[Texgreen] Siberia may be the new China

[Roger Baker]

[Lovelock's Gaia theory is now widely accepted in the scientific  
community. His new warning is that we have overwhelmed the Gaia  
regulatory mechanisms, so the temperature will keep increasing due to  
positive feedback, like the increased solar heating of regions  
previously covered by white ice, etc. -- Roger]


GAIA SCIENTIST LOVELOCK PREDICTS PLANETARY WIPEOUT
By Jeremy Lovell
Reuters
November 28, 2006

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx? 
type=scienceNews&storyid=2006
-11-28T153508Z_01_L28841108_RTRUKOC_0_US-EARTH-FEVER.xml

LONDON - The earth has a fever that could boost temperatures by 8  
degrees
Celsius making large parts of the surface uninhabitable and threatening
billions of peoples' lives, a controversial climate scientist said on
Tuesday.

James Lovelock, who angered climate scientists with his Gaia theory of a
living planet and then alienated environmentalists by backing nuclear  
power,
said a traumatized earth might only be able to support less than a  
tenth of
it's 6 billion people.

"We are not all doomed. An awful lot of people will die, but I don't  
see the
species dying out," he told a news conference. "A hot earth couldn't  
support
much over 500 million."

"Almost all of the systems that have been looked at are in positive  
feedback
... and soon those effects will be larger than any of the effects of  
carbon
dioxide emissions from industry and so on around the world," he added.

Scientists say that global warming due to carbon emissions from burning
fossil fuels for power and transport could boost average temperatures  
by up
to 6C by the end of the century causing floods, famines and violent  
storms.

But they also say that tough action now to cut carbon emissions could  
stop
atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hitting 450 parts per million --
equivalent to a temperature rise of 2C from pre-industrial levels -- and
save the planet.

Lovelock said temperature rises of up to 8C were already built in and  
while
efforts to curb it were morally commendable, they were wasted.

"It is a bit like if your kidneys fail you can go on dialysis -- and who
would refuse dialysis if death is the alternative. We should think of  
it in
that context," he said.

"But remember that all they are doing is buying us time, no more. The
problems go on," he added.

REFUGE

Lovelock adopted the name Gaia, the Greek mother earth goddess, in  
the 1960s
to apply to his then revolutionary theory that the earth functions as a
single, self-sustaining organism. His theory is now widely accepted.

In London to give a lecture on the environment to the Institution of
Chemical Engineers, he said the planet had survived dramatic climate  
change
at least seven times.

"In the change from the last Ice Age to now we lost land equivalent  
to the
continent of Africa beneath the sea," he said. "We are facing things  
just as
bad or worse than that during this century."

"There are refuges, plenty of them. 55 million years ago ... life  
moved up
to the Arctic, stayed there during the course of it and then moved back
again as things improved. I fear that this is what we may have to  
do," he
added.

Lovelock said the United States, which has rejected the Kyoto  
Protocol on
cutting carbon emissions, wrongly believed there was a technological
solution, while booming economies China and India were out of control.

China is building a coal-fired power station a week to feed rampant  
demand,
and India's economy is likewise surging.

If either suddenly decided to stop their carbon-fuelled development  
to lift
their billions of people out of poverty they would face a revolution,  
yet if
they continued, rising CO2 and temperatures would kill off plants and
produce famine, he said.

"If climate change goes on course ... I can't see China being able to
produce enough food by the middle of the century to support its  
people. They
will have to move somewhere and Siberia is empty and it will be warmer
then," he said.