What if this were true?
Within the next decade or two, Lovelock forecasts, Gaia will hike her thermostat by at least 10 degrees. Earth, he predicts, will be hotter than at any time since the Eocene Age 55 million years ago, when crocodiles swam in the Arctic Ocean.
“There’s no realization of how quickly and irreversibly the planet is changing,” Lovelock says. “Maybe 200 million people will migrate close to the Arctic and survive this. Even if we took extraordinary steps, it would take the world 1,000 years to recover.”
The ever-sobering Billmon linked the above at The Whiskey Bar and duly noted:
It would be easy to view this as just another kooky end-of-the-world theory, if it weren’t for the history of some of Lovelock’s other kooky theories — like the time in the late ’70s when he hypothesized that chlorofluorocarbons wafted high into the stratosphere would eat great big holes in the ozone layer, exposing first the polar regions and then the rest of the earth’s surface to increasingly harmful ultraviolet radiation. What a nut.
A few months ago, the BBC commissioned a panel of experts to discuss the legitimacy of Lovelock’s claims. Curiously, it appears they failed to address his prediction of a near-term disaster, instead talking only in terms of what’s likely to occur by 2100. The 7-person BBC panel was unanimous in stating they believed that dangerous global warming was extremely likely by the start of the next century. They also voted 7-0 that humans would be “severely” impacted, though they voted 0-3 with 4 absentions on whether it would be “catastrophic.” [Even to the end, some Brits abhor potential hyperbole.]
Of course, I found this vote most telling:
17. Politicians are unlikely to cut greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently until it is too late to prevent dangerous warming. VERDICT: YES 6, NO 1
We’re utterly incapable of emotionally accepting that the world could actually come crashing down around us. Sure, we can talk about it rationally, but very few people can feel it in their bones. I can’t. Can you? Politicians are even slower to recognize/accept changes in reality than most people, so if we’re not changing our behaviors because of something, you can bet that, other than Al Gore, no one in office will toss of the shackles of Reactivepolitick in time to help us. Whenever that is.
Whether we get to wait until 2100 or we’re surprised by the shorter Lovelockian timeline, it’s quite likely one of the next few generations of people will have to face the realization that the civilization surrounding them will be inevitably scorched away; all that they (we?) will get to do is wait for it, and maybe race to squat on a plot in the Northern Territories or Greenland.
Let’s say Lovelock is right, and in another few years or so, we get realistic confirmation that there will be a 10 degree temperature rise within 10 years, and that the changes will destroy society as we know it. This is all hypothetical, of course, but if you had that knowledge, how would you spend that last decade?
Would you migrate north? Where would you try to go?
How long would you continue to go to work? Surely there will be no shortage of Americans who keep to their daily routine until the last moment, producing the next Viagra or opening a new Starbucks, sticking their head in the sand and hoping everyone else is wrong.
What would you buy? Saving money seems like a silly idea if the world’s gonna go kaput. Then again, buying a plasma TV seems pretty stupid, too.
What would you learn? Surely some survival skills would be a good idea, even if you want to stick it out in your local ‘hood.
Where would you visit? If this version of the planet will disappear, what would be most important to see before it vanishes? What would you most want to capture in a picture for others to see someday?
If the end ever becomes inevitable for any reason, part of me thinks that last generation will descend into violent anarchy, throwing a defiant temper tantrum over our lack of planetary control. Then again, terminally ill people often talk the way Jackie McEntee did to Salon in this interview:
At lunch recently, Jackie told me how she decided to begin an inner search rather than losing herself in work or taking the vacation of a lifetime. She gradually gave up her therapy practice and focused on “living mindfully,” enjoying each moment, deepening her relationships with friends and family and becoming what she calls a “human being” rather than a “human doing.” She says she has entered an entirely new realm of ecstasy, deep sensibility, profound connection, love and inner calm.
That wouldn’t be a bad way to spend a decade, would it?
Now I’m off to work to play an ignorant game where we pretend none of this is ever going to happen to me or to one of the next few generations.
Every day that game gets just a little harder to play.
Which is probably a good thing.
20. Climate change is real, dangerous and significant in our own lifetimes. VERDICT: YES 7, NO 0
Are you off to work by your little lonesome in a car, marc? If so, what good is it to expect politicians to do something? If not, good on you; you feel the crisis more than you give yourself credit for.
Between what I’ve read about petrocollapse and global warming (and the good old standby, nuclear war), I’ve pretty much geared myself up for the fact that life will eventually change for all living beings on this planet. We just don’t know exactly when or by which means, and that’s the kicker.
