In his new book Lovelock, the father of Gaia theory, paints a somewhat hopeless picture for plant earth and all who travel on her broad back. Actually it’s not all doom and gloom but more and more it seems like our ability to prevent global heating is lessened day by day.

He sees an unstable system accentuating positive feedbacks. This amplification of feedbacks can send out misleading signals i.e. periods of cooling can be just as intense as the system ratchets up the power of an accelerating loop. This is similar to tipping points observed in fisheries when the catch hits all time highs one year with collapse the next….no fish left…look there’s loads…..crash. In this interview he leans towards a population collapse, a general die-off as the likely result of our earthly transgressions.

I think I’m with him on this. Having followed and tried to get involved in the climate debate for the last 10 years I have seen how hard it is to effect change and also that change needs to come at a global level AND from the supply side. All the tinkering in the world will not make a difference and perhaps we should just focus on adaptation instead.

At the same time he’s heading off into space, courtesy of Richard Branson who offered him a ride on spaceship Gaia. Hopefully he’ll be listening to Bowie as he takes off. For all you fans here’s the original video….sit back and take off

Tags: bowie, climate change, die off, ecosystem collapse, gaia theory, global heating, james lovelock, space oddity