Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change In his first in-depth interview si

[kpete]

Source: The Guardian

James Lovelock:
Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

In his first in-depth interview since the theft of UEA emails, the scientist blames inertia and democracy for lack of action

Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades. This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory.

It follows a tumultuous few months in which public opinion on efforts to tackle climate change has been undermined by events such as the climate scientists' emails leaked from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the failure of the Copenhagen climate summit.

"I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change," said Lovelock in his first in-depth interview since the theft of the UEA emails last November. "The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change

[wtmusic]

1. And Lovelock is too stupid to see that defeatism is worse than inertia.

It's all about playing the odds, isn't it d*ckhead? :eyes:

[eShirl]

6. I actually think he's giving humans way too much credit.

[stuntcat]

32. me too

I hope I'm wrong.

[cprise]

41. Then why are you involved in politics?

To further poison it??

Misanthropes suck.

[kenfrequed]

11. Uhm...

Have you actually read any of his work?

I honestly think his opinion is probably a hell of a lot more informed than yours.

[wtmusic]

12. Lovelock is a metaphysical nutcase.

"The quest for Gaia is an attempt to find the largest living creature on Earth."

Life isn't adapting to a changing environment - the environment is changing to make that form of life possible! :silly:

[kenfrequed]

18. And yoru credentials are?

Most of his writings are insightful and ahead of their time.

If you truly want to get atomistic about it a human being is not simply a single organism but an organic structure that is partially supported by a whole host of other organisms that dwell within it: Bacteria, fungi, and all manner of cellular and multicellular critters that lurk in every pore, crack and crevace of a human being.

Lovelock never claimed to be looking for an organism with a single conciousness. Reading his work carefully he compared the feedback reactions of various organisms on earth and the self sustaining and symbiotic relations that the biosphere engages in to maintain itself to an organism. To suggest otherwise is to completely misunderstand and misinterpret his work.

[bananas]

23. Lovelock predicts a 1-2C change we can live with

From another Guardian article:

“What would you bet will happen this century?” a mathematician asked him. Lovelock predicted a temperature rise in the middle range of current projections — about 1C-2C — which we could live with.

See the thread at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=236251&mesg_id=236281

[wtmusic]

27. About as credible as yours.

You say he's insightful, I say he's a talented inventor who's worldview is arrogant, selfish, and has been discredited many times over as new-age bunk.

Here he lauds himself for the incredible prescience to predict in 1965 that the "main problem in 2000 would be the environment", and in so doing makes Alvin Toffler look like an oracle.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

Genius. :eyes:

[joshcryer]

20. Well, do the numbers. It will take major political efforts to do it.

Given that we simply don't have the will power to make the right decisions, yeah, I'd say we're behaving stupidly.

Not sure if that makes us stupid so much... naive.

[Zoeisright]

2. I think he's absolutely right.

Enough people are too stupid. That's all we need to prevent action.

[ensho]

3. kick

nt

[wtmusic]

9. Ooh, and he's working on a new book!

His doomsday scenario I'm sure will gather just the press he'll need to sell it.

Little does he care that if he helps to throw the planet down the toilet prematurely, he'll be long dead.

[ronnie624]

4. Apparently some 'journalists' are too stupid to report the news accurately. n/t

[rocktivity]

5. It's not that all humans are too stupid

It's that some humans are too rich, powerful and greedy.

What's "complicated" is getting those particular humans value the fate of the earth above their getting richer.


rocktivity

[Naked_Ape]

7. I hate to agree

but I imagine he is probably correct. That doesn't relieve us of the moral obligation to do what we can. Nor does it prevent us from hoping that the looming crisis will move us toward being a more evolved and aware species.

[wtmusic]

10. Lovelock disagrees.

"'Enjoy life while you can' - Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

Burn that coal, drive that Hummer, and enjoy doing it (forget that millions are already suffering because his upper-class ass is helping to make it all seem pointless). What a truly disgusting, crusty old fuck he is.

[Dead_Parrot]

34. I think you've got the wrong message

I believe he's assuming that anybody paying attention to him is already doing as much as is practicable to mitigate climate change (Just as I tend to assume that everybody who visits E/E has CFL lightbulbs, a Prius (or bicycle) and energy star appliances). If you are actually going to buy a hummer, you've always been part of the problem.

