that we should continue because we see others doing it and we've been told what fun it would be. I guess I can continue smashing holes in the boat because there are other holes being smashed, but maybe sinking the ship earlier won't be the non-event my sense of entitlement or cynicism or blame-passing told me it would. There is only one solution. Each person does the most available. people do follow. That's already been made evident.

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» coal powers the internet, too Posted by: inverse_agonist
» Thank You Posted by: psmitten

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I agree
[Report this comment]
Posted by: aawindoze3 on Jul 7, 2009 6:37 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Personally, I think we passed the "point of no return" many years ago. Not much of anyting we can do about it now. Its just too late.

RIff
Online Privacy when it Counts

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» RE: I agree Posted by: sirios
» RE: I agree Posted by: Sister_Lauren
» ID THEFT ABOVE Posted by: u2r1

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We have known but Ignored
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Posted by: HillbillyRob on Jul 7, 2009 6:43 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That we cannot continue raping the worlds resources. The world will be here after we are gone, unless we actually managed to blow it up.
The ecology on the other hand is the part we need to breathe, eat, etc.
It is a closed system.
So many people whine and bitch, but I see few actually trying to do something about it.
I live on a small subsistence eco farm start up. We knew for years, but like most people we did not really pay as much attention as we should have, when we lived in the city(several cities), but we did recycle, did not buy a bunch of crap we did not need, I always made shopping and errands trips count by doing at least 2 or more things that needed to be done while I had the car out. Knowing about mountain top destruction for electrical power, I turned off lights and such that were not being used or needed.
Even so our house hold carbon foot print was about 12tons. Over the last 4 years or so we have steadily decreased in small amounts to less than 3 tons for our household. We are not sitting in the cold and dark, this summer though we are dealing with heat as the ac died and I don't have the funds to fix it. Added insulation, heavy curtains, mylar on the windows in summer, painted the roof white with reflective paint. Before I did these things it got to 110 degrees in this place even with ac on now the hottest has been 88, not comfortable but we manage. We have cut our power use from 3300kwhrs to 1100 (or 450$ to 150$ a month)and we expect to make that 500kwhrs when we get solar water heater and solar power for the well and spring-house and roof rain catchments for food garden irrigation, limited but we have been having summer droughts. WE have replaced about 30% of our lights with LEDs as the CFLs we put in 5 years ago die off. (Sams club 15$)It has not been as expensive to do as we first thought, even replacing clothes and dishwashers with energy star units. I some of the parts to build a solar oven(300+degrees will cook about anything).
So instead of piling into the SUV to go a mile to the store..walk (we live too far from anything but grow a lot and trade with our neighbors for other food stuffs and buy only what we need and try to get no or low processed/packaged stuff. There is a local mill that does corn, wheat and oats with a water wheel. It is impossible to do all at once, but we did in steps to make each thing a good habit to replace a bad habit..
Now that I have blathered all that. I also think that we should be already building space habitats and asteroid mining. WE have the power for so much destruction why can't we turn that to constructive uses...we have to cap the corpse power first. Nukes are not the answer either, spending the same amount for a solar farm produces nearly the same amount of power during the day, and the boiling salt system in use in Spain produces 24/7.

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» Thank you for your inspiring post Posted by: stellabloo

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What a bunch of CRAP
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Posted by: dstauff on Jul 7, 2009 7:01 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This is really too ridiculous. Alternet has completely become a joke.

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» Agreed! Posted by: zooeyhall
» RE: Deep wisdom is often overlooked Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Are We There Yet?
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Posted by: CTC123 on Jul 7, 2009 7:22 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Consider the Connection to:
The Slippery Slope
We the CONSUMER have a choice.
Please Search:
CTC123GREEN
Thank you for what you can do.

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A few definitions of "intellectualize"
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Posted by: Beck on Jul 7, 2009 7:35 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
1. To furnish a rational structure or meaning for.
2. To avoid psychological insight into (an emotional problem) by performing an intellectual analysis.

to examine or interpret rationally, often without proper regard for emotional considerations

To endow with intellect; to bestow intellectual qualities upon; to cause to become intellectual.



