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James Lovelock: Humans Are Too Stupid to Prevent Climate Change
In his first in-depth interview since the theft of UEA emails, the scientist blames inertia and democracy for lack of action
It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.
Climbers trek on Argentina's Perito Moreno glacier near the city of El Calafate, in the Patagonian province of Santa Cruz, December 16, 2009. (REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci/Files) "I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."
One of the main obstructions to meaningful action is "modern democracy", he added. "Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while."
Lovelock, 90, believes the world's best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises. He thinks only a catastrophic event would now persuade humanity to take the threat of climate change seriously enough, such as the collapse of a giant glacier in Antarctica, such as the Pine Island glacier, which would immediately push up sea level.
"That would be the sort of event that would change public opinion," he said. "Or a return of the dust bowl in the mid-west. Another Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report won't be enough. We'll just argue over it like now." The IPCC's 2007 report concluded that there was a 90% chance that greenhouse gas emissions from human activities are causing global warming, but the panel has been criticised over a mistaken claim that all Himalayan glaciers could melt by 2030.
Lovelock says the events of the recent months have seen him warming to the efforts of the "good" climate sceptics: "What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours. You need sceptics, especially when the science gets very big and monolithic."
Lovelock, who 40 years ago originated the idea that the planet is a giant, self-regulating organism – the so-called Gaia theory – added that he has little sympathy for the climate scientists caught up in the UEA email scandal. He said he had not read the original emails – "I felt reluctant to pry" – but that their reported content had left him feeling "utterly disgusted".
"Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science," he said. "I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards."
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79 Comments so far
Show Allwell after all, it is the 'age of stupid'...........
It is not only climate change we are stupid about. We are dumber than rocks and just as predictable. Why? We have an enemy within called the ego. It has kept us surviving for thousands of years. Now the ego is tricking us into thinking we can survive anything. It has become our enemy. We are to stupid to realize our concepts are not working now and we cannot change.
you might have something there fennec.................
Ego does play a large part in the problem, but that's a problem reserved mainly for eggheads who research this stuff and do not easily give up their pet theories about what is really happening with global warming. The real elephant in the room is pure, unadulterated GREED on the parts of the Forbes 500 who don't care if we all perish as long as they get that multi-billion dollar payout on their coal mine investments.
em-y
"The real elephant in the room is pure, unadulterated GREED on the parts of the Forbes 500 who don't care if we all perish as long as they get that multi-billion dollar payout on their coal mine investments."
Well, I think that's not the full picture.
I live in Australia and I'm not sure that the ordinary Aussies would fight the climate change if only the big bad corporations and the rich let them. Most people are scared they'd have to give up their precious lifestyle. Many are in favour of some action but only if it doesn't cost them anything. God forbid they'd have to change their behaviour - scale down, drive less, buy a smaller car, forgo the giant flat screen tv, turn off one light, stop running the air-con 24/7.... All too hard, too much sacrifice.
It's easier to listen to those who say the whole science is rubbish.
2 years ago an Australian politician, one Senator Fielding decided that no-one will tell him what to believe - he'll find out for himself if the science is right or not. So he went to the US and talked to other skeptics and climate change deniers. Upon his return to Australia he declared that during his research travels he didn't encounter anything that would convince him that climate change is real. No need to do anything.
Greedy + Lazy = Global Warming & 9 out of 10 of all the other screwed up things with this world.
I haven't read the e-mails, but I understand that it simply involved a decision to disregard tree-ring "proxy" temperature indications when real, thermometer reading data showed the tree ring data to be inaccurate. I'd believe real thermometers over tree rings too.
So, their only error was not being more clear in their rationale for how they reduced the data.
And at any rate, e-mails and other internal deliberation are frankly, nobodys business, only the finished research is.
"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change,"
So true. There ARE people who are beginning to evolve and awaken to the physical realities of this world. Hopefully (there is that damn word again!) it is the Awakened who reach the tipping point first. Unfortunately, I think that James Lovelock is correct in that it will take a catastrophe to wake people up. Because personal (and collective) change generally doesn't happen from a place of comfort.
"...There ARE people who are beginning to evolve and awaken to the physical realities of this world... it is the Awakened who reach the tipping point first..."
