James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan’

(Published in 2008)

In 1965 executives at Shell wanted to know what the world would look like in the year 2000. They consulted a range of experts, who speculated about fusion-powered hovercrafts and "all sorts of fanciful technological stuff". When the oil company asked the scientist James Lovelock, predicted that the main problem in 2000 would be the environment. "It will be worsening then to such an extent that it will seriously affect their business," he said.

James Lovelock.

"And of course," Lovelock says, with a smile 43 years later, "that's almost exactly what's happened.

Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.

For decades, his advocacy of nuclear power appalled fellow environmentalists - but recently increasing numbers of them have come around to his way of thinking. His latest book, The Revenge of Gaia, predicts that by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global devastation; that by 2040 much of Europe will be Saharan; and parts of London will be underwater. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report deploys less dramatic language - but its calculations aren't a million miles away from his.

Read Decca Aitkenhead’s story on The Guardian - “James Lovelock: 'enjoy life while you can: in 20 years global warming will hit the fan’.”

John and James on the 'same page'

James Lovelock urges
climate change adaptation.

Slap Tomorrow’s leader sees that time for debate about the rushing reality of climate change as past and now every human effort should be about adaptation.

John Pettigrew has said Slap Tomorrow’s emphasis should be on “Adaptation, adaptation and adaptation”.

Writing in his 2014 book, “A Rough Ride to the Future”, James Lovelock said; “Now that the real climate has become restless, and droughts, floods and tornadoes of unprecedented severity make news, a sensible politician might won if the government should have spent more on local adaptation to climate change and less on visionary attempts to save the planet”.

The 95-year-old scientist/inventor is a fellow of the Royal Society, has written more than 200 scientific papers and is the originator of the Gaia theory. He has also written several books.

Young and old have similar, but different views

James Lovelock.

The old scientist has a pessimistic and apocalyptic view of climate change contrasting sharply with the young PhD scholar is decidedly more optimistic, although deeply concerned about earth’s injured atmosphere.

Oddly, while James Lovelock, 94, wonders about and doubts humanity’s ability to deal with the unfolding dilemmas of climate change he is, according to those around him, quite optimistic and in Lovelock’s own terms, “cheerful”.

A research officer from the Centre of Urban Research at School of Global, Urban and Social Studiesat RMIT University in Melbourne, Alianne Rance, is acutely aware of the difficulties and through her research works with many people to consider response, adaptation and resilience in a world impacted on by climate change.

Through that, Ms Rance meets with many people who understand the complications of the unfolding difficulties and yet are optimistically working towards resolving them and building resilience within their communities.

Ms Rance is personally optimistic that we can rise to meet the differences climate change will bring to our lives, both general and individually.

Lovelock is less than enthusiastic about humanity being able to properly deal with climate change, he is yet oddly optimistic, at least personally.

The puzzling contradictions in James Lovelock’s life are explored in a Liberty Voice story headed: “Is Lovelock a seer and world catastrophe inevitable?”