Hothouse Earth Is Merely the Beginning of the End

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

“Our future,” scientist James Lovelock has written, “is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail.”

I thought about Lovelock the other day as I drove across Idaho, watching plumes from a forest fire rise in the distance. My mom and two of my kids were texting me about their experience driving through Redding, the city in Northern California where a “firenado” had devastated the region and accelerated a wildfire that killed six people. Not far away, in Mendocino, the largest fire in California history was burning an area the size of Los Angeles.

On the radio, I listened to reports from around the world: in Athens, Greece, a fire killed 92 people; in Japan, a brutal heat wave claimed 80 lives. This summer, wildfires have been burning in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Germany. There are even wildfires in the Arctic. High temperature records have been shattered all around the globe, including in Death Valley, California, which set the record for the hottest month ever recorded on the planet, with 21 days over 120 degrees. Our world is aflame.

I doubt any of this would surprise Lovelock, who is one of the most original thinkers of the 20th century, as well as one of the most articulate prophets of doom. As an inventor, he created a device that helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer and jump-start the environmental movement in the 1970s. And as a scientist, he introduced the revolutionary theory known as Gaia — the idea that our entire planet is a kind of super-organism that is, in a sense, “alive.” Once dismissed as New Age quackery, Lovelock’s vision of a self-regulating Earth now underlies virtually all climate science.

And in Lovelock’s view, the Earth’s self-regulating system is seriously out of whack, thanks largely to our 150-year fossil fuel binge. “You could quite seriously look at climate change as a response of the system intended to get rid of an irritating species: us humans,” Lovelock told me in 2007 when I visited him at his house in Devon, England, for a profile in Rolling Stone. “Or at least cut them back to size.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/hothouse-earth-climate-change-709470/

[lapfog_1]

1. the sky is literally on fire

OK.. a little different plot... but pretty good for 1961 SciFi.

too bad there are simplistic answers like in the film

[cilla4progress]

2. A helicopter dropping water is now flying over my home in E. Washington

We lost a home to wildfire in '94. Have been pushed out a couple times since. On Level 2 "be prepared" evac status now. The entire west is on fire.

And we have the worst possible excuse for a human being at the helm.

[Blue_true]

4. Is your property at risk or is the water a precaution? nt

[mr_lebowski]

3. Huh ... the 'Berlin as Hot as Baghdad' is a surprising prediction to me

I always thought the expectation was that the Gulf Stream would shut down due to ice melt in Greenland, causing Europe to cool significantly, at least for awhile ... isn't it right now supposed to be quite a bit warmer than it it otherwise would be w/o the Gulf Stream bringing up warm water from the equator region? Berlin is at same latitude as the south end of Hudson Bay, or Saskatoon, for example. Aberdeen, Scotland is only about hundred miles south of Juneau, Alaska. Oslo, Stockholm and Helsinki are about the same latitude as Seward Alaska, or the Southern tip of Greenland.

[roamer65]

5. Warning to climate deniers: Stay away from the Great Lakes.

You’re not wanted here. Stay where you are at and die. Do your part for population reduction.

[mountain grammy]

9. +1

[Danmel]

14. In door county Wisconsin as we speak

Everyone has said winters after much less severe than when they were children.

[shanti]

6. Planet Crematoria

from Chronicles of Riddick. Scary stuff!

[NRaleighLiberal]

7. should the coming - and in-progress - climate disasters be a surprise to any of us here? I hope not.

I've gotten my own birds eye view - as a gardener here in Raleigh for 26 years, it is simply so clear that what it is like to grow things successfully here now is much more challenging than when we moved in. Some changes are subtle, some quite clearly evident - but things are clearly amiss.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

8. People could have regulated the size of their families. Hell, I knew when I was 10

That there were too many people on the planet, and I knew it would only get worse. That was 50 years ago that I had that epiphany. A big reason I didn’t want kids. No gene of mine could be so important that I had to add to the population burden.

If only more women thought the same way.

The Earth will cut us down to size, indeed.

[Kaleva]

10. The thing is, the effects of climate change will not be uniform all over the world.

Some areas will see a net improvement in their climate, such as milder winters and longer growing seasons, and other areas will experience a net degradation of their climate.

[PaulX2]

11. And My Area The Methow Burns Every Year

Welcome to HELL. Just like in the movie.

[cachukis]

12. The irony is that we all know it's happening and we can't stop.

My footprint is less than 60 percent of others. In my Prius I still drive to the store. I'm remodeling a house to move back into and sell my existing home to avoid taxes. Sell that one in two years to avoid taxes. Hoping to live out of a suitcase, but how real is that. There are those who want to live the life of comfort. Too late, I'm aware of how much I've taken. And I don't throw vegetables away.

[cstanleytech]

13. I guess that depends on what you define as the end. Personally I think

we as a species have shot at surviving than most of the other species on the planet given that we are an extremely adaptable species but regardless life itself will probably endure.