Intellectualization will not touch this problem. It's as much a diversion as the oft-criticized American Idol.

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BA
[Report this comment]
Posted by: mnstra on Jul 7, 2009 7:39 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
good article, but the gaia hypothesis is a turn off. he looses creditability as soon as he brings that up. Stick to the hard science , that is the language of modern humans. also,How much can we save our earth, when it is acceptable to blow tops of mountains off for coal?
Is that not the worse insanity in the world?
Is that a modern form of stewardship?

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"Global Warming" is Al Gore (the NWO/globalist whore) propaganda!!!
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Posted by: JohnTruth2001 on Jul 7, 2009 7:43 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Of course the corporations & unregulated countries like China & India are polluting/poisoning us to death, but "Global Warming" is a scam to further tax & control us sheeple!!!

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» Yeah, blame India and China ... Posted by: tommy_slothrop

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I don't buy it.
[Report this comment]
Posted by: r3s0n4t0r on Jul 7, 2009 7:49 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
We are constantly bombarded with this notion that a population reduction is inevitable and that it's us the people who are to blame.
Can you not see the main agenda here?
The banking/corporate elites and government are supporting this pseudo-science of man made global warming for their own selfish needs. They WANT you to think that all hope of saving our species is gone. They WANT you to be apathetic and to accept that the end is inevitable. After all who is going to suffer when the economy collapses and there are food shortages? They WANT a population reduction as it is in their best interests to use the Earth's resources for themselves. You people sicken me with your defeatist, doomsday, all hope is gone attitudes. What use is that?
I for one do not trust a thing Al Gore says or any of the governments or this article for that matter. If they were so concerned about the Earth then why are they creating taxes and cap and trade to profit from the hysteria created?
I've heard plenty of scientists who have tried to speak out against this false science. You need to question the majority not accept it.
It reminds me of Nazi Germany and the whole eugenics science popular in Europe during the early 20th century(yes a majority of their scientists supported it). A false science adopted by the elites as a means to carry out a genocide of an unimaginable scale.
We have more than enough resources to go around on this planet and technology is helping to create a greater abundance for everyone. Isn't it about time we restructured society to align it with the planet? We need to end this current cyclicle consumption driven capatalist society and create something for all the people in which or species is realligned with nature and the planets precious resources. People outlining how we have 6 billion on this planet seem to completely overlook the aspect of technology. Yes 6 billion is detrimental to the planet as our society does not work to ensure that we live sustainably. I think the Earth is capable of supporting far more people with some of the technologies on the horizon of human discovery just as long as we restrucure our society.

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» RE: I don't buy it. Posted by: warphead

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Gaia: How Can It Sustain Billions That Don't Know It Even Exists
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Posted by: edgar_michel on Jul 7, 2009 8:26 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
While I agree with Lovelock that life on Earth is an integrated web with each component depending on all the rest and that we as a species are intimately woven into that web whether we recognize it or not, I disagree that civilization will begin anew after the die-off.

First during the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries we have depleted most of the easily available natural resources that allowed a technological society to develop in the first place. It would seem to me that the form humanity would take after the die-off would be a much more primitive form than today. Without the easily available resources to maintain an advanced society, humanity will thrive in pockets of remaining forests in the northern latitudes as Lovelock suggests, but they won't be the progenitors of an advanced society because they will be strapped just to keep life and limb together not to mention the fact that easily available resources in pure form just won't be laying around on the ground as they were before the beginning of the industrial revolution. I therefore see a primitive exist for those who are tough enough to make it to the 22nd century. It would take 10 million years for earths crust to be recycled and new natural resources to once again found strewn all over the ground; until then, the human species will struggle to hang on as it did for so many millions of years before it first came into its own.

I do agree with Lovelock that nuclear power is the one thing that could, and I believe, might still pull us out our current downward spiral, but with a slightly different twist:

I believe that nuclear fusion holds the key, because nuclear fusion can lead to a solid state electric power plant, with no moving parts to wear out, that produces zero radioactive by-products and near zero emissions. Unfortunately the current holders of the purse strings don't have the imaginative capacity to understand this and so any project for the continued development of nuclear fusion gets only a trickle of financial support and also because the return on investment is measured in decades instead of days, months or years. There is the Helium 3 - Helium 3 fusion process that would lead directly to a solid state electric power plant that could eventually produce terawatts of power to light up our grid and the only waste product other than heat would be helium 4, the stuff you fill balloons with, eliminating greenhouse gasses entirely. The heat we produce in generating power isn't what leads to global warming, it is the greenhouse gasses that is produced in the process of generating power that fills our atmosphere and acts as a blanket that leads to global warming; eliminate the green house gasses and you eliminate global warming.

But that means transforming our entire society which has bull-headedly plowed forward on the notion that we can burn ever increasing volumes of oil and gas and that somewhere down the road God will save us from our folly. The fact that we now have an infrastructure, at least in the United States, wholly dependent on fossil fuels means that an enormous amount of energy will have to be spent transforming that fossil fuel infrastructure to something benign to the web of life that makes this planet habitable in the first place.

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Gaia: Continued
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Posted by: edgar_michel on Jul 7, 2009 8:27 AM   
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Before George W. Bush came to office we still had a chance to make that transition before millions of people begin dying off as a result of habitation loss. The United States could have redirected it financial might to research projects that had promise of leading to sustained nuclear fusion and the beginning of the transformation of our society into one that walks lightly on the planet while still providing 21st technology for communication and transportation; instead we got the 9/11 coup designed to precipitate oil acquisition wars at the expense of developing any alternative to oil. That is why 9/11 is such a water shed in history, because it cost the world another 10 years of holding on to the misguided notion that our current, and very profitable for some, technology was somehow the future, when it was in fact the unsustainable and decrepit past.



I also disagree with lovelock on his position on sustainable development. I think sustainable development weaves many technologies together, including, nuclear fusion, passive heating and cooling in housing design, water treatment systems that continually replenish water supplies just like an old fashion mountain stream, and agriculture that is responsive to the ecosystem in which it resides and includes a wide diversity of plant and animal life in its inventory. I think what we need to lose is profit motive and exchange it for a responding to exigencies motive.



The most crucial piece of the puzzle however, is nuclear fusion, because when that is developed, the transformation of the world infrastructure can begin without producing more life threatening green house gasses. We can get rid of cars and replace them with efficient high speed commuter rail that takes but a small fraction of the real estate that highways and roads require; and also doesn't require near the amount of CO2 producing concrete to build. All industry can stop using coal, oil and gas while maintaining current levels of production.



No More 9/11's and fossil fuel acquisition wars, tell your governments now that you want to move into the future, not die in the past.

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» RE: Nuclear fusion will be obsolete Posted by: edgar_michel

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making distinctions
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Posted by: chrysalis124812 on Jul 7, 2009 8:49 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
All this is impossible to understand without making some basic distinctions about what we really need to live. We need clean water and air to breathe, we need to be able to find or grow food, protect ourselves from extreme weather, have the company of others. Electric gadgets are conveniences, flush toilets are conveniences, AC and hot water is a convenience. Motorized travel of any kind is not necessary, merely a convenience. Granted, we all like them, but we don't require them to live. Those who think they would "die" without their conveniences probably will.

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» RE: Want to find clever new solutions? Posted by: chrysalis124812
» RE: Want to go back to a neolithic life? Posted by: chrysalis124812

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Climate Change is like Shit .....
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Posted by: jal64 on Jul 7, 2009 8:51 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
.... It happens!

The only thing constant about climate change is that it is constantly changing. Nothing we puny humans can do to effect that, one way or the other. IMO the best we can do is learn to live with it. Our bux are much better spent trying to mitigate the worst of the social damage.

The doom-sayers have no proof of their predictions. They have only computer models that are so in-accurate they don't even reliably predict the past. Don't forget, the models "predicted" sea & temperature changes between 1995 & 2008 more than double what actually occurred.

