A new Dark Age?

We need to do more to prevent the world descending into a new Dark Age as a result of climate change, argues Professor Tim Flannery.

In 2006 James Lovelock published a book that bluntly laid before us the consequences of the carbon imbalance. The Revenge of Gaia argues Gaia’s climate system is far more sensitive to greenhouse gas pollution than we imagine, and the system is already trapped in a vicious circle of positive feedback

Although there is still time to avert a catastrophe, Lovelock believes humans lack the foresight, wisdom and political energy required to do so.

Instead, he predicts, before the 21st century is out our global civilisation will have collapsed and a new Dark Age will have dawned, wherein a few survivors will cling to the few remaining habitable regions, such as Greenland and the Antarctic Peninsula.

How probable is it that this bleak vision will come to pass? New scientific data means that in 2009 we are better placed than ever to determine the scale of the threat and its imminence.

ABC