What he's saying is, don't be amazed when these small measures (and they are small, compared to the problem) don't actually save us all. Don't beat yourself up 24/7 over the failing ecosystem. When the last wild polar bear dies, don't stare in wonderment at your hemp shopping bag or your PV panels and wonder if growing your own veg and going to bed when it gets dark might have helped.

It wouldn't, because for every family trying to be like the Dervaes, there's a a thousand trying to emulate the Trumps.

We are going straight to hell in a hand-basket. Do what you can - if only so you can sleep at night - then kick back with a glass of wine and enjoy the ride.

[Nihil]

38. Good summary.

> What he's saying is, don't be amazed when these small measures (and they
> are small, compared to the problem) don't actually save us all.
> Don't beat yourself up 24/7 over the failing ecosystem. When the last
> wild polar bear dies, don't stare in wonderment at your hemp shopping bag
> or your PV panels and wonder if growing your own veg and going to bed
> when it gets dark might have helped.
>
> It wouldn't, because for every family trying to be like the Dervaes,
> there's a thousand trying to emulate the Trumps.
>
> We are going straight to hell in a hand-basket. Do what you can - if only
> so you can sleep at night - then kick back with a glass of wine and enjoy
> the ride.

I can't say "Cheers!" to that but I agree with it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

40. I need to repeat that myself more often.

Good summary...thanks.

[slackmaster]

8. Even climate change experts are too dumb not to schedule international conferences in December

In Copenhagen.

[Nederland]

13. The favorite excuse of tyrants and despots throughout history

The "people" are too stupid to know what is best for them, so we need a really smart dictator at the top to do the "right" thing.

[Lorien]

15. Boy, I've heard that one for the GOP many times as an excuse not to tackle climate

change. It's as old and tired as their petty cries of "SOCIALISM!" The people are being kept in the dark by our celebrity obsessed MSM and the disinformation campaign on the Right. The adults DO need to take charge to let everyone know what needs to be done to slow down climate change; doing nothing will get very costly very quickly.

[Nederland]

39. And who gets to define who the "adults" are? nt

[Radical Activist]

24. .

[Lorien]

14. History is on his side here

Anyone who has actually been paying attention knows that he's speaking the truth.

[wtmusic]

17. No, it's not.

Americans were fairly convinced in the fifties and sixties that the world was at the brink of nuclear armageddon.

Though the jury's still out, we've stepped back from the brink. Defeatism accomplished nothing then and it accomplishes nothing now.

[kenfrequed]

22. There is a fundamental difference

The choice to go to nuclear war would have been one of volition. Someone would have to actively choose to start a global conflict and escalate it all the way up without stopping.

Sadly to screw up the planet, or at least its capacity to take care of us, the only thing we had to do in the face of pollution, war, and greed was 'nothing.' It seems we have maybe done slightly more than that but certainly not enough to make the difference.

If you don't think things are over the top already consider the massive fields of Siberian permafrost that are, even now, giving off tons of methane, a gas that is many times more greenhouse enabling than humble CO2. And then the diminishment of the polar caps which reflected sunlight and prevented increased evaporation as water vapor is also a heat trapping mechanism.

It is all about feedback loops.

It is quite possible we are already screwed but I suppose I disagree subtly with Lovelock as I would probably prefer to "...rage against the dying of the light."

[wtmusic]

26. Your disagreement with Lovelock is not subtle at all.

Anyone who is important enough to get press in the Guardian shouldn't be hastening the demise of the planet in the process, just to be possibly be "right" about something.

Possibly.

[GliderGuider]

29. It's an open question to me

Whether opinions like Lovelock's sow defeatism or rebellion. Most people just aren't ready to take "Lie down and die" as an answer, and it's just possible that seeing articles like this may actually stir them to action rather than passivity. At the very least it causes people to investigate things for themselves because the level of disconnect from what they perceive around them is so great. I preached "Wake up and kiss your children goodbye" for a number of years, and the only people that agreed with me were the ones who had already made up their minds beforehand. I didn't convince a single person to abandon hope, so far as I know. I did cause runs on Google after my talks, though, as people sought to inform themselves.

