We're all doomed! (James Lovelock)

[Delphinus]

40 years from global catastrophe - and there's NOTHING we can do about it, says climate change expert
By SARAH SANDS - More by this author »

Last updated at 00:34am on 22nd March 2008


I did a search to see if this had been posted and it didn't come up.

The weather forecast for this holiday weekend is wildly unsettled. We had better get used to it.

According to the climate change scientist James Lovelock, this is the beginning of the end of a peaceful phase in evolution.


By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine.


The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain.


We will, he says, have to set up encampments in this country, like those established for the hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the conflict in East Africa.

{snip}

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541748&in_page_id=1

[LakeSamish706]

1. The good news is, I don't think that any of us will need to worry about ...

what will be 32 years from now... Don't think we will make it anywhere near that far in time.

[kestrel91316]

2. Well, I can definitely see the average life expectancy plummeting

rather precipitously around the world by then...........

[Delphinus]

5. This is what I often forget:

"If you take the IPCC predictions, then by 2040 every summer in Europe will be as hot as it was in 2003 - between 110F and 120F. It is not the death of people that is the main problem, it is the fact that the plants can't grow. There will be almost no food grown in Europe."

As someone who plants a garden, I *should* remember this important fact!

So, not only will people die from the heat, they'll die from the lack of food.

Edit to add that I really agree with him on this point here:
Eager to show my survivalist instincts, I suggest that "our species" finds another planet to inhabit. Lovelock's face darkens.

"No, we can't," he says. "There isn't one. And it is almost obscene, the idea that you screw up the Earth and then look for another planet. We have no option but to take our punishment and be glad that there will be enough of us to survive."

[GliderGuider]

6. Crop failures are the climate-change boojum

The FAO is already predicting 20% to 30% declines in maize production in southern Africa by 2020, attributed to climate change.

High summer temps and shifts in rainfall patterns will probably result in general yield declines of grain crops. This could hit maize, wheat and rice production in many places around the world, including South and Southeast Asia, Australia, China, Europe and the USA. We are seeing the initial effects now, and the impacts could become Malthusian within 15 years. Reduced domestic supplies along with price spikes in the export markets (reinforced by rising oil, gas and fertilizer prices) will gradually drop more and more marginal nations below the survival level.

[napoleon_in_rags]

13. ITs a point worth repeating.

We should remember that. My friends were playing some board game and had to write down our worst fears. My friend said "famine" and everybody looked at her funny...It shows how detached we are from this kind of possibility in the first world.

[Myrina]

3. Can they take all the Flat Earther's and Bible Thumpers first?

... thin out the herd to give the rest of us a chance to sorta-peacefully exist for a little while, anyway?

:shrug:

[Nihil]

11. Please? (n/t)

[Ganja Ninja]

4. It's all speculation at this point.

No one can accurately predict what the consequences will be. We may slip into a small ice age for a few years before the warming continues. Weather patterns can't be predicted because there are too many variables. When coast lines change and ocean currents change and water temperature changes who can say whether it will be wetter here or dryer there?
About the only thing they can say accurately is what will be flooded out when the water rises to a certain point. The rest is pure conjecture. We can't even say how fast the water will rise. Sudden and catastrophic sea level rise might deal with the refugee problem all by itself. In some places in Florida a rise of 10 ft overnight would leave people stranded off shore by more than 20 miles.
It's probably not going to be pretty but who knows.

[GliderGuider]

7. Sea level rise is not the thing we need to be worrying about.

As mentioned above, the impact of rainfall changes on grain yields will be the first big human impact of climate change. Compared to that, changes in sea level are a non-event.

[Kolesar]

14. That's a bizarre "article" what with a recitation of brambles in the garden and a wife 20 years his

junior. I really only has one number in it.

[End Of The Road]

8. Stoopid question here

Why did so many die (was it last summer?) in France from the terrible heatwave? Was it mainly a public education problem about how to avoid heatstroke? Strategies for staying safe in the heat? I know that we still have problems in this country, especially among the elderly and poor, for a host of reasons, but what were the circumstances in France?

[IDemo]

9. "fighting their way into Australia"?"

Did he mean Austria? Australia is already experiencing severe water shortages.

[malakai2]

10. I caught that one too

Tasmania maybe, and New Zealand, but that just exacerbates the problem by packing them like sardines. I imagine under those circumstances, those islands would end up looking like Haiti.

Siberia, perhaps? Or not, maritime climate zones with more moderate weather and perhaps rainfall would seem like a better choice. Geographically speaking, if easy global transportation is one of the first things to go, I have a hard time seeing how people struggling in Africa, the Middle East, and south Asia fight their way en masse to Canada. Even if such transportation is not one of the first things to go, it is already financially unavailable to those who will be most affected.

[Nihil]

12. Stopped clock syndrome

(Not w.r.t. Lovelock but with respect to the previous post.)

> By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been
> culled by floods, drought and famine.

Believe it.

There will be incredible famine, drought and devastation.

At the end of it, there will be war, rape, slavery and slaughter.

(That's the good news ...)

[Renew Missouri]

15. Some of us are trying anyway.

We're trying to get Renewable Energy Standards in place in Missouri and need 93,000 signatures in the next 45 days.

Get more info at RenewMO.org.

[Delphinus]

16. Welcome, Renew Missouri.

Good luck on your action!

[Kolesar]

17. That's the spirit!

:hi: