The Inter Press Service has an interesting interview with James Lovelock, known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, about everything from the IPCC to geo-engineering and climate tipping points.

Lovelock has earlier said that he believes that climate change is now irreversible. He predicts that the major part of the humans, more than six billion people, will get wiped out of the face of the earth due to wars, starvation, epidemics and chaos during the rest of the century due to the effects of a changing climate. Lovelock estimates that by year 2100 there will only be around 500 millions people left who struggles to survive on the few remaining liveable places on earth: Scandinavia, Canada and Iceland.

In the IPS interview Lovelock says he hopes that once climate disaster strikes “we will stay civilised and those in the North will give refuge to the unimaginably large numbers of climate refugees”:

“TIERRAMÉRICA: What will this new climate be like?

JL: The tropical and subtropical zones of the Earth will be too hot and dry to grow food or support human life. People will be forced to migrate towards the poles to places like Canada. There will be less than one billion people by the end of the century. My hope is that we will stay civilised and those in the North will give refuge to the unimaginably large numbers of climate refugees.”

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And so the evacuation has begun. Just a few weeks ago the first five families from the Carteret Islands, a small coral atoll far off the coast from Papua New Guinea with a population of around 2600 people, abandon their homes. This is the first evacuation of an entire people due to man-made climate change.

“As the Ecologist’s blogger Dan Box witnessed, the first five families have moved to Bougainville to prepare the ground for full evacuation. There are compounding factors – the removal of mangrove forests and some local volcanic activity – but the main problem appears to be rising sea levels. The highest point of the islands is 170cm above the sea. Over the past few years they have been repeatedly inundated by spring tides, wiping out the islanders’ vegetable and fruit gardens, destroying their subsistence and making their lives impossible.”

It is worth noting that these families are not the first climate refugees in the world. People have abandoned their homes due to natural climate changes before. One example of that can be the abandoned olive presses from the Roman Empire which can be found in North Africa – where once trees and olives flourished there is now just deserts.

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Lord Nicholas Stern, British economist and academic who is most known for the Stern Review said, during an improvised speech at a Cape Town hotel in South Africa, that if we don’t act quickly and determinedly to address climate change the world will face billions of climate refugees and extended world wars in a near future:

“If the world’s nations act responsibly, Stern said, they will achieve “zero-carbon” electricity production and zero-carbon road transport by 2050 _ by replacing coal power plants with wind, solar or other energy sources that emit no carbon dioxide, and fossil fuel-burning vehicles with cars running on electric or other “clean” energy.

Then warming could be contained to a 2-degree-Celsius (3.4-degree-Fahrenheit) rise this century, he said.

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Photo credit: Pieter Pieterse

In a confidential security review by Australia’s Defence Force, named “Climate Change, The Environment, Resources And Conflict”, the Australian army says climate change will pose “one of the biggest threats to security in the Pacific“. The confidential security review obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper also says that the natural resources under the melting Arctic ice may spark a global conflict.

“”Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure,” said the summary, published in the Herald on Wednesday.

“The Arctic is melting, potentially making the extraction of undersea energy deposits commercially viable. Conflict is a remote possibility if these disputes are not resolved peacefully,” the assessment said.”

According to the security review rising sea levels, caused by climate change, will “affect nations and islands with low-lying coastlines”, create climate refugees from the Pacific islands and result in more illegal fishing as food recourses will become rare.

Today Al Gore issued a “major challenge” for USA where he said that Americans must abandon electricity generated by fossil fuels within 10 years and instead move over to green renewable energy. He called it “A Generational Challenge to Repower America.”

“Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans – in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here’s what’s changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power – coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal – have radically changed the economics of energy.”

If the challenge is not accepted “the survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk,” Al Gore said.

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How will our coastal cities look like when the ice melts and causes rising sea levels? How can we take care and give room for the millions of climate change refugees in the future? Well, the Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut might have the answer.

Vincent Callebaut has designed a “floating ecopolis” called Lilypad. Each of these floating cities has room for 50000 people. The city will be able to generate its own energy with the help from several wind turbines, wave power and solar panels. Lilypad will also be able to collect and clean rainwater for daily use around the city.

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