ABSOLUTELY!
And some of us have sold all, quit jobs, moved hundreds or thousands of miles, etc. all to begin preparations for the coming evolution.
Change is upon us. Millions will die. Food and potable water will become harder and harder to obtain. Energy will be in short supply and of limited availability. States and central governments will begin to crack and collapse under it's own mass as tax revenues slide further and further down. Violence will escalate. Balkanization will occur.
Wake up.
The time is short and those not prepared will be among the first casualties in this upcoming evolution.
Again... I am simply a "friend of Ishmael".
BTW... The dirty fucking hippies... were right. ;o)
I too am a friend of Ishmael's and we had better pay heed to what the world is trying to teach us. Our fear of living as a part of nature has driven us to bring our home to the point to irrevocable change and disaster for all lives here. A lesson: Some days it is the deer's turn to survive and we go hungry, other's it is our turn to eat and the deer to die. At any rate, this is life. No more, no less.
I'm a huge fan of Lovelock; his books helped me to see the "radicality" of the challenge we're facing and I like the measured wise old guy tone throughout his writing.
However, I'm putting my efforts on something else being in play here, and that's the unpredictable nature of whole system response . . . People everywhere are moving in small ways to make changes, networks, alliances, cool ideas, acting for the good of the whole, plumbing their own depths to make an ever-deeper response. Stephen Hawking said (I heard third hand) that these many small responses are like the body's immune system kicking in in response to a threat. This is the biggest change in history imo (since it'll impact world history forever) and evolution may have some tricks up its sleeve.
In some way, we may "know" what needs to be done and be beginning to move in that direction, even before we consciously realize that we are.
www.RadicalRelocalization.com
"They'll never see us coming!"
I'm with you, Andrew.
My first response was to agree with others that our ego and capacity for denial is at the root of where we find ourselves. Yet, that does nothing to change things, nor does it allow for the possibility that people already are making changes in their lives to both mitigate climate change and to evolve into a new way of living.
I like that you are relocalizing, as that is the way we need to start living. I am an organizer of a local permaculture group and a member of the local transition towns group. In a little over a year, the permaculture group has grown to over 100 members, and the transition towns group is growing as well.
People are starving for a new way of living - a positive vision of how life can and should be. What I believe permaculture offers is a way to start building resilience back into the system. Nature depends on resilient systems. Nature is resilient! Modern humans (of the non-aboriginal type) have stood resilience on its head and built an upside down pyramid that is now teetering. Well, that pyramid is about to fall.
There are millions of people who are quietly working toward a resilient and localized world. Hopefully, a few here on Common Dreams will see fit to join us.
It's not democracy which is the problem but fascism -- control by corporations and greed. And not so much stupidity -- although we are surely that -- but ignorance and 'insanity', ans perhaps 'emotional stupidity' which is mostly a cultural phenomena, connected with fascism/capitalism, and which is the root of most of public opinion, consumerism, and dumbing people down.
Our minds don't work properly because the wealthy and powerful (who tend to be social dominators, and are often psychopathic and sociopathic) don't want to lose their control. And yet, despite this, there are still many people who think well, understand the problems, and and can can act sanely and intelligently -- we generally call them 'progressives'.
Right on, bluepilgrim.
If we had true democracy, our 'Health Care Reform' would include a public option --- at a minimum.
If we had true democracy, too-big-to-fail banks would be non-existent.
If we had true democracy,'corporations' would not have the same rights as citizens.
If we had true democracy, our mainstream press would have headlines, daily, SCREAMING these outrages against humanity.
I've always felt that human evolution was defective in many ways.
Humans believe they are divine legends in their own minds, and that all the other animals are "sub-human" and, therefore, undeserving of life, joy, freedom, and peace.
Differences and stupidity:
Animals are "irrational brutes" or "mindless automata" (and therefore comtemptible). Their supposed irrationality may consist in an inability to act according to set plans--a perfectly ridiculous idea which betrays its origins in our own psychological needs. Free-living animals have survived in Nature by coping with all normal challenges and changes as if acting with "rational" principles in mind. But civilized humans are too stupid to recognize how insane we are.
Nevertheless, we humans are easily convinced that animals are stupid, preternaturally stupid.
We think them stupid because they do things differently.
We think them stupid, as a young child may her younger sisters, because they have not yet learned what she discovered yesterday.
We think them stupid because they take time to find their way around, particularly in places and problems we have set them from superior knowledge and in accordance with OUR way of seeing things.
We think them stupid for normal failures of lateral thinking, which we rarely surpass.
We think them stupid because we are ill-informed. "Gladstone commented of some sheep he saw out onto the hillside in the threat of snow that 'if I were a sheep I should remain in the hollows.' The shepherd replied, 'Sir, if ye were a sheep, ye'd have mair sense.'" [The Moral Status of Animals by Stephen R.L. Clark, Oxford 1977]
We think them stupid, finally, because we breed them so that they may confirm our secret wish, and keep them in confinement that they may stay that way: sullen, stupid, incurious, irresponsible, profligate and dumb.
It's time to follow Lovelock's advice in Revenge of Gaia and prepare for climate refugees. Gardening's a start, as is getting used to eating simply. If some of us are mentally prepared, we'll be a help when everyone else is blindsided.
Lynn Shwadchuck
http://www.10in10diet.com/
Diet for a small footprint and a small grocery bill
Why does CD keep posting this nonsense?
This is another "blame the victim" rubbish blaming orginary people, who are stupid, is the root cause the vast climate changes.
No discussion as to WHY are ordinary people "stupid" and don't know what is going on. Corporate control of all mass media has forever keeps ordinary people from knowing what is
going on and who is responsible.
No discussion of the run-amok capitalist economy which forever seeks maximimum profit regardless of the devastion to humanity and to the planet.
Corporate capitalism has privatized the federal government to promote wars for profit. These wars consume vast amounts of energy, destroy the environment of entire nations, slaughtering millions of people in the process. They have left Iraq polluted with radiation from depleted-uranium munitions.
The "cap and trade" legislation allows polluters to continue in business making profit by buying "credits".
Capitalists don't give a damn about, and refuse to be responsible for, the vast calamity to the planet and to humanity that they are causing.
Read daily the World Socialist Web Site http://www.wsws.org
Agree --
And, YES . . . patriarchy, organized patriarchal religion -- its underpinning --
and its system of capitalism are all suicidal concepts.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Exactly.
People are going to follow the dictates of the syatem in which they are immersed, and this goes beyone the media syatem of thought-and-desire control, it includes the physical infrastructure we live in, and the things we are compelled to do to feed, shelter and clothe ourselves.
And, the syatem most definitely has a name.
But I've always found scientists to be terribly naiive on poltiical-economic matters. Lovelock shows it here, Carl Sagan often really showed it. One would think most scientists would be enamored with Marx, being that only his economic theories start from empirical observation of societies in all their complexity, rahter than glib notions of "rational decisions" and "invisible hands."
Dr Lovelock might be being misquoted.
He has earlier said that the problem lies with the *politicians* (and implicitly, the owner class), not with ordinary people. Paraphrase: "It's like 1939 all over again - the politicians know what's necessary, but they're still relying on appeasement".
Lovelock and Diamond seem to be in agreement: the ruling/owner classes have such strong pathology, focused on remaining wealthy and privileged, that they more or less literally *cannot* believe that there's a problem that will kill them too.
In a way, it's simple hubris writ large. To give up their wealth and privilege would be like death to them because their entire sense of self and self-worth is inseparable from their conceit of being wealthier, smarter, *better* than the rest of us.
In a very real sense, we have to save them from themselves if we want to live. We have to do whatever is needed in order to take control of government *ourselves*. Unless *we* have control of government, we're fscked. Does anyone doubt that?
While Lovelock has the right idea, and I do respect him in many ways, he still has one fatal flaw.
He still believes that we can implement techno fixes to get ourselves out of the disaster we created.
From the article: "Lovelock, 90, believes the world's best hope is to invest in adaptation measures, such as building sea defences around the cities that are most vulnerable to sea-level rises."
Lovelock also has advocated the crash building of hundreds of nuclear power plants in order to sustain our electricity hungry techno-toy obsessed society.