Re Cap&Trade, I heartily echo others who label it a SCAM. The AlGores of the world stand to gain millions if not Billions. When attempting to analyze anything political these days, first and foremost, Follow the Money and/or Power. C&T thus viewed is a simple old fashioned robber-baron power grab, nothing more, nothing less. PLUS, it accomplishes nothing, look to Europe's C&T record if you don't believe me.

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I'd like to get in the business! Sounds just like the moonshine industry...
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Posted by: ABetterFuture on Jul 7, 2009 8:53 AM   
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So, I don't grow corn for a living. Therefore, I missed out on the ethanol boom--an effort by Congress to enrich agricultural and monied interests at taxpayers' expense.

The cap and trade system is different. I own a computer and a laser printer, so I want to know who I need to buy in Congress in order to be "the guy" who prints carbon creds. You get your feel good control over your ideological devils--the folks who make energy, and I get filthy rich. Jimmy Swaggart, watch out!

I mean, if you're going to create an artificial economy out of whole cloth for your buddies, shouldn't at least a few of us benefit? Isn't that the way the Big Green operates?

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Cap and Trade
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Posted by: ClassAct on Jul 7, 2009 9:25 AM   
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The cap and trade principle offers the perfect free market alternative to imprisonment by the government. For instance, those of us who do not commit murders can sell our rights to kill to those who feel compelled to commit them. Then we can all be rich and happy! Except for the victims.

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THE DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL GROWTH
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Posted by: RICHARD RALPH ROEHL on Jul 7, 2009 9:39 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Once again... we shall post the comment as given below.

Old Coyote Knose... that the DOCTRINE OF PERPETUAL GROWTH of the human population and the global consumer economy on Planet Over-Birth Earth, a fragile HOST ORGANISM of finite space and finite resources, cannot be sustained much longer.

Wake up baboonies! PERPETUAL GROWTH in a closed looped system (the Gaia body called Earth) is NOT progress. It is cancer! Full blown cancer! And Jeeezass, Mohammad-mad, L.Ron Hubbard, Jim Jones, etc. will not save ewe folks from the coming calamity, a major extinction event. Only common sense can do that.

Alas! I don't have much faith in corrupt, sheep minded people clinging to outdated religious dogmesses, arrogant tribe-all-eeego and discredited economic theories. Humankind (a.k.a.: ewe-man-unkind) is a clever 'especies'... but it lacks common sense and prescience. I rest my case with the fools who $upported eight years of George W. Bush, the dry drunk $ociopath who planted and nutured the seeds for Amerika's ongoing economic collapse. Obama et al can't fix it! Amerika's karma suggests that it's too late.

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I believe that Lovelock is overly optimistic. I doubt any mammals can survive the H2S feedback loop.
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Posted by: Paul_C on Jul 7, 2009 10:17 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A recent Alternet article discussed the hydrogen sulfide feedback generated when the anaerobic boundary in the oceans rises close to the surface and "belches" unfathomable quantities of the gas into the atmosphere, forming sulfuric acid in the lungs of all that breathe.

It will kill everything, just like it did in the Permian Period, if I recall properly, some 250 million years ago.

peace,
Paul

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Who are the real culprits?
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Posted by: richard0a37 on Jul 7, 2009 10:37 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Earth is estimated to be about 4.5 billion years old. The earliest evidence for life on earth suggests it first appeared about 3.4 billion years ago. If this period of time is reduced to 1 year, then Man first appeared about a minute ago. A couple of seconds ago, the dark side of climate change made its appearance. Should we be worried?

Assuming the human being occupies a volume of space = 7 x 3 x 2 = 42 cubic feet, what volume of space would be required to pack in all the 6 billion people who live on this planet?

Well, there are 5,280 feet in a mile, so a cubic mile equals that many cubed. That’s 5.28 x 5.28 x 5.28 billion cubic feet.

Therefore, number of people packed in a cubic mile = 147.197952 / 42 = 3.5 billion.

Therefore, you could pack the entire human race in the square mile of the city of London, and it would be less than 2 miles high.

