Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
Gaia's revenge - review of James Lovelock's, The Revenge of Gaia
Ian MacDougal is a long-time Webdiarist and occasional, highly valued contributor. His last contribution was also a review, Review of Stephen Pyne's 'The Still Burning Bush'.
James Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia. Allen Lane, London 2006. rrp AU$29.95
Review by Ian MacDougall.
James Lovelock’s major concern is rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, what it is likely to do to us, and what we in turn can do about it. That is, if it is not too late already to avoid a runaway greenhouse effect.
Just in case it has managed so far to evade you, the ‘greenhouse effect' occurs when radiation from the sun (mostly light and heat) passes through a transparent layer such as greenhouse glass, is absorbed by the materials in the greenhouse, and is subsequently re-radiated at a lower frequency which cannot pass back as easily through the glass to the external environment. So the original radiation finishes up as heat trapped inside the greenhouse. Some gases (eg carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, chlorofluorocarbons and water vapour) have the same effect as the greenhouse glass, and as their concentrations rise, the planet warms up.
Lovelock views the outer part of the Earth we live on, including the biosphere, as a single internally self-regulating organism, which he has named ‘Gaia’ (the ancient Greek term for ‘Mother Earth’). We might be lulled into false comfort and security by that, but he warns, its primary purpose as looking after itself, not us. However, nothing he has written would indicate that acceptance of the Gaia concept as such is necessary for forming practical policies and responses for dealing with climate change.
After reading Lovelock’s book I wrote down the following propositions. They are in order of decreasing certainty, a yet all but the last are probably true:
- The CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has been rising for at least the last 150 years, and continues to rise due to human activity.
- The Earth’s climate is changing.
- There is increasing energy in the atmosphere.
- The Earth (land, sea and air) is warming.
- Global warming is due to rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere.
- Global warming can be reversed by human activity designed to decrease atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases, particularly CO2.
- Failure to kerb the rising concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will result in rising sea levels and higher mean temperatures.
- Rising atmospheric CO2 will result in the Earth becoming less and less fit for human habitation, with and massive losses of plants and the animals (including humans) dependent on them. Life will die back approaching the equator and concentrate towards the poles.
- Human civilisation on the surface of this planet is facing an immanent and massive environmental crisis due to global warming, with time rapidly running out before positive feedback systems take over completely, leaving us no way back from a runaway greenhouse effect and global ruin.
- James Lovelock will be proven wrong on point 9.
Note that the certainty of these does not decrease uniformly; nor does it go from 100% for the first down to 0% from the last. The global climate systems are also complex enough for global warming to finish up giving the UK and parts of Western Europe climates more like Alaska’s, due to a slowing of the Gulf Stream. (London at 51.5 degrees N is at about the same latitude as the bitterly cold Aleutians, and Puerto Natales at the southern end of Chile (51.4 degrees S) has a corresponding southern latitude. Like us in southeastern Australia at the moment, it is enjoying autumn, but at around 0 degrees Celsius.)
In the opening paragraph of his book, Lovelock says:
As always, bad events usurp the news agenda, and as I write in the comfort of my Devon home, the New Orleans catastrophe fills the television screens and front pages. Horrific though it was, it distracts us from the more extensive suffering caused by the tsunami in 2004 that disastrously splashed across the bowl of the Indian Ocean… But this is nothing compared with what may soon happen; we are now so abusing the Earth that it may rise and move back to the hot state it was in fifty-five million years ago, and if it does most of us, and our descendants will die...
************************************
‘Sustainable development’ is no way out. “Many consider this noble policy morally superior to the laissez faire of business as usual. Unfortunately for us, these wholly different approaches, one the expression of international decency, the other of unfeeling market forces, have the same outcome: the probability of disastrous global change… To expect sustainable development or trust in business as usual to be viable policies is like expecting a lung cancer victim to be cured by stopping smoking; both measures deny the existence of the Earth’s disease, the fever brought on by a plague of people...
He says this “fever of global heating is real and deadly, and might already have moved outside our and the Earth’s control...”