In building those 'defenses' to protect a lifestyle that is is total opposition to the natural processes of the planet, we would only be contributing to it's further demise. We built the coastal cites where we did for ease of commercial ocean transport. Now that the seas are rising we can either A) build franticly and hope to preserve a fraction of the lifestyle that is killing us or B) accept that we can be beaten, step back, and start over in a less destructive way, living with the Earth instead of on it.
To be totally honest, we will probably go with option A, and condemn ourselves and our societies to oblivion.
""While Lovelock has the right idea, and I do respect him in many ways, he still has one fatal flaw.
He still believes that we can implement techno fixes to get ourselves out of the disaster we created.""
***************************************
I agree with you here because the best way of limiting human's affect on the atmosphere, and for that matter the land and water, is to simply stop polluting, which is basically impossible due to corporate selfish needs, but I don't think Lovelock is being wise in promoting nuclear energy, even though that genie is out of the bottle, that is basically a selfish effort to use what is relatively a cheap source of energy for the current generations without any regards to the future generations that will have to develop ways to live with the remains of such an endeavor.
Besides, and despite the fact of human pollution via emissions and those consequences, what 'gaia' is about to experience is the end of the current ice age and within another millennia or so (give or take a few centuries) gaia begins another ice age and in that time frame much will happen and it is probable that the human civilization will considerably different by that time.
And for Lovelock to promote 'techno fixes' runs contrary to what I think his gaia hypothesis is about as that is 'fighting' the onslaught of climate change instead of learning to live with climate change which is totally feasible as the eskimo, inuits, thule and others prove and that is what warrants Lovelock's 'stupid' statement because it all has to do with convenience for the people to fight against something instead of learning how to live with it.
Is pollution really due to "corporate selfish needs"? Isn't pollution really due to humans's trying to satisfy their own "selfish needs" as pollution predates corporations by several millenia?
Lovelock never said "stupid;" it appears to be inserted by the writer or his editor.
A better statement would have Lovelock saying "Human Selfishness Prevents Action on Climate Change."
I say you're right, but I say I am also right as much as 7,000,000,000 people pollute, but the pollution of the corporate/industrial side has far more toxic pollutants that are much more hazardous to the health of gaia.
But for both human and corporate, it is driven by a very high degree of selfish greed.
And corporations were created by people to satisfy their selfishness--to expand a human's degree of comfort and ease. It is somehow felt individual humans wouldn't pollute at the same levels as corporations because ethics/moral convictions/self-interest would deter folks from fouling their own nest and poisoning themselves and their loved ones.
Humans won't destroy themselves because they're stupid; they'll do it because they were unable to control their lust for power and control and their partners greed and selfishness.
Then, am I to believe that everything is equal and that each individual contaminates equally as much as any corporation?
And am I to believe that every human is out to become the ruler and control the world and that there are none that would just like to live a quiet life with out the insane stress of being the ruler and controlling things to his/her satisfaction? I certainly will NEVER believe that indigenous peoples were ever more concerned except to survive/live by not taking too much, polluting too much(a real reason that they up and moved, well, plus there weren't that many people when people could do so)?
It is a newer and overly crowded world now and nothing short of, to most people, a catastrophic event will ever bring a balance back to better functioning Gaia.
But you are correct in that people now are more concerned with their comfort and ease AND their entertainment no matter how bazaar, outlandish, destructive and wasteful. And ever since the concept and creation of corporations, the point sources of pollution, wastefulness have become more concentrated.
I agree. Energy wasting mass construction projects like sea defences and a forever deadly techno fix like nuclear power cannot halt global warming. These may only delay its eventual consequences and make them worse. It is consequences that force (stupid?) people to act against the causes.
Putting band-aids on the cancers of uncontrollable population growth and concentrating wealth and power instead of attacking the disease and its causes is worse than doing nothing. We know how to cure overpopulation without resorting to wars, disease, pollution, famine, crime and resource depletion for population control. And we know how to end extreme wealth/power concentration: http://www.ni4d.us/.
Only animal greed stands in our way. If one can say that unfettered greed is a form of stupidity, then Lovelock is right about that part.
What makes you think we cannot possibly implement technological fixes to this problem?
I'm not saying there isn't a horrendous amount of waste in modern society that ought to be eliminated--there is--but to pretend that we could simply retreat to the wilderness overnight is farcical. In the best possible implementation of what you seem to be advocating, billions would be cut off from their livelihood all at the same time and you better hope they don't find you at home when they come looking for food.