I really don't think Lovelock is "hastening the demise of the planet". You may dislike his message, but you're giving the man too much credit, and human nature not enough. Of course, Lovelock would say that it's human nature that got us into this mess, so is unlikely to get us out. But that's a point for debate, not one that should make anyone load the other 5 chambers before they press the muzzle of the revolver to their temple.

[wtmusic]

31. The old reverse-psychology trick, eh?

"Do he and his wife try to limit the number of flights they take? 'No we don't. Because we can't.' And recycling, he adds, is 'almost certainly a waste of time and energy', while having a 'green lifestyle' amounts to little more than 'ostentatious grand gestures'. He distrusts the notion of ethical consumption. 'Because always, in the end, it turns out to be a scam ... or if it wasn't one in the beginning, it becomes one.'"

Lovelock gets press not because he tells people what they don't want to hear. It's because he tells people what they do want to hear - they can continue their wasteful and selfish ways because it won't matter anyway.

Must be what he was telling himself as he was screwing a co-researcher while his wife was dying of MS.

[Peace Patriot]

16. I don't think humans are too stupid to understand climate change and to organize mitigation

and restoration of the environment, and do so successfully, but I do think that it is an unprecedented crisis which calls upon all of humanity to act as one, and we don't have the local and global institutions that make this easier, or they are not strong enough.

Such a crisis has never before happened--or, perhaps I should say that such a crisis has never happened before that humanity was conscious of and could have done something about--the last Ice Age, for instance, or the Great Plague in Europe during Medieval times. Lesser environmental crises have occurred in particular places--big ones but not so big as this--such as the desertification of the Middle East and northern Africa (the latter was once called "the breadbasket of the Roman Empire"), and deforestation in numerous places (causing floods and loss of topsoil for food production, and/or the silting of harbors and the consequent decline of many civilizations). Humans in these places were not conscious of their mistakes (or the very few "voices in the wilderness" who issued warnings were not heard--such as the philosopher Plato who descried the deforestation of the Greek islands and described its impacts just as a modern environmentalist might have done--in the 4th Century BC!--but wasn't listened to).

And there is no instance in history in which all of humanity has identified a problem and acted as one to solve it. But there have been MANY instances in history when SOME large groups of humans, including nations, have banded together to solve difficult problems--the slave trade, for instance, also Hitler's aggression, or, say, the installation of electricity, water and sewage infrastructure, or putting men on the Moon, or trying to establish worldwide human rights, through the United Nations. These lesser precedents for massive concerted action exist and should be studied for how they happened and how those lessons in organization and concerted action can be applied to climate change.

It is inaccurate, in my opinion, to dismiss all of humanity as "too stupid" to solve climate change. We should instead acknowledge the vastness of the problem, and its unprecedented nature, and we should be seeking not just the solutions to climate change--specifically, what measures could slow it and reverse it--but how to create/promote the institutions needed to implement the solutions. And these may not necessarily be top-down institutions--although I think those are probably necessary to deal with multinational corporate degradation of the environment and corporate control of governments (including this one)--but we should also think in small increments (the way Nature works) such as promoting small organic farms, local food production, reforestation of both urban and rural areas, establishment of environmentally friendly energy systems and community planning for reduced use of both energy and automobiles. We should also look to the campesino movement and Indigenous wisdom--the movement of small farmers in places like Bolivia and Ecuador, and throughout Latin America--for methods of sustainable agriculture and sympathy with Nature.

Humanity has in fact been amazingly successful at organization, but, as a whole, has been unaware of the environmental impacts of its activities. We must remember this. The environmental movement is RECENT--a matter of the last three or four decades. And general recognition of the global climate change crisis is VERY RECENT--the last decade. It's one thing to try to jolt people with statements about humanity's "stupidity." I suppose that's what Lily is up to. But it doesn't help much. If you tell a child he is stupid, he may well fail to utilize his intelligence. And humanity is in its childhood. We have only just realized how big the Universe is (not to mention how strange it is). That famous picture of the Earth from the Moon--a picture that was taken accidentally, by the astronauts--that reveals how beautiful and fragile that "little blue ball" is, and its wholeness, its lack of national boundaries, as an entity is space--the only home we know--was taken only four decades ago. Compared to all of our history, that is no time at all. That was literally yesterday. Only yesterday, did humanity realize that the Earth is one. Don't call us stupid. Call us young--and help us learn.

[GliderGuider]

19. +1

What an excellent assessment, Peace Patriot.

I used to agree completely with Lovelock's position, but the last couple of years have brought me around to this more moderate and realistic view. I still don't know if we'll be able to fix it, but I have much less objection to us trying. One thing we will need is to inject as much awareness of interconnectedness into the dialogue as we can. That awareness is a powerful psychological glue that can bond people to each other and to the hard work ahead.

[XemaSab]

30. As an environmental professional

humans are too stupid to organize mitigation.

There's an endangered beetle in California, the Valley Elderberry Longhorn Beetle.

It's endangered becaus all the native veg has been cut down, especially riparian veg.

This beetle lives in elderberries, so it's illegal to cut down elderberries in much of California, and if you do you have to mitigate for their loss.

Now, smart humans would say "Hey, let's restore the riparian veg!" but we're not smart humans. Oh no.

GINORMOUS elderberry monocultures. Like big damn elderberry orchards. It's actually sort of horrific.

[bananas]

33. Earthrise and the Blue Marble

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthrise
"Earthrise is the name given to a photograph of the Earth taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission. In Life's 100 Photographs that Changed the World, wilderness photographer Galen Rowell called it "the most influential environmental photograph ever taken."<1>"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble
"The Blue Marble was the first clear image of an illuminated face of Earth. Released during a surge in environmental activism during the 1970s, the image was seen by many as a depiction of Earth's frailty, vulnerability, and isolation amid the expanse of space. NASA archivist Mike Gentry has speculated that The Blue Marble is the most widely distributed image in human history. <2>"

[ronnie624]

36. Excellent.

:thumbsup:

[h9socialist]

21. I hate to admit, but he's probably right! And . . .

. . . I think Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma should be the poster-child for this article.

[Radical Activist]

25. Good job dispelling the accusations of snobby liberal elites!

I'm sure this will really help. :eyes:

[cprise]

42. We need an accessible term for misanthropy

and the defeatist apathy that goes with it.

Misanthropy pervades our culture but it is rarely ever called-out and dealt with.

And here I thought that viewing human beings as basically evil was the job of the Religious Right.

[The2ndWheel]

28. We're not really against climate change

We want to change the climate. We're against a particular version of the change in climate.

If we could, what we would want is the ability to change the climate, to whatever, whenever, and wherever, we deemed necessary. Change is good, as long as we can control it.

[Odin2005]

35. AAAAAND the Lovelock haters are out, right on schedule!

:eyes:

[Dead_Parrot]

37. He said CFCs were safe, y'know

Clearly a moron.

[Dogmudgeon]

43. Misanthropes and Fear-mongers are BAD!

Except when they're saying --

• Peak Oil will destroy our society!
  
• All the fish, coral, bees, bunnies, and Na'vi will be dead by 2020/2050/2100/next Wednesday!
  
• Eeevil nukes will poison the whole planet!
  
• We're engineering a complete environmental collapse!
  
• The Black and Yellow Races are breeding us into extinction!
  
• The environment will go into a full-on runaway greenhouse and the Earth will be Venus' twin in 500 years!
  
• We're poisoning the whole world with bisphenol, HFCS, and RED MEAT!
  
• Everybody is getting too fat for me to want to have sex with!
  
• It's not nice to fool Mother Nature! Karma is a bitch! You call it Corn, we call it Maize! War is over, if you want it, asshole!
  
• We're running out of oil! Running out, I say!
  
• Nukes! Nukes! Nukes! AAAARRGGHHH!
  
• Obama is going to sell us out to the New World Order start a Race War just so nobody will find out he's a cannibal!
  
• The Rapture is coming!
  
• The End is near!

I have Seen the Future, and it wears a Mohawk, rides a Harley, and wants a piece of Mel Gibson's ass.

--d!
Okay ... "ass" is a metaphor for the body when violence is inflicted on it. Hope that helps.