Climate change and peak oil, through their effects, are the only likely futures to cut down the human race to manageable size. What we are doing now to our planet resembles the pasteurization process. A quick high rise on the planetary pressure cooker, triggering all the climate tipping points, and before we can adapt, despite our ingenuity and skills, the plague of humans is sterilized within a thousand years. What may survive won't be civilized enough to bother Gaia again for along time. Because of time lags in the climate system, the reduction in green house gas emissions through sheer depletion of human numbers, might not be enough to save the remnant generations. Some stragglers may survive around the northern continent.

With peak oil and nuclear war, we may get a global conflict good enough to reduce our numbers in a very short time. The nuclear missiles are being readied for mass humanicide. Conventional war may not be not be quick enough. Continued economic growth is now impossible, since we are now consuming the entire planet. The Amazon is dying, and will burn up over the next decade. The north polar ice is half gone. The tundra is melting and out gassing. Its a sick planet, overrun by a sickening human race. The downside of globalization is no person can escape the consequences. This is the last decade of our fossil fueled civilization, either way. In desperation the dying nations will plunder the remaining treasures and life supports of Gaia. Choose your future. Adapt now, and / or become extinct later. Most likely both.

Last week Prof James Lovelock author of the Gaia Hypothesis gave a public lecture, titled Climate change on the living Earth, at the Royal Society in London. Details http://www.royalsoc.ac.uk/event.asp?id=7142 The lecture has been archived at this link. http://royalsociety.tv/dpx_live/dpx.php?dpxuser=dpx_v12

The event description runs - Observations from around the Earth suggest that even the gloomiest predictions of climate change from the 2007 IPCC report may underestimate the seriousness of the changes due this century. In this lecture, Professor James Lovelock will discuss the consequences, particularly for the UK and Europe, and how we might respond by an adaptive retreat, whilst at the same time seeking a global solution to what seem to be ineluctable adverse changes in the Earth's climate.

The Royal Society press release states:

Humans at war with Earth on climate change, says James Lovelock

We could be on the brink of natural disaster and even the gloomiest predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) latest report are underestimating the current severity of climate change, Professor James Lovelock will say at a public lecture at the Royal Society the UK National Academy of Science today (Monday 29 October 2007).

Professor James Lovelock will discuss his concerns about the impending consequences of global warming at the lecture Climate change on the living Earth. He will argue that although the scientific language of the IPCC report is "properly cautious", it gives the impression that the worst consequences of climate change are avoidable, if we take action now.

Instead, his view of the future is much more frightening. Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate, and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct. He argues that we have set off a vicious cycle of positive feedbacks in the earth system whereby extra heat in the atmosphere from any source is amplified, causing yet more warming.

He will say: We are at war with the Earth, and as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond. We are in a strange position of living on a planet where climate and compositional change is now so rapid that it happens too fast for us to react to it.

Professor Lovelock's address will spell out why he believes change is happening faster than many experts had predicted. "The positive feedback on heating from the melting of floating Arctic and Antarctic ice alone is causing an acceleration of system-driven heating whose total will soon or already be greater than that from all of the pollution CO2 that we have so far added," he says.

According to Professor Lovelock the IPCC's climate models fail to take account of the Earth as a living system where life in the oceans and land takes an active part in regulating the climate.

He will argue that when a model includes the whole Earth system, it shows that: When the carbon dioxide in the air exceeds 500 parts per million(3) the global temperature suddenly rises 6 degrees Celsius and becomes stable again despite further increases or decreases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This contrasts with the IPCC models that predict that temperature rises and falls smoothly with increasing or decreasing carbon dioxide.

Professor Lovelock will also warn that cutting back on fossil fuel use could actually exacerbate global warming. This is because current global warming is being partially offset by global dimming the two to three degrees of global cooling caused by aerosol particles in the atmosphere from man made pollution. These reflect sunlight and nucleate clouds that reflect even more sunlight.

He will say: Any economic downturn or planned cut back in fossil fuel use, which lessened the aerosol density, would intensify the heating. If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler….We live in a fool's climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly.

However, he will also say: Because it might help slow the pace of global heating, we have to do our best to reduce emissions and lessen our destruction of natural forests to feed and house ourselves; but this is unlikely to be enough and we will have to learn to adapt to the inevitable changes we will soon experience.

Professor Lovelock will say that this does not mean that there is no hope. Instead we should think of the Earth as a live self-regulating system and devise ways to harness the natural processes that regulate the climate in the fight against global warming. This could involve paying indigenous peoples to protect their forests, and develop ways to make the ocean absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere more efficiently.

Professor Lovelock will conclude: We are not merely a disease; we are, through our intelligence and communication, the planetary equivalent of a nervous system. We should be the heart and mind of the Earth, not its malady.

In 1965 Professor Lovelock was responsible for developing the Gaia Hypothesis; this evolved in the 1980s to become the Gaia Theory that says planterary self-regulation is by the whole system, not just life.

An 80% cut in GHG emissions by 2050??? As someone involved in a reguatory capacity in coal mining, I see NO consideration of GHG emissions in any big coal or power companies plans, and the state and federal governments are entirely in their pockets, so don't expect them to do anything either. Some states like Illinois actually hand out multi-million dollar cash grants to coal companies - a million for a ventilation shaft here, a few million for shuttle cars and a cintinuous miner there... So, there is NO chance of anything but big increases in coal mining and the power plant construction that supports it. Barring revolutionary change amounting to a whole new republic, or massive economic collapse, GHG emissions in the US will only increase dramatically in the next 42 years.

I wish I could be less pessimistic.

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In the UK we all now share a fear that our Prime Minster Brown has completely lost his early shine, and seems worryingly unable to articulate a meaningful, evidence-based statement about what the UK will do to really get its climate house in order.

Will he ever say something along the lines that - the UK must become an international example of a country willing to withdraw its head out of the sand, and decisively commit to real climate action? Can he demonstrate committed leadership that goes beyond the contorted, mealy-mouthed doubled-up responses we've had so far?

Many of us dream of waking to a thunderous and inspiring address to the nation, where Brown shuts down all other UK media for a 20 minute speech and sets out what he wants to do - to show that the UK government is now fully prepared to take a lead and show the voting public and our youth how we must now face up to climate realities across the board.

Brown would tell the UK that it was he who commissioned the Stern Review, and that now he is telling the nation what actions has decided has upon, just as Kennedy set out his vision for the Apollo project and got the entire willpower and resources of the US mobilised behind a common purpose - to get a man on the Moon- see

Brown would recognise that in almost every sector, government climate response programmes have been stymied by voluntarism, vacillation and surrender to industrial lobby groups. Brown would declare his intention now to supply international political leadership of the highest order, with a moral stance far beyond the current political manoeuvrings of rich world governments. He will state that he is setting out three overall aims -

First, rich countries will demonstrate leadership by making deep and early cuts, to show willin and end this idiot's game of beggar-my-neighbour.

Second, the UK will lead new Marshall Plan/Apollo Programme that will be designed and put in place for finance and technology transfer, providing developing countries with the resources they need to make a low-carbon transition.

Thirdly, Brown will say that governments need to get real about the inevitable impacts of climate change on the vulnerable. While the rich world has the capabilities to protect citizens from the consequences, populations in the developing world have to cope with a terrible array of consequence. Brown will state that social justice surely demands that, having manufactured the risk, the rich world compensates the victims.

Brown will also say that humanity cannot be allowed the luxury of arguing that climate change is not human-induced. Unequivocally, he will state that it is. Brown will stand rock-solid behind the overwhelming scientific consensus.

He'll say that in effect we stand blindfolded in a confused bunch before a cliff - and that we cannot continue to babble and quibble about how many paces we can still take forwards. We cannot hang around in an erratic mob with some people shouting we're right on the edge, others contentedly bleating that we can walk on for a bit. For God's sake, The Cliff is there!!

Brown will firmly tell deniers of all creeds and stripes - that if we do everything we can to switch to renewable energies and to clean up the mess we're making of planet Earth, and climate change turns out to never happen at all, what will have happened is that we will have created a cleaner earth, running soundly on sustainable energy into the long-term. Not a bad result. However, if we do nothing, and it turns out that the deniers are wrong, it will be the end of our civilisation. (And we already do know that they are obviously and now ridiculously wrong.)

He will say that industrial society's continuance rests on our finding energy sources that will be vital in the post-emissions environment, before the fossil carbon runs out. Otherwise we are sure to hit a big shortfall, which we might never make-up, since industrial society itself would not be viable during that shortfall after Peak Oil.

So with the future of the planet and of our children at stake, today, Gordon Brown will declare he intends to deploy the entire machinery of the UK government to implement the following measures

1) Tax carbon-based energy profligacy until Britain's share of greenhouse gas emissions becomes consistent with best scientific advice.

2) Explicitly agree to the Contraction and Convergence framework and set out that the Brown government will actively seek as high a price on carbon as can be achieved at the upcoming Bali summit. Brown will announce he intends to price UK emissions through effective carbon taxation; and as well through a boosted cap-and-trade programmes that sets tough regulatory limits.

3) Brown will state that he intends to challenge the UK and European economic elites and their spending habits. He will say categorically that he intends to confront those companies whose actively sponsor continued consumption of fossil fuels, particularly putting a stop to further UK coal extraction and legally prohibiting further coal fired-power stations.

4) Agree to an 80% reduction in UK CO2 emissions by 2050 and inclusion of radical measures within the CC Bill (to obtain a 50% chance of preventing more than 2C of warming), particularly inclusion of shipping and international aviation.

5) For the UK, institute a massive programme of public works for flood protection and other climate change adaptation.

6) Supply funding on a large scale for the three international Adaptation Funds that are currently appallingly poorly-funded to compensate those who suffer most: the poor (see http://www.oxfam.org/en/files/bp104_climate_change_0705.pdf)He will categorically state that these large sets of funds for adaptation will NOT come out of existing aid commitments, but will be additional, and on a scale of tens of billions of US dollars per year.

7) Develop an ambitious programme internationally to mitigate climate change particularly by opening immediate high-level negotiations with China, where discussions would focus on how much it would cost to decarbonise its growing economy and how to help to pay.

8) Launch a major diplomatic offensive to persuade the United States to do what it did in 1941 or when the Apollo programme was launched, and turn the economy around to carry out a crash programme to decarbonise its economy. The Bush Administration will be told in no uncertain terms that it cannot any longer push its scheme of voluntary sets of "aspirational" goals, negotiated on a country-by-country basis, and blind faith in technology-alone solutions such as carbon capture.

9) He'll decisively end all support to UK airport expansion and to major road building; support low-carbon travle, for example by immediately instituting of fast coach lanes on motorways and ploghing serious government investment for a dramatic build-up in an integrated UK public transport. Money for this will come from a complete cancellation of the renewal of the Trident missile system, and other similar wastes of public monies.

10) Strongly lobby the European Commission to demand a swift increase in fuel efficiency both of vehicles manufactured within the EU as well as those imported, with legal sanction for failure to meet stringent targets.

11) Provide funding on the scale of tens of billions to support R & D in renewable energy, subsidise schemes and promote public and private energy-efficiency programmes.

12) Announce a moratorium on all targets and incentives for biofuels, until a second generation of fuels can be developed where the total impacts and costs of these are fully accounted for, and that these negatives are proven to be significantly lower than their overall benefits.

13) Link-up European electricity networks and connect them to North Africa and Iceland with high voltage direct current cables. Greatly expand UK electricity storage systems.

14) Require the World Trade Organisation to introduce discriminatory tariffs on trade with nations that would otherwise seek competitive advantage by shirking their carbon-reduction responsibilities.

15) Pledge large volumes of funds (European and UK) to quickly put in place schemes that finance the avoidance of deforestation in tropical regions, establishing large programmes that maximize the multiple benefits of forests in landscapes, particularly their local benefits in watershed management and in integrated systems within farms and landscapes.

16) Propose to each UK citizen and family that they examine their overall carbon footprint, and think deeply about how to make sure that their lifestyles can be altered in ways that genuinely reduce their emissions. Brown would say that each person across the globe, within every society and economy, must be encouraged to seek and apply that information, but always with a hard-nosed appreciation that in the end emissions must go down, that it's clearly impossible for everyone to pay others to offset their own personal emissions.

Brown would tell his people that we need to find value in our lives not in reckless consumption and understand that satisfaction doesn't come from possessing the latest brand. He would encourage each of us to avoid the mere 'green-washing' of our lifestyles.

Above all Brown would make clear that his programme will directly tackle the evident stagnation in international climate negotiations.

He will lay out in bald terms the mutual blame game and conundrum whereby China (as an example of a key developing country with many remaining poor) has become the worlds biggest gross emitter, while the US for decades has been the planets biggest emitter per capita. Brown will state that to cut that Gordian Knot, by dong what we can here in the UK. The Brown Climate Change programme will turn the UK into an exemplary economy, demonstrably developing beyond the current stagnation of global mutual blackmail.

Brown will say that he no longer wants to play in the ongoing game of destructive planetary poker. He'll state that he understands that if true international leadership isn't demonstrated, the human race will meet its end - because we won't have evolved past the level of scheming card sharks.

Brown will use his pro-growth credentials to assuage developed countries who say, "Sorry about poverty and sorry about your 'right' to catch up to our standards of living. We apologise, but global climate security trumps that. Therefore you need to reduce as well as us. Since your emissions are in total outgrowing ours, you have the more important and urgent obligation to reduce."

And Brown will use his pro-development credentials to assuage developing countries who say, "We're very sorry about 'global climate security' but since your advanced state was purchased at the expense of our future right to develop, it's actually you who have the most important and urgent obligation to reduce."

Brown will demonstrate that his action programme goes beyond the "China and India are the most dangerous emitters" crowd, who say that they argue from practical realism and declare they recognise moral arguments, but lay down that their 'realism' ace card trumps any moral view.

And he will tackle the deadly-serious 'trump' card of the developing world held in reserve by countries like China and India. Their own blackmail consists of the simple rejoinder. "Very well. If you insist, we can all go down together. That's OUR realism. We all grow together or we all die together."

Brown will show that he believes in the science, and is committed to establishing and pushing through a programme that will show the world (before the UNFCCC Bali event) that he understands that the developing world has few models other than ones provided by the developed world.

So we urgently need to set an example: not just talk about contraction and convergence, but also do it and with the utmost urgency.

He will finally tell the UK public that beyond the measures and programmes to effect decarbonisation, we must face up to fundamental decision points to be tackled by our whole society:

1. Is continued economic growth and global competition at any cost still appropriate? Isn't it time to recognize that we in the industrialised world have reached the Promised Land of a good-enough economy, and that we should seek to stay there? Why would we in the developed word want to NOT live our lives sustainably - and instead why on earth do we choose in our hordes to remain drugged in a high-carbon consumer frenzy, that will followed by certain ecological collapse?

Gordon Brown will say that he will begin to analyse how it could become a rational policy for the UK government to keep growth rates as close to zero as possible – mad thought that might seem for a politician ought to court votes.

He will tell us that his courage and conviction now tell him that there's no way that debate can be avoided.

2. Brown will tell the world that the defining issue of our age is whether the human race will now prove capable of putting in place an equitable system to share the limited resources available, above all fairly allocating the remaining space in the atmosphere that is left available for humanity's collective future carbon emissions.

And he will say that genuinely Britain now has to take a full and real leadership role to steer the world from a future of unrelenting catastrophe.