Environment in crisis: 'We are past the point of no return'

26/01/2006

Thirty years ago the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment fit for life. He called it Gaia and the theory has become widely accepted. Now he believes mankind's abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion - that climate change is already insoluble and life on Earth will never be the same again.

The world has already passed the point of no return for climate change and civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive according to James Lovelock the scientist and green guru who conceived the idea of Gaia - the Earth which keeps itself fit for life. In a profoundly pessimistic new assessment published in today's Independent Professor Lovelock suggests that efforts to counter global warming cannot succeed and that in effect it is already too late.

The world and human society face disaster to a worse extent and on a faster timescale than almost anybody realises he believes. He writes: Before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.

In making such a statement far gloomier than any yet made by a scientist of comparable international standing Professor Lovelock accepts he is going out on a limb. But as the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on Earth since Charles Darwin he feels his own analysis of what is happening leaves him no choice. He believes that it is the self-regulating mechanism of Gaia itself - increasingly accepted by other scientists worldwide although they prefer to term it the Earth System - which perversely will ensure that the warming cannot be mastered. This is because the system contains myriad feedback mechanisms which in the past have acted in concert to keep the Earth much cooler than it otherwise would be.

Now however they will come together to amplify the warming being caused by human activities such as transport and industry through huge emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ). It means that the harmful consequences of human beings damaging the living planet's ancient regulatory system will be non-linear - in other words likely to accelerate uncontrollably. He terms this phenomenon

The Revenge of Gaia and examines it in detail in a new book with that title to be published next month.