In short, Klein talks about how our societies have become addicted to extreme reckless risk-taking from an interesting gender perspective. Her examples are the BP oil spill catastrophe in the Mexico Gulf, the invasion of Iraq, the collapse of the financial sectors and the ever more pressing case of climate change. Klein says that the hottest and poorest countries are the ones who are being hit first and hardest by the effects of climate change. And that the rich nations, who mainly bear the historical responsibility for global warming, roll the dice on the risks because they think they can handle and control the devastating effects of climate change. According to Klein the challenges we face today can be traced back to the deep inequality in the world that separates the powerful from the ones who have to suffer the effects of their actions.

And before you start to foolishly criticize her gender perspective:

Now be sure to check out Klein’s interesting talk!

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.”

“[…]TIERRAMÉRICA: How did we end up in such a difficult position, in which the human species is at risk?

JL: It’s like the pre-World War II calm in Britain when I was a young man. No one did anything until bombs began to fall. We really don’t notice climate change; it seems theoretical to most of us. When the first great climate disaster strikes, I hope we will all pull together just as if our nation was being invaded.”

Although I don’t agree with many of the viewpoints Lovelock holds, his nuclear stance being one, I always find his ideas and opinions interesting (and scary!). Lovelock’s latest book “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning” was released in April earlier this year, which is said to be “Lovelock’s final word on the terrifying environmental problems we will confront in the twenty-first century.” I haven’t read it yet, the book is laying here on the table next to me, but I am sure it will be just as interesting as his former books.

via Stephen Leahy

Photo credit: pfala

A new scientific study from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in USA shows that “there’s no going back” from climate change caused by carbon dioxide. The study, led by NOAA senior scientist Susan Solomon, has reached the shocking conclusion that the effects of man-made climate change are largely irreversible for more than 1,000 years after carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are completely stopped.

“Our study convinced us that current choices regarding carbon dioxide emissions will have legacies that will irreversibly change the planet,” said Solomon, who is based at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo.

“It has long been known that some of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activities stays in the atmosphere for thousands of years,” Solomon said. “But the new study advances the understanding of how this affects the climate system.”

“If CO2 is allowed to peak at 450-600 parts per million, the results would include persistent decreases in dry-season rainfall that are comparable to the 1930s North American Dust Bowl in zones including southern Europe, northern Africa, southwestern North America, southern Africa and western Australia.

The study notes that decreases in rainfall that last not just for a few decades but over centuries are expected to have a range of impacts that differ by region. Such regional impacts include decreasing human water supplies, increased fire frequency, ecosystem change and expanded deserts. Dry-season wheat and maize agriculture in regions of rain-fed farming, such as Africa, would also be affected.”

According to the IPCC we will head towards 1000 ppm by the end of the century that if we continue on the current emission path. Joseph Romm over at Climate Progress says “that would put essentially every at risk region into conditions worse than the Dust Bowl for a long, long, long time. Clearly we must peak no higher than 450 ppm”. The bottom line is that “a few decades of prevention is worth 1,000 years of misery,” Romm said.

Solomon doesn’t put much faith in geo-engineering and the possibilities of it to help stop the rising levels of carbon dioxide:

“Asked whether current efforts by some scientists and engineers to invent ways to suck excess CO2 straight out of the air would mean global warming could in fact be reversed after all, she agreed it would, “if by some miracle” such engineering feats could ever be realized.

Otherwise, she said, her study was only further proof of the urgency of the need for humanity to drastically reduce its greenhouse emissions worldwide.”

Sure, geo-engineering with our climate might work. Or it might not, and we end up wasting precious time and resources on it. We should not put our hopes into geo-engineering. Instead, as Solomon said, we need to reduce our emissions now. There is no other easy fix or solution to this man-made problem.

Also read:
- Obama warns of “irreversible catastrophe” on climate, says he will not deny facts
- Al Gore: “We’ve Arrived at a Moment of Decision”