We *must* continue looking for technological ways to reduce the damage that has been done as well as reducing our negative impact. Otherwise it's already too late.
Hi Vorpalmusic,
Technologists has proven themselves to be grotesquely unaware of the consequences of their actions.
I encourage you and all to watch "The Story of Stuff". http://www.storyofstuff.com/
You technology-philes have a huge hurdle rate you've got to mitigate. If as Ms. Leonard proposes (and there is absolutely no reason to doubt her) that manufacturing produces 70 units of waste to produce one unit of consumer goods, we're insane.
Technology can't possibly save us. No matter how well meaning the CEO in Interpace Carpets and the rulemakers in the EU are, we're basically screwed by our manufacturing albatross around our collective necks. We're destroying the planet with technology. To suggest more technology is the answer is bordering on pure madness. This planet is fragile. We're destroying Mother Earth every day in every way.
It's time to call a halt to technology and start to think about the fragility of what sustains us. This occurs not only in a fragile and easily polluted atmosphere, but also, if you will, in the top six inches of the soil that covers 30% of our precious planet: http://www.dirtthemovie.org/
If we screw this one up, it's over. Technology can't save us if we destroy the...
dirt
air
water
oceans
speciation
etc.
I'm wondering if Lovelock actually used the word "stupid". He said humans are possibly not yet evolved sufficiently to deal with global climate change, and that we're slow to act/change.
In the former case, we are creative and do understand so he must be referring to our childish schoolyard politics. How often do the fifty other kids on the playground jump on a bully? They just watch, and if they identify with or care about the victim at all, they wait for a Teacher to save the day.
It's certainly true that people change slowly in the substantive ways that really matter - look at the longevity of racism, misogyny, irrational conformity, temptation to greed, cruelty to animals, rapacious use of finite resources, etc.
Still, I'm with the optimistic ones. I see us, who do care and understand and have already made some personal changes, as 'sleeper cells', just waiting for the opportunity to work with like-minded people around the world to save it and make it better for everybody.
There's a longer transcript linked at the original article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change that isn't complete by the author's admission and does NOT contain the word "stupid."
How often do the fifty other kids on the playground jump on a bully? They just watch, and if they identify with or care about the victim at all, they wait for a Teacher to save the day.
----------------
BRAVO! ***SUPERBLY*** spotted!
We on the soi-disant "left" have denatured ourselves, or been denatured I'm not sure which. Half the time we sit around and wait for Authority to rescue us rather than act on our own behalf to save the situation. The other half of the time we sacrifice the dog to save the fleas.
Say what we like about the rightwingers (and Goddess knows they are headshakingly awful), they are willing to *act* to support their beliefs. It's only our good luck that there are so few of them.
Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance- the
five stages of grief, discussed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book, On Death and Dying.
Human society- actually all life on this planet- is going through these different stages of grief as life on earth goes through a process of death and destruction. Many in the developed world who believe they are shielded from the effects of climate change are in denial. In the developing countries- those who experience it first hand- day by day- are angry and in effect bargaining for more time- a fairer distribution of wealth-historical debt- help in dealing with the devastating consequences of climate change.
Then, there are some. like me- who are somewhat depressed and grieve the great loss that is taking place now and will accelerate rapidly, soon. Yet, we are beginning to accept that some of the consequences are inevitable.
The question is simply whether governments, individuals, institutions can move rapidly enough- past denial- past anger- into a state that brings action- perhaps enough to stave off the very worst consequences of climate change.
James Hansen's studies at one point focused on the Venusian atmosphere and development of climate models. He knows what the worst consequences are. There is no life on Venus- none.
So, in summary, mankind is now experiencing and will much more so in the future experience the devastating effects of climate change- not just on the environment- but on institutions- including the onslaught of wars, hunger and disease. The only way to move through the grieving process is to accept it and take responsibility in one’s own life for both the causes and the consequences. The question is not whether, but when. And at the risk of being trite- the sooner the better.
