Do you miss a subject, a perspective or would you like to write an article for this site? Contact us!
- ‘It is a challenge to develop a construction material as strong as an egg shell, but without the intermediate of a chicken’
Latest
Monday Morning Motivation Contact us now at info@mla-uk.com for details on the opportunities available to you through MLA Colleges range of degree level maritime programmes #mondaymotivation #enrolment #investment #education #sustainability #global #opportunit… pic.twitter.com/CYOKaQS9ee
See you there!!!😄😄 Sign up here - bit.ly/3AQM1SD @NEEChamberArlen, North East England Chamber of Commerce, I am really excited!! #sustainability #sdgs #sdgsimpact #sdgs2030 #cop26 lnkd.in/dr7f9m-H
Chemicals companies should recognize their responsibility to handle recycling of end-products, including tires and plastics among others. @strategyandME #CircularEconomy #CircularChemistry strategyand.smh.re/0TL
On my way on #sustainable business trip via train & look forward to a break on this journey watching the @EURACTIV #Cop26 virtual panel. #Takethetrain #walkthetalk pic.twitter.com/03upuZD5ML
Sustainable farming achieved through Hydroponic farming. #youth #sustainability #hydroponic #foodsecurity #miramarinternational pic.twitter.com/3bEPfew9xz
Great video from @TrussedRafter. #rooftrusses #Sustainability #woodforgood twitter.com/TrussedRafter/…
We go out of our way to ensure our processes and materials are #sustainable, keeping our #carbonfootprint to a minimum. We do this to ensure our business has minimal impact on the #environment and to help other businesses reduce their carbon footprint with sustainable #print. pic.twitter.com/1T7nwibGKy
This is perfect. May not be the final solution but a step none the less. #EV #electricmobility #electricbike #sustainability twitter.com/ValaAfshar/sta…
Great to see such recognition focusing on #Sustainability and #ClimateActionNow Congratulations to all #EarthshotPrize winners for being trailblazers👏👏 #EarthshotLondon2021 twitter.com/earthshotprize…
Our truly sustainable capsules filled with @gordonstcoffee's award winning, signature blend coffee - a perfect match for the perfect cup every time ☕✨ Buy instore or online at gordonstcoffee.co.uk #compostable #plantbased #sustainability pic.twitter.com/FChHIVEYTj
Gaia, and James Lovelock’s gentle revenge
In his book The Revenge of Gaia (2006) James Lovelock reasserts his idea that the earth, living and mineral, is a self-regulating system. A system that is now put to an extreme test by mankind by the vast amounts of CO2 we pump into the atmosphere. Lovelock argues with great mastery of his subject; but remarkably, as soon as he strays from the path of science and starts to argue on energy policy, his arguments lose their rigour and become as good as the next-door neighbour’s. Most interesting, nevertheless.
James Lovelock
The Revenge of Gaia, Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How We Can Still Save Humanity was among the books that I took from the bookshelves of Paul Reinshagen, my good friend and co-editor of this site, who passed away much too early. Never having read anything by Lovelock (but much about him), I rather expected a grim essay, Lovelock’s revenge so to speak, knowing the fierce opposition to his ideas among scientists, and certainly in view of the doom-spelling title. But here was this very kind then 87 year old author, in every inch a gentleman, who does not attack anyone in particular and even thanks an opponent like Richard Dawkins for the clarity of his argument.
The precarious condition of Gaia
For purely selfish reasons, Lovelock argues, mankind endangers the stability of Gaia, the entire system, by emitting huge quantities of that ultimate poison, CO2. Many species have become extinct already, many more will follow them; we may even make the planet uninhabitable to ourselves within a few decades, apart from some areas around the poles. This very hot world may become very violent, with warlords in permanent battle over the few remaining resources. Gaia will certainly survive, in some form or another; but if and how it will still be a place for mankind, is very much the question. Lovelock’s concept of Gaia as the ultimate self-regulating system on which all life on earth is dependent, implies ethics in which the wellbeing of Gaia, not of mankind, let alone the individual, is the ultimate good. ‘Gaia is an evolutionary system in which any species, including humans, that persists with changes to the environment that lessen the survival of its progeny is doomed to extinction…. We have in a sense stumbled into a war with Gaia, a war that we have no hope of winning. All that we can do is to make peace while we are still strong and not a broken rabble’ (p.139-140).
James Lovelock around 1960
Lack of logical clarity
But then, when he switches to the role of a responsible citizen, and tries to sketch where to go from here, the compelling nature of his arguments vanishes as snow before the sun. The great man stumbles around in the area of energy policy just like most people do, lacking logical clarity and consistent priorities. It is not his support for CO2-free nuclear energy (that I do not share) that leads me to this judgment, but rather his utter neglect of energy inefficiency and what we could do about it. Surely, if we look upon CO2 as the ultimate poison, it should enrage us that so much CO2 is vented to the atmosphere for no good reason at all: because of insufficient insulation of homes and industrial piping, inefficient machinery, and most of all simple neglect? But Lovelock just devotes one unremarkable passage to energy inefficiency – as most half-informed citizens and policy makers would do. And Lovelock’s simple dismissal of solar energy (too expensive) shows no great knowledge of the laws that govern technology development. He has high hopes for the elusive world of nuclear fusion but does not see the benign opportunity around the corner.
Lovelock’s criticism of the humanist concept of sustainable development (or what we have made of it) and of the Christian concept of stewardship (both ‘flawed by unconscious hubris’, p.176) is very apt. So is his portrayal of biomass as an energy source that would even do further damage to Gaia if deployed on a large scale. And his criticism of our habit to use the land surface ‘as if it was ours alone’. He gave me food for thought as he highlighted that we go at great lengths to protect us from radioactive waste and do very little about CO2 that he judges to be the greater evil. And Lovelock even let me consider in a positive way some kinds of climate engineering, like creating just a little mist over our oceans. But above all I value him for his most gentle way to propose unselfishness as the ultimate goal, not for mankind, but for life as such, for Gaia.
on: 2 October 2016