Wednesday, July 18, 2007

The illness in Planet Earth




Planet Earth is unwell, argues James Lovelock in The Green Room. Emissions of greenhouse gases and other environmental changes have, he says, brought humanity and the natural world to the edge of crisis.

James Lovelock.  Image: BBC
Climate change alarms me, and it should alarm anyone

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, published in 2001, is one of the scariest documents you will ever read.

It talks about changes to the Earth by the end of this century which will be as great or greater than occurred between the end of the last Ice Age and the time when humans started changing the atmosphere; it is huge.

It alarms me, and it should alarm anyone.

Just imagine that you had lived 12,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age ended, in a tropical civilisation somewhere in South-East Asia.

What would have been your reaction if some scientist had told you that within not too many years the sea level would rise by 120m, by 400ft?

Read More