LJG, your last paragraph is especially cogent! VERY challenging to "... take responsibility in one’s own life for both the causes and the consequences." But the only way, other than realizing that God is Love", so we MUST cultivate unselfish love in order to survive.
n.b. Why has GOD become an unacceptable three-letter word? We must all start searching, folks, and joining the struggle to change.
GOD hasn't become an unacceptable three letter word. It has become an irrelevant three letter word. You don't affect change by prayer. You affect change by doing something. You see signs in Mexico about Saying the Rosary as a solution to the narcotics violence. It's the same thing, a useless act. To somehow believe that God will protect you from disaster may make you feel warm and cozy, but it does nothing to protect you from disaster.
spot on, sister!... so, let's do PEOPLE BEFORE PROFITS for openers...let's protect our children & grandchildren from what logic tells us what lies ahead, by "walking the walk", instead of just "talking the talk".(denial).
Although it purports to be "the full transcript," (the author in the comments admits it isn't) I do suggest folks read what he says unedited and at length, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock
Yes, the headline is lurid and even over-the-top, but denial is definitely a characteristic of Homo Sapiens.
The author's embellishments of Dr. Lovelock's conclusions about the lack of intelligence of the human race notwithstanding, the outlook for correcting the dire path of the global-warming trend seems dismal and gloomy at best. Lovelock is correct in assuming that it will take a huge catastrophe before people wake up to what is happening.
buddhism
What might also cause some people to wake up is if the Himalayan glaciers DID melt BEFORE 2030. Who knows? Global climate change is not just increasing, but is actually accelerating. It might happen if the acceleration is itself accelerating.
That's called a positive feedback loop.
And it exists.
One of the things people badly need to know is how to interpret obfuscated descriptions.
I can't think how many times I've seen some description of an increase made to seem as though the writer was talking about a decrease. Population is one that's almost always done that way -- they talk about "slowing rates of increase" as though that represented a turn away from the edge of the population-crash cliff.
The other is the one you mention, where the rate of change is non-linear in the wrong direction. Like the accelerating loss of ice in the Arctic, where Lovelock was called a crazy alarmist for predicting (correctly, it appears) that the Arctic Ocean would be ice-free in summer by 2020-2025.
After reading the original Guardian piece with quotes from Lovelock, I agree with his views.
We know that a trillion tons of CO2 in the atmosphere will do "something" but we really do not know yet what it is, will be, until it happens.
But regardless of whatever "it" will be, the only thing we can do is adapt, and adapting is always and inevitably LOCAL.
And, given the present political "situation" it may very well be that we, homo sapiens sapiens, we who are aware of being aware, will find ourselves in a mess of nuclear disaster(s).
We may be aware that we are aware but we are strangely unaware of what we are doing.
warming may be global, adaptation must be local.
what there is is all there is.
wildwolff.com
There seems to be some misinformation floating on this thread.
Several commenters have said something to the effect that 'if the Himalayan glaciers DID melt BEFORE 2030'.
Somehow everyone lost a few digits.
The original "denialist controversy(TM)" was castigating the IPCC for making a statement about the year 2035.
Here's the original IPCC text:
"Glaciers in the Himalaya are receding faster than in any other part of the world (see Table 10.9) and, if the present rate continues, the likelihood of them disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high if the Earth keeps warming at the current rate. Its total area will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 km2 by the year 2035 (WWF, 2005)."
Source: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg2/en/ch10s10-6-2.html
So what we have here is a compounding error. First we have the malicious work of the denialists to distort what was actually written in the IPCC report. Then we have the corporate media misinterpreting and misunderstanding language but essentially acting as a ministry of propaganda furthering the "denialist" notion that environmentalists are silly fools. Finally, you add into the mix the well-intentioned but not entirely thorough or aggressive progressives who don't want to fight for the truth and you end up with the slur that the communist UN foolishly predicted Himalaya's glaciers to disappear by 2030.
This is what is called in the trade a "confederacy of dunces".
Read the IPCC words again. They said that the glaciers might shrink to "100,000 km2" by 2035.
How this ends up being a meme about glaciers disappearing by 2030 on Common Dreams only reinforces James Lovelock's observation about how stupid we can be if we let ourselves be lazy, slovenly and manipulated.
We have been all three.
Common Dreams is particularly weak on environmental issues, so it's no surprise that such a meme might arise here. Most CD environmental pieces are on climate change (with occasional nods to biodiversity loss or other topics), which is but one facet of the global extinction event now under way, and which will not be influenced much by any climate change response we might (but won't) muster. "Sustainability" is doomed by the simple fact that the planet cannot sustain the current human population. People arguing about climate change, or wrestling with the deniers, are missing the forest for the trees. 2030? 2035? The monsoons will fail long before the glaciers melt, setting in play forces we can scarcely imagine.
FastEddie75 commented: "climate change . . . is but one facet of the global extinction event now under way"
This is an important and true statement. The larger story beyond climate change is even worse, if that can be imagined.
For details, see Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update; the UNEP report GEO-4; and see Jared Diamond's book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail and Succeed.
To solve the problem we need to understand it. The "extinction event" underway is a good phrase to describe it. It is WAY MORE than global warming.
Bravo FastEddie75!!!
Thanks for the references and the kudo. I've not read the UNEP report, but did read Collapse, which, as you can tell, informs my point of view.
I think most people are aware that something is wrong with the weather, the air, the water. And the elites are also. But they benefit from that pollution and have no desire to treat Earth's illnesses.
FALLACY OF CLIMATE NON COMPLIANCE
Our Nation's evasion of global warming mitigation, underscores the dangerous grip special interests have held through misinformation and fabricated science, as well as legislative lobbying.
Evidence linking our contributions to carbon pollution to warming has long been as close to certain as science can be. Its causes, consequences, and mitigation requirements have been documented by thousands in the dedicated international scientific community including The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Special interests argue that the current warming trends follow historic cycles, and hence reflect natural weather patterns--but they omit obvious differences: The earlier warming trends developed at slower rates which permitted the ecosystems to adapt. Morever they resulted from temporary natural events, which allowed transitions back to normal temperature patterns. By contrast, the current warming patterns result from artificial interferences and will only intensify until their causes are mitigated. They disregard positive indicators such as melting of glaciers,Arctic ice and the Northwest Passage,which has been evident for years. Instead they capitalize on some spikes in weather patterns such as the eastern U S snowfalls, which in fact can be attributed to warming,
By all indicators, global warming will self perpetuate as the melting permafrost releases more CO2 & methane, while the melting ice sheets reflect less heat. Inundation of low lying areas, spread of tropical diseases to temperate latitudes, sea life destruction from changes in ocean chemistry & currents, and altered weather patterns are only some inevitable consequences.
Remarkably, the very measures required for global warming mitigation, such as conservation, alternative energy development, anti-pollution refinements, family planning, etc should be undertaken to combat world starvation, sickness and poverty even if it were no issue.
Contrary to right wing assertions, greenhouse gases reduction measureswill only improve our economy and ease the recession,by lessening our trade deficits and by developing jobs for Americans, while improving our security by reducing our dangerous dependance on foreign oil. We could then regain some of our lost world respect that has resulted from our arrogant neglect, while contributing disproportionally to carbon pollution. China & India could then no longer use our non-compliance as an excuse for their weak participation.
The environmental and social damage from our indifference to carbon pollution--and conflicts between its main contributors and those who suffer most from it--can only worsen until we detooth the special interests and show global responsibility by enacting these vital reforms for future generations. We have no viable alternatives and time is running out..
So why is it against anyone's idea or rationale that it can't be said or admitted that THIS IS WHAT IT IS LIKE WHEN AN ICE AGE COMES TO AN END?
I know it is all too obvious that humans are from what ever perspective one cares to look at it, that we are polluting this planet to hell and back, making a one size fits all cesspool that is not doing the air, the land or the water any good, but it is not so mysterious except that an 'advanced' society has never witnessed the beginning of and ice age the build up of 2 or 3 mile high ice sheets on land and then the turn around to the end of the ice age that will or may melt all that ice.
Hypothetically, if humans weren't 'emitting' so much crap into the air, land and water, does anyone think the ice would stop melting and the weather would calm back down? I have to say though that people's attention span for the most part are so short that they cannot stand to live through something that doesn't happen in a blink of an eye or finished by 'next week' or will only last another couple of months and when the next big storm comes through that will be the last until.....
Gaia welcomes you.