No one wants to spend their time thinking about the end of the world, or anything near it.
In the back of my mind, though, there’s a voice telling me to sell all of my meaningless material consumerist crap, move to some “property” somewhere, and start to learn how to sustain myself and those I love. The other voice is telling me to watch more YouTube. In my everyday life, I listen to the latter, but the former is a quite constant.
Want a real downer? Read some of Derrick Jensen’s work.
“a quiet constant.”
If Lovelock is right, it is probably already too late. I don’t for a moment believe that a move to the near-Arctic by 200 million people is going to be a smooth transition, or that property and preparation will be any guarantee of survival, or for that matter that I will even want to survive a total collapse of civilization.
So, if Lovelock is wrong, I am better off staying and working and providing for my wife and children. If he’s right, there is nothing I want to do to prepare my self, and little I can do ot prepare my family. It does not matter what I do, and I might as well keep paying the mortgage on a house I like, so I can live there with my wife and children until the end comes. If my kids are healthy and well-adjusted, they will be better able to accept radical change and take their chances surviving the apocalypse.
Call me a total fatalist.
Also, if Lovelock is wrong and the timeline is several decades, then the French are right about nuclear power and we had better get moving to an all-nuke future.
Well, you could always buy land here in ND. The place will stay cold, the soil is fertile, and right now it’s dirt cheap.
Today one could reasonably argue that Gaia theory has transformed scientific understanding of the Earth.
Um.
I don’t know about moving to the arctic…there won’t be that much land to grow food, the “land” aside from Greenland currently being mostly ice; and with the weather patterns and the ocean currents disrupted, there’s no guarantee any of it will actually be arable. Can’t say much about North Dakota either, except that there there *will* at least definitely be land.
My little “voices” (a la Annie’s, not a la some conspiracy theorist’s!) are saying to keep my assets as liquid as possible, not to overload on the consumer crap, and to learn everything I can about my own scientific specialty (environmental chemistry, so this is a pretty familiar topic) so as to pass it on to others if need be. It also suggests I might put some time in learning lower-tech skills. Of course, the fact that I do not have any children in my equation simplifies these matters.
I think about these things every day to the point sometimes that it feels absolutely maddening. Each day I wake up I struggle with going to work, filling my lunges with the pollution of traffic only to sit down in a chair for nine hours, typing on a stupid fucking computer with a stupid phone, waiting for the day to fade back into a reality where these things don’t exist.
I keep telling myself once I pay my credit card off I’m quitting my job, getting my dogs and heading north, or somewhere else… but where else? What of the student loans? The bills? What do they matter, how do I abandon them?
I just want my own stretch of a little land. I don’t need a huge house filled with a bunch of American shit that means nothing. If we know it means nothing though, then we do we continue to consume?
I don’t want these things…this job…the credit/debt/checks. I search for a solution every day and come up empty handed. I am no less a drone than they with no room to speak. I wake up every day and drink a glass of green tea, watch the sunrise, smoke a bowl or two and pretend it’s enough to get me through a day in this corporate hell. But I know this isn’t it… can it be? How this relates? Regarding the end of the world.. people don’t want to hear it, like they don’t want to hear about how corrupt their government is…it’s easier to pretend… pretend there is a purpose in this every day carnival of bullshit.
I hear you, Ramona. Every day these thoughts occupy my brain just a little longer, a littler stronger. I found a tiny bit of good news today — Richard Branson’s gonna throw $3 billion at renewable energy expressly b/c he is worried about global warming. A drop in the bucket for a task as large as changing our energy solutions, but still a ray of goodness.
[...] It’s all very depressing to be sure, but there is some hope: real efforts now to conserve and be more efficient with the CO2 spewing fuels we already have will help buy some time, if there is any left to begin with. Smart policy decisions will help. More funding for research and subsidies for consumers and businesses to switch to more efficient methods for heating, cooling and lighting thier enviornment will help. Individual choices for smaller homes, smaller cars, and less consumption will help. We may not be able to reverse global warming, but we can slow down our behaviors that contribute to it and possibly even plan for its consquences. [...]
[...] It’s all very depressing to be sure, but there is some hope: real efforts now to conserve and be more efficient with the CO2 spewing fuels we already have will help buy some time, if there is any left to begin with. Smart policy decisions will help. More funding for research and subsidies for consumers and businesses to switch to more efficient methods for heating, cooling and lighting thier enviornment will help. Individual choices for smaller homes, smaller cars, and less consumption will help. We may not be able to reverse global warming, but we can slow down our behaviors that contribute to it and possibly even plan for its consquences. [...]