Somehow, manmade catastrophic climate change just doesn’t ring true. Oh by the way, I’m writing this in Ghana where the average afternoon temperature is in the mid 30s.

If Man is in some way responsible for frightening levels of climate change, perhaps we could ask what sections of which populations are generating it. Are the people of Iraq and Afghanistan worried for example, or don’t they count? How many bombs and missiles have blown up in these two countries?

What percentage of global warming are the military responsible for with vehicles that consume horrendous quantities of fuel? Are those vehicles subject to emission controls, or are they designed to choke the enemy?

What about all the nuclear bombs that have detonated? What has been their impact on climate change? What about North Korea’s latest detonations? How much shit have they thrown into the atmosphere?

Take a look at the earth from Google Earth. See how much of the earth is not populated. It is true that major cities across the planet are heavily populated, but relatively speaking they occupy miniscule areas of land, the rest of which is mainly open fields and terrain that is unpopulated.

And this goes for practically all countries and regions.

In fact, the UK is almost totally fields. You can drive for hours and hours and see only open fields and pasture. Same goes for USA. And as for Africa, population wise vs land area, it is nearly all open space.

If people really want to get het up about climate change, then they need to be far more specific about who really is causing the problem. The answer is government and the military.

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» RE: Who are the brain police" Posted by: wolvedrive

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The end of a civilization
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Posted by: JJdazer on Jul 7, 2009 10:39 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Civilizations come, civilizations go.
We just happen to be living at a time when we will become a witnesses.

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» RE: The end of a species Posted by: Sister_Lauren

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Confessions on Being Prepared
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Posted by: Merel on Jul 7, 2009 11:04 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hmmm...I wouldn't say that the conclusions/warnings that Dr. Lovelock has are 'dark'. Rather, I think that they are realistic. I don't think that humankind can actually put the breaks on detrimental climate and environmental change. I mean, try putting just ten people in a room to come to an agreement to see how difficult it is. Now, get 7 billion involved. So, given that I am of the same general opinion as Dr. Lovelock, I have slowly been preparing for 20 years in the event of a catastrophe.

I moved to an area that is not going to be inundated (I am what I term an 'environmental refugee');
I bought books on survival, growing foods, foraging, storing foods, etc., and I am learning how to do all this.
I bought good survival gear including a compass, (should the north still be the north), good boots, warm clothing, etc.;

I'm ready for the backpack revolution.

Is this extreme? Who knows, but I have always felt that something huge is going to go down in my life time and I am prepared to be one of the ones who survives.

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Human beings = stupidity
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Posted by: wireup on Jul 7, 2009 11:19 AM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I've always felt that there is something truly wrong with the human race. NO OTHER form of life does what he have done: destroys where it lives, makes it uninhabitable.

We are a mistake - like the dinosaurs (although sometimes I think the dinosaurs, had they survived, would have been a hell of a lot smarter) - a genetic anomaly and Mother Nature is now about to correct her mistake. Makes me glad I never had children.

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» RE: Human beings = stupidity Posted by: r3s0n4t0r

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U blockhead Charlie Brown,DOA's got the Bo!o_?
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Posted by: wolvedrive on Jul 7, 2009 12:12 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
WHATEVER YA DO DON'T SAY Bo!o_?, ok,allrighty then,,,The nuclear thing would that be the irrational fear of the current regime or just the way it all turned out after the hittite oppenhiemer einstien phlyer phere thing,boy we sure ripped those guys off,ha ha,and isn't it fun being the worlds lone super evil with all those super duper powers,huh ,i think were all pretty much in agreement on that one ,a vote won't even be nessacerry to the furtherment of our organazations final blueprinted intent and haphazzard plans,were so smart (like a snake)or just the sorta program without the exteneded 1/2 lifes or just the kinda protocalls whair the actual end product is a source of degeneration and waste which one A B or C,maybe F thats where we just make it up as we merrily go along and keep alert for commercially exsploitable uses along the merry little way (mining,demolition,trickle down aeronautics and a remote sources of electro radio isotope enegy decay,spread around all over the free market evolving as it does,guided by the principals greed and the rest of the deadly sins,a perpetual crisis,an on going state of war,cuz only the truly proliterite are qualified,thair by requiring a strata and security caste and i promise wi'll pass the savings right back to U,the end "user,offcourse your children will probably become dependent on the foreign alien and queer energy source and employed in the maintanience of the artificial energy as a critical state of alert will perpetually be a mandatory imposition,I'm really glad we'ev all thought this out so well ,ok ready lets half cock whatever tOOlge the bankrupt capitolist security state has left, OO yeah or Z,the way the sun does it without division,ya really gotta be a rocket scientist to figure that one out or should i say in,hydrogen,oxygen,water,electricity, THAT & god speed,,,maybe a little platneum(P)(TM)(R)(C)OO argue with that,fyre

