Interview: James Lovelock on Climate Change
- 2 Feb 2007The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) just released a report on the science of global warming, the impact it will have, and what can be done about it. This marks the end of a three-year project involving the collaboration of hundreds of scientists trying to put their knowledge down on paper. Leading up to its release, FirstScience talked to James Lovelock, a famous British environmentalist, scientist and author, about his views on climate change. Lovelock is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s, which states that life on Earth functions as a single organism.
A video of this interview is available for download here
Copyright: Bruno Comby - Environmentalists For Nuclear - www.ecolo.org
James Lovelock is a famous British environmentalist and proposer of the Gaia theory.
FirstScience: Is global warming really happening?
James Lovelock: I have no personal doubts about the validity of global warming. Not only are there odd events that have happened so rarely in the past that they’re extraordinary, but there’s a concatenation of them that the man on the street notices. Ask almost anybody if they think the climate’s changed in the last couple of decades and they will all say ‘yes’ and give you lots of examples. Where I’m living, people are talking about growing olives in Devonshire and wine is grown all over the place now: there are even vintage British wines. Global warming is much more than just a real effect, it’s something deadly that will threaten nearly all of us who are now alive by the end of this century.
FS: Has global warming ever happened before?
JL: The climate change we’re seeing now is closely similar to a geological event that occurred 55 million years ago, at the beginning of the period geologists refer to as the Eocene. We’re not quite certain how, but about two million million tons of carbon dioxide came into the Earth’s atmosphere over a period of about 10,000 years. I think the most likely cause was a volcanic sill: lava underground from a volcano coming up beneath a petroleum deposit in what is now the Norwegian Sea. This vaporised practically the whole deposit and put a huge quantity of carbon into our atmosphere.
Posted by: Toni - 2008-10-11 - 13:08 GMT
Dear James Lovelock,
I don’t think any one person has done more to start the current debate on Global Warming - so thank you. It is now fairly universally agreed that that we must reduce emissions and serious efforts are starting. Inevitably this will take time that we haven’t got!
In the meantime I believe we must control the temperature rise if at all possible. My suggestion goes as follows:
-- for the past 250 years there have been good global temperature records.
-- during this time there have been 13 major volcanic eruptions.
-- in the subsequent two years there has always been a reduction in global temperatures.
-- this reduction is sufficient to completely counteract global warming.
-- the cooling results from volcanic products in the stratosphere (above 30,000 ft.)
-- these microscopic products persist for one to two years in the stratosphere.
-- there are hundreds of commercial aircraft cruising around the world in the lower stratosphere.
-- it is perfectly feasible to put an additive in aircraft fuel to simulate the products of a volcanic eruption.
I have been proposing and researching this idea for the past year including detailed proposals on the chemicals to be added to the fuel. See www.naturaljointmobility.info/globalwarming.htm
I hope you agree that it deserves to be brought into the debate that is positively raging at the moment.
I will be happy to propose and defend this idea anywhere, anytime.
I hope to hear from you.
John Gorman.
Posted by: johngorman - 2007-02-12 - 10:26 GMT
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