Environment in crisis: ‘We are past the point of no return’

Thirty years ago, the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment fit for life. He called it Gaia, and the theory has become widely accepted. Now, he believes mankind’s abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion – that climate change is already insoluble, and life on Earth will never be the same again.

The world and human society face disaster to a worse extent, and on a faster timescale, than almost anybody realises, he believes. He writes: ” Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable.”

The Independent

Also in The Independent, Lovelock’s introduction to his latest book, The Revenge of Gaia:James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years

Quote: “We could grow enough to feed ourselves on the diet of the Second World War, but the notion that there is land to spare to grow biofuels, or be the site of wind farms, is ludicrous.”