Which brings me back to Gaia: In developing this idea, Lovelock collaborated with the American biologist Lynn Margulis whose theory of endosymbiosis accounts brilliantly for certain structures found within cells, such as chloroplasts and mitochondria. Also, and particularly well, it tells us why the latter two have their own DNA. They are most likely descended from free-living bacteria which eons ago invaded other larger bacterial cells as parasites, but finished up millions of generations later as endosymbionts. Cells emerge in this view as clubs of mutualist bacteria, or at least clubs of the descendants of such once free-living organisms. Each group of mutually supportive once-organisms-now-cell-components is enclosed as a community within a membrane boundary, like chocolates in a box, or even somewhat like a series of internally nesting Russian dolls. This view can be extended to cover and describe whole organisms such as human beings, populations, communities, ecosystems and even the biosphere, though it gets more tenuous and controversial the further it goes. Lovelock’s Gaia takes it to another plane altogether.
Going outwards from the center, the Earth is almost entirely made of hot or molten rock and metal. Gaia is a thin spherical shell of matter that surrounds the incandescent interior; it begins where the crustal rocks meet the magma of the Earth’s hot interior, about 100 miles [160 km – IM] below the surface, and proceeds another 100 miles outwards through the ocean and air to the even hotter thermosphere at the edge of space. It includes the biosphere and is a dynamic physiological system that has kept our planet fit for life for over three billion years. I call Gaia a physiological system because it appears to have the unconscious goal of regulating the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable state for life. Its goals are not set points but adjustable for whatever is the current environment and adaptable to whatever form of life it carries.
He views the continental basement rocks below us, and the rocks below the ocean basins, the water of the oceans, the whole biosphere and all of the air as part of a single living, internally self-regulating living being, of which we 6.5 billion humans are a mere tiny part. In my view of Lovelock’s view, we are as mitochondria inside the single cell of a free-living organism, like a monstrously huge and internally complex euglenoid (also see Wikipedia).
Lovelock’s Gaia concept no doubt still prompts some of his fellow chemists to raise an eyebrow at the mention of his name, if not to remark quietly that the poor fellow has clearly taken leave of his senses. But he was the man who discovered the natural molecular carriers of sulfur and iodine in their respective natural cycles: dimethyl sulfide (DMS) which is produced by algae, and methyl iodide, and who then in collaboration with others made the ‘awesome’ (Lovelock’s term) prize-winning discovery in 1986 that DMS was connected with the formation of clouds and with climate. Today he is a Fellow of the Royal Society. Though it is what they say rather than who they are that counts in peer reviewed science, such people as Lovelock should not be dismissed without a very good reason. (Needless to add, a cruise around the net reveals many who would do so.)
I personally have no trouble with the idea of a number of negative feedback systems operating in the biosphere, atmosphere and hydrosphere to hold the planet’s temperature and chemical composition within certain limits. But consider the following:
Gaia, the living Earth, is old and not as strong as she was two billion years ago. She struggles to keep the Earth cool enough for her myriad forms of life against the ineluctable increase of the sun’s heat. But to add to her difficulties, one of those forms of life… has tried to rule the Earth for their benefit alone. With breathtaking insolence they have taken the stores of carbon that Gaia buried to keep oxygen at its proper level and burnt them. In so doing they have usurped Gaia’s authority and thwarted her obligation to keep the planet fit for life; they have thought only of their own comfort and convenience.
Somehow, unconsciously, Gaia buried billions upon billions of plant bodies over millions of years in order to separate carbon from the air’s oxygen. A dog like my faithful friend Charlie might bury a bone and then forget all about it. But he will have consciously done something, though it might not be sequestering carbon to avoid a runaway greenhouse that he had in mind at the time. This conscious act could still somehow make him an agent of Gaia. But does the peat bog slowly sink for the same deliberate purpose?
The quotation two paragraphs above is a modern version of the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Gaia, though described by Lovelock as lacking consciousness, nonetheless has her goals, which are being frustrated by humankind. Very well: Gaia will move to another stable state favouring other more thermally tolerant species, and let humanity seek refuge at the poles. If Gaia pulled all that carbon out of the earlier atmosphere and buried it for the safety of land vertebrates, then presumably she is responsible for volcanoes, earthquakes, mountain building and the drift of continents, all of which have effects on the climate, some large and infrequent; some small and frequent.
...like many regulating systems with a goal, [Gaia] tends to overshoot and stray to the opposite side of its forcing. If the sun’s heat is too little the Earth tends to be warmer than ideal. If too much heat comes from the sun, as now, it regulates on the cold side of the ideal. This is why the usual state of the Earth at present is an ice age. The recent crop of glaciations the geologists call the Pleistocene is, I think, a last desperate effort by the Earth system to meet the needs of its present life forms.
Gaia’s ‘ageing’ is also a bit hard to understand, because the individual species making her up are arguably just as vigorous as any at any stage in Earth’s history. Individuals age, thanks to genetic copying errors in somatic cells, accumulation of toxins and so on. Populations change with time but do not ‘age’ the same way, because generational change brings culling of the less fit, and therefore concentration of the most ‘vigorous’ genes. Likewise for ecosystems and presumably, biospheres; though of the latter we only have one for study.
I find the Gaia concept useful in some ways, less so in others. Why for example, limit the inorganic part of the Earth involved in it to that part above the hot, putty-like mantle? Why not everything right down to the core? And why ‘goal directed’ rather than merely ‘self-regulating’? Self-regulation of temperature may be occurring in the current slowdown of the Gulf Stream, which is cited as a likely cause of the harsh winter just experienced in Europe: a counter-intuitive manifestation of global warming. But the possibility remains that Lovelock has had the most brilliant insight into biology since Darwin and Wallace.
Lovelock keeps on the wall above his desk a copy of what he calls “the amazing graph of the temperature of the northern hemisphere from the year 1000 to the year 2000.” This was developed in 1998 by the American climatologist Michael Mann (also here) out of a mass of tree ring, ice core and coral data. It has been dubbed by climate change skeptics the ‘hockey stick graph’ and is reproduced below as a ‘quotation’ from Wikipedia.
The reconstructions of temperature of the last 1000 years vary between:
ones with significant variability prior to the current century with particular warmth during the Medieval Warm Period and particular coolness during the Little Ice Age and, ones with minimal variability prior to the current century, generally involving a slight cooling until the 20th century.
Reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures for the last 1000 years according to various older articles (bluish lines), newer articles (reddish lines), and instrumental record (black line).
In all cases, the increase in temperature in the 20th century is the largest of any century during the record.
The graph resembles a hockey stick resting on a table with its business end pointing upwards and the end of the handle (on the left side of the graph) slightly raised. It says that over the last 1000 years northern hemisphere temperatures have been trending gradually down a gentle temperature slope leading to another ice age in about 10,000 years time. But since about 1850 the Earth has been rapidly warming up. We are now according to Lovelock at nearly 1Celsius degree above the long-term average. But climate sensitivity to temperature is such that there is only a difference of 3 Celsius degrees between the long-term average of the graph and the last ice age, which ended 12,000 years ago. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report suggests a further 5 degree rise this century.
Others stress that water vapour plays a greater and more variable role than CO2. But CO2 has credibility due to the correlation between historical atmospheric concentrations and historical temperatures.) The hockey stick fits well with the data from the ice cores drilled in 1998 by the Russian-French-American ice-coring team at the Vostok station in eastern Antarctica, which reached a depth of 3623 m in the ice, and provided a continuous ice core record spanning 420,000 years. That team found a strong positive correlation between temperature changes and changes in carbon dioxide and methane trapped in the ice at various depths, which has provided evidence of the magnitude of climatic feedback between increasing levels of greenhouse gases and temperature. Says Lovelock:
We either forget or never knew how different the climate was in the last ice age. Most of the United Kingdom and northwestern Europe including Scandinavia, was buried beneath 3,000 metres of ice, a glacier as thick as that on Greenland now. North America was similarly glaciated as far south as St Louis… Despite all this ice, it was probably a healthier world and more vegetation grew, both on land and in the sea. WE think this because the abundance of carbon dioxide in the air was then below 200 parts per million. It takes a lot of life to pump it down that low.
Lovelock would like the Earth to be back as it was in AD 1800, when there was a much lower concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere and the Earth was ‘healthier’:
We know that in the depth of the last glaciation carbon dioxide fell to 180 ppm [parts per million – IM], rose to 280 ppm after the ice age ended, and has risen now to 380 ppm as a result of our pollution. Already we have made as large a change in the atmosphere as occurred between the ice ages and the interglacials. If it stays at 380 ppm we might expect a comparable rise in temperature, but more probably as we continue to pollute it will rise to 500 ppm or more.
That will bring hell on Earth, “perhaps six to eight degrees hotter than now.” Paradoxically, a repeat of the last ice age would see sea levels fall 120 metres as ice formed at the poles, and while much land would disappear under ice, causing certain adjustments in real estate values, an area equal to the continent of Africa would be released from the sea. As continental and ocean life was arguably more abundant during the last ice age than it is now, a greater not lesser human population would be possible. (Most of them of course, would soon learn to ski and skate.) I would add to that the massive quantities of CO2 released by industrial civilization would in large part be naturally sequestered in the biomass of forest, grassland, oceanic and other ecosystems. Life would possibly be as abundant as in the Permian and Carboniferous periods long ago in geological time.
Photosynthetic organisms can pull CO2 out of the air and sea. The trouble is, we humans keep sending it in. If CO2 is what is driving the temperature upwards (a reasonable assumption) then arguably we have to cut back on CO2 emissions to the atmosphere and step up the rate of CO2 removal from the air if we are to avoid that hell on Earth. For Lovelock, that means switching over to nuclear power, and at high priority. I would incline also to massive reforestation programs and bans on further land clearing. The possible danger for us is that the Earth’s temperature will click over like a light switch from one metastable state to another, and be impossible to bring back to what we had in 1800, when we were heading gently down that temperature slope to the next ice age.
Lovelock is sanguine about the risks of the sort of massive nuclear power program he advocates, and dismissive of other options. He puts the Chernobyl disaster down to ‘”the worst example of the wrong kind of nuclear technology.” Though many think that tens of thousands if not millions perished in Europe downwind of the disaster, he says it was no more than 75 individuals. 400,000 people are estimated to have received an above background radiation dose from that disaster. That will reduce their life expectancy, he agrees. But when you do the relevant calculations, he says, it turns out to be a reduction of only a few hours at the end of an otherwise normal (for each person) life expectancy. There are many scientists of course, who think otherwise. (NB: Since I began writing this Kalman Mizsei and Louisa Vinton have contributed Chernobyl's myths and misconceptions to Webdiary.)
Lovelock also goes through the renewable alternatives to nuclear power. Wind power, wave and tidal energy, hydro-electricity, biofuels and solar energy are all considered in turn, and found wanting. For example, he claims that to supply the UK’s present power demand, 276,000 one megawatt wind turbines would be needed, each 100 metres tall, at an average density of about 3 per square mile if national parks, urban, suburban and industrial areas are excluded. A recent German report he cites puts wind energy down as available only 16 percent of the time. “No sensible community would ever support so outrageously expensive and unreliable an energy source” he says, “were it not that the true costs have been hidden from the public by subsidies and the distortion of market forces through legislation.” Note here that much the same has been said about nuclear power, particularly with regard to the industry’s habit of leaving decommissioning costs of nuclear reactors out of its cost per kilowatt-hour calculations. But while he stresses the inadequacy of each alternate energy source for supplying all our power needs (as in the case of wind) he only gives a passing nod to the running of the future global economy on energy from a mix of these sources: solar and wind and geothermal and hydro and wave and tidal and biofuel and fossil fuel and nuclear. No one source can possibly cover all needs, places and times.
In Lovelock’s view, the nuclear waste problem is a non-event, and is certainly not as difficult as sequestering CO2 in a solid form.
But it is not enough to use this as an argument favouring a wider use of nuclear energy, because the public belief in the harmfulness of nuclear power is too strong to break by direct argument. Instead, I have offered in public to accept all of the high-level waste produced in a year from a nuclear power station for deposit on my small plot of land; it would occupy a space about a cubic metre in size and fit safely in a concrete pit, and I would use the heat from the decaying radioactive elements to heat my home. It would be a waste not to use it. More important, it would be no danger to me, my family or the wildlife.
There will be disagreement on this matter. According to the website of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission:
Since the only way radioactive waste finally becomes harmless is through decay, which for high-level wastes can take hundreds of thousands of years, the wastes must be stored and finally disposed of in a way that provides adequate protection of the public for a very long time.
On the more cheerful side, the more radioactive the waste is (and thus the hotter) the shorter the half-lives of the responsible radioactive elements are. The World Nuclear Association points out that 40 years after removal of spent nuclear fuel, less than one thousandth of its initial radioactivity remains. But though the decay curve drops steeply at first, it then flattens out with the passage of time, necessitating long term storage in borosilicate glass (similar to Pyrex) or perhaps in the future in synthetic rock like the ‘synroc’ developed at the ANU. This involves deep disposal, such as down 500 m deep shafts in stable geological locations. Deposition in subduction zones on the seabed is another possibility, where over time the waste will move down towards the Earth’s mantle. The problem for Lovelock’s heirs will be that the concrete housing the backyard reactor and its metal parts will all have weathered away long before the radioactivity of the waste gets to anything near the relatively safe level of the normal background.
Before reading Lovelock’s book, I was of the opinion, based on reading of the odd popular science article, that fusion power was as far away as ever. In my recollection every year since the first fusion bomb was detonated in the 1950s, a first fusion power station has always been about 50 years away. It has been just like the carrot dangled in front of the donkey’s nose from a stick held by the man on its back, never getting any closer. But Lovelock reports that in February 2005, the Tokomak reactor at the Culham Science Centre heated a mixture of hydrogen isotopes to a temperature of 150 million degrees Celsius (50 million degrees above the core temperature of the sun) and held it there for two seconds, releasing 16 megawatts of energy from nuclear fusion as it did so. This is encouraging, as fusion power by its very nature is free of risk from radioactive by products. But even so, the transition from this to commercial fusion generated electricity probably does not lie down a predictable path with predictable costs.
Critics argue that even if what Lovelock wants comes to pass, which is a fast tracked massive investment worldwide in non-polluting (at least, not with greenhouse gas) nuclear power, the uranium reserves to fuel it will not last more than 100 years. If fusion power has not overcome its technical problems by then, then it will be the alternate sources of wind, geothermal, tidal, hydroelectricity, solar and biofuels which will have to do it. So if the investment in them must be then, it might as well be now. The inherent danger in the fission nuclear option is the inevitable pressure to carry on to the full plutonium economy when the uranium runs out if the fusion reactor by then is not up to commercial operation. This carries with it the dangers (accidents; terrorists) inherent in using plutonium, the most toxic substance known, as the world’s primary source of energy. Unfortunately, Lovelock does not discuss this.
Solar power does not work as well in the UK, where Lovelock lives, as it does in other more sunny parts of the world. In Australia, it is possible in some places for those with solar cells and grid power to reduce their net load on the system and their power bills by putting their excess solar-generated power into the grid. “I find it hard to believe” he says, ” that large-scale solar energy plants in desert regions, where the intensity and constancy of sunlight could be relied on, would compare in cost and reliability with fission or fusion energy, especially when the cost of transmitting the energy was taken into account.” Given the present known costs of solar and the unknown costs of fusion, that is a bit of a leap.
Not as great a leap, however, as the one being made on a daily basis by the climate change deniers favouring business as usual. The Precautionary Principle right now looks very good to me.
A final reviewer’s note: My apologies to Webdiary readers for the apparent lateness of this review. The Revenge of Gaia was originally scheduled by the publisher for release in Australia in early April, and though no advance review copies were to be made available in this country, the publishers promised me a copy by mail as soon as it came in. So I waited for mine to arrive by post. However, due to popular interest, the book was released in early March. I only found out about that by accident when I happened to walk into a bookshop and found it on display. (The publishers had unfortunately forgotten all about me. But no surprise: that sort of thing happens to me all the time. Then again, you could say that I am used to it now. Aaagh!)
 |
|
 |
 |
| © 2005-2011, Webdiary Pty Ltd |
| Disclaimer: | This site is home to many debates, and the views expressed on this site are not necessarily those of the site editors. Contributors submit comments on their own responsibility: if you believe that a comment is incorrect or offensive in any way, please submit a comment to that effect and we will make corrections or deletions as necessary. |
Nuclear power is under construction
John Pratt, I think you’re spot on. Nuclear power is going to fill gap between phasing out old polluting sources like coal and phasing in genuine renewable power. Many folk refuse to accept this reality but that won’t impact the results. Some quotes from your link.
“Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland are now re-evaluating plans to phase-out nuclear power.”
“Japan is building five new power plants by 2010, and China plans to build 30 nuclear reactors, based on domestic designs, by 2020.”
“Russia is currently constructing several reactors”
“Iran is building two Russian-designed reactors”
“The first South African PBMR (pebble bed reactor) is set to be completed in 2012”
“the Ontario Power Authority proposed plans to build 12 new nuclear plants to help phase out Ontario's coal-fired power stations.”
“New 1600-MW European PWRs (pressurised water reactors) are being built, one in Finland and one in France”
“Tony Blair is expected to announce this spring six to eight new reactors in the UK.”
“building its second of four power plants for Pakistan”
“India has nine power plants under construction”
Is the future of the planet at stake?
“Some two dozen power plants are scheduled to be built or refurbished during the next five years in Canada, China, several European Union countries, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and South Africa. In the US and the UK, governmental preparations are under way that may lead to 15 new reactor orders by 2007” See here.
The world is rapidly moving towards a nuclear future, whether we like it or not.
If some of the world’s scientists are correct, climate change is going to cause mass extinctions, melting of the ice caps, rising sea levels, billions of people in danger. We are on a fast moving express train to catastrophe. We need to apply the brakes now. It seems most of the world is willing to use the nuclear brake to slow the train down. It might cause a carriage of two to derail but may just save the train. The world needs courage and leadership like never before. We all agree that future is scary; the time for decision has come.
All other issues fade into insignificance if the future of the planet is at stake!
nuclear free future
Dear John, I challenge your claim that "the world is rapidly moving towards a nuclear future". I note that you fail to mention the many nuclear reactors which will be decommissioned in the same timeframe.
I don't think it is a coincidence that many of those nations you have identified as enthusiastically pursuing new reactors are just as enthusiastic in their pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Both the USA and the UK have abandoned all pretence at disarmament, and are rushing forward with the development of a new generation of nuclear weapons. Unlike the megaton bombs of last century, which everyone was afraid to use at risk of wiping out the whole planet, these new weapons are designed not for deterrence, but for deployment. Indeed most nations with civilian nuclear power programs have parallel military programs.
It’s been twenty years since the Chernobyl disaster blew the lid off the nuclear industry’s feeble claims to safety, and twice as long since anyone kept a straight face while repeating the phrase ‘energy too cheap to meter’. So would it be cynical to suggest that the renewed drive for nuclear power is less about meeting energy demands, and more about equipping the neo-con warmongers with a new arsenal of nuclear weapons?
Once again, we do agree though, when you quite rightly state that, "All other issues fade into insignificance if the future of the planet is at stake!" I see this as sufficient grounds for rejecting your proposal of a nuclear fuelled future.
The nuclear brake handle
John Pratt: I could not agree more.
"All other issues fade into insignificance if the future of the planet is at stake!"
If the handle labelled 'nuclear brake' would slow the train down without creating additional problems like waste disposal, who wouldn't be in favour of it? Trouble is, even ignoring waste disposal, yanking on that handle can only speed the train up in the short term. It takes time (between decision to build and coming on stream) for a nuclear power station of whatever design to even begin to produce electricity, and more time for it to move into the black ergonomically (ie to pay back the energy debt incurred in increased CO2 released to the atmosphere during construction, and at the end of its life in decommissioning).
A multi-national nuclear power program over the next 50 years could easily miss getting out of the red ergonomically over that whole time, and for a considerable time after, as what is gained by station 1 is absorbed in the construction of stations 2 and 3 following on, and then stations 4, 5, 6 and 7 following them in turn.
The Chinese appear to me to have taken a decision to secure a long term supply of uranium, from Australia particularly. The uranium reserves that could benefit all countries for only a few years (in the unlikely event of wholesale conversion to nuclear generation of electricity worldwide) might benefit the Chinese for considerably longer if they succeed in cornering the uranium market, at least to the greatest extent they can. This in my view does much to explain the Chinese haste. They know that uranium cannot be a panacea for everyone.
You said: "The world is rapidly moving towards a nuclear future, whether we like it or not."
What is more likely, if the hopes of the nuclear lobby are realised, is that the world is moving into a short, and possibly costly, nuclear episode. Nuclear power stations may well turn out to have the same wealth creation capacity as casinos, and like the latter mainly serve to siphon huge volumes of money out of the pockets of the many into the bank accounts of a few. But future? Using uranium for fuel? Sorry, it just ain't.
Concern about greenhouse and global warming understandably appears to the nuclear lobby as the answer to all their prayers, serving to turn around an industry which has been in steady decline for the last 25 years.
Humanity can save itself from global warming and the disaster it portends. But it has to be 'all hands to the pumps' rather than 'every man for himself'; an internationally coordinated and properly planned hauling back of CO2, in which direction Kyoto was just a first step.
Not a stampede towards a nuclear mirage.
Gaia, again
Ian...sorry if my post seemed patronising - and, I do agree with you there were some internal inconsistencies and unfortunate choices of words...possibly due to the sleep-debt I was under when I wrote it. So, I'll run through some of the points in your reply, and see if we can't come to a better understanding...
Re the "organism" question, for example, I should clearly have said "should you wish to continue using the metaphor of Gaia as an organism", before offering the tumour idea, since that was what I actually meant. And, yes, the organism metaphor is very easy to slip into, which is why I do think Lovelock is, as I said, perhaps misguided in using it so repeatedly. The reason I find it so misleading, as I said, is that Gaia has developed (and functions) in such a very different way to "exhibit the behaviour of a single organism" (words I don't necessarily disagree with, however) that I have to consider that a different word is needed.
So, while I'll certainly agree with you that "organisms remain the best examples of self-regenerating and self-stabilising systems", Gaia offers us a quite different (and very good) example, at a very different scale, with a quite distinct form of development - and showing a very different relationship between its functional components (and I agree, probably biota) than do multicellular organisms, while (again) there's no real parallel to the role of organisms within Gaia to any aspect of the internal functioning of organisms themselves.
For a similar reason, I'd also take issue with seeing the early Earth - at the chemical evolution stage - as "the first cell", since it had such very different properties, in a whole raft of areas, to anything else we call a cell. Whilst this might seem a quibble, it goes to the heart of why we have technical terms at all. Contra the postmodernists (which I'm certainly not accusing you of joining, by the way!) such "jargon" isn't there to add a gloss of superficial superiority to an argument - it's there to narrowly specify exactly what we're talking about. So, to include one radically-different entity, in the same classification as a literally huge number of others that do very similar fundamental properties is, to my mind, to substantially weaken its usefulness. Sure, we probably DO need some other term to do that particular job - but, quite frankly, we'll still need terms like "organism" and "cell" to do the work they currently do in biology.
In complexity theory, "goal directed" is commonly used in just the way you suggest in your example of the stone on the hill, albeit most of the systems so described are obviously much more complicated. All I was trying to get at here is that it's quite possible - indeed, we have many examples - of some very complex systems which function as goal directed, yet clearly have no place for conscious direction re such goals, which you didn't appear (to me) to consider. But, I would have to take issue with your example of Ptolemaic models and celestial navigation - the useful level of description is definitely Newtonian at NASA, and epicycles and circular orbits are not at all in evidence.
Re Lovelock's language, the core of the dispute. Like many scientists - including, say, Richard Dawkins - to me, he often over-works metaphoric language in such a way as to lead his readers to take it as the definitive understanding of his theories...which I take issue with. Personally, I much prefer specialists to use a range of metaphors - and to strongly reinforce the point that that is all they are, and that full understanding involves seeing them as merely pointers for the rest of us. As I've said, I much prefer Margulis' writings on Gaia, because she makes no bones about this - the "tough bitch" line is clearly marked as such, you'll find - but, I suspect we'll not be agreeing on Gaia since you obviously don't concur with this interpretation.
Anyway...as I said, apologies for appearing patronising, but I'm not about to change my mind re Gaia as an organism...because there are far, far too many dissimilarities to make that a useful description, without substantially expanding (and thus weakening, for other uses) the technical meaning of that term. I certainly didn't address - or mean to address - the CO2 issue that is his main concern in this book, so I do think your suggestion here that I was attacking the author "for not achieving something that the author was never trying to do in the first place" is misplaced - I was addressing a key theory developed by Lovelock, which he uses in the book, and arguing (with your review as evidence) that his approach to explaining it is often misleading.
And, there's nothing at all "deep" about metaphorical language - in fact, it is basically impossible to avoid it - so, I also think that your other criticism here is misplaced: I was hardly talking allegory, or the vagaries of complex symbolism...merely what I see as his (potentially misleading) over-use of one set of metaphors, since I certainly don't consider that he sees them as anything more than such. In fact, those differences (between organisms and Gaia) which I've stressed here, I've mainly thought-through on the basis of Lovelock and Margulis' own writings...which is a key reason why I was so confident that Lovelock's use of that metaphor was simply that - rather than the key to a proper understanding of Gaia.
all the best
Look to a world where all can prosper.
Ian MacDougall, the article in Arena has no substance and certainly no answers to the threat of climate change. For example, “even if it were possible to convert all the power stations in the world to nuclear power stations without adding to the levels of greenhouse gases, the impact would still be marginal, since generating electricity plays a ‘significant but subsidiary’ role in generating greenhouse gases.”
This does not take into account that nuclear energy could be used to produce hydrogen. This hydrogen could be used to reduce the greenhouse gases caused by fossil fuel use in transportation. No other source of energy has this capability.
Secondly, “The only tenable solution to climate change is a change in the culture of unfettered consumption and unending development that has produced it. Or, as Lovelock succinctly puts it, ‘As always, we