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hemp and the weed
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Posted by: darkmark on Jul 7, 2009 12:56 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
yep its hemp and marijuana that could bring us out of this. with marijuana its just eat it or smoke it no extras and its well known that we need something to entertain us. hemp for clothes, housing, paper whatever get over it dow and all you other corporatist entities. and as for food well hemp again and then there's always the rich for those of us that can't give up meat.

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GLOBAL FRAUD
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Posted by: lastmanstanding on Jul 7, 2009 12:57 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
On average, the last couple of winters in Canada have been the coldest in over a decade with many regions experiencing snowfall and hail in June. 

Listening to the Weather Channel report these oddities, you'd think one of the announcers would make light of Global Warming and that it's seemingly missing in action. 

But you will hear nary a word regarding a climate change during these cold snaps -- only that “Mother Nature” is to blame, and that things will soon be back to “normal”. 

Isn’t it curious that freezing temperatures are a "natural" occurrence but hot spells "man-made"? It would appear a gag order has been placed on weather reporters referring to Global Warming or Climate Change when it comes to abnormally low temperatures. 

30 years ago, scientists were predicting a cooling trend. Of course, opportunistic fear mongers like Al Gore and junk scientist David Suzuki would have a hard sell with a climate change/carbon credit scheme based on "Global Cooling". 

“Dirty drivers” with their gas-guzzling SUVs and pictures of distraught looking polar bears standing on tiny icebergs make it far easier for consumers to accept a punitive tax on practically every aspect of their lives. 

We’ll even throw away our incandescent bulbs for those energy efficient mercury filled ones, and abandon purified water for the chemical soup that flows from our taps. GMO’s have become acceptable and since the FDA recently approved cloned meat for market, that must be good as well. Anything to save the planet, right? 

Less than thirty minutes into "A Convenient Lie", Gore was already spewing the “carbon tax” mantra and pointing the finger at the general public. No mention though of the biggest polluters on the planet -- like the military, airline, chemical, energy, plastics, forestry, factory farming or mining industries. 

Here’s a fat-cat who had a zinc mine on his farm, pays a $2500 a month utility bill on his estate and flies everywhere on a private jet. Isn’t it funny he’s so concerned with our lives being ruined by the ecology? 

Just follow the money trail. It’s not all that complicated. 

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» RE: GLOBAL FRAUD Posted by: Sekhmetnakt

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Our Jurassic Park
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Posted by: Ptah on Jul 7, 2009 1:11 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Science and religion were rudely separated by the 18th century leading to uncontrolled capitalization of Earth's resources and the tyranny of (monotheistic) religion (as opposed to indigenous spirituality) which deprecated the life force of the Earth. But take heart, when our species' ascendancy has come to its inevitable end, the earth will survive and other kinds of life will reach for the apex of the pyramid of existence. In the meantime we must try, sincerely, to restore what we can of our precious Mother and of ourselves as a species. I like the following passage from Jurassic Park in this regard. It was voiced by the chaos theory mathematician (Jeff Goldblum):

"Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves."

- Ian Malcolm

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Lovelock's right in his contempt for liberal environmentalists and their cap-and-trade scam.
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Posted by: tommy_slothrop on Jul 7, 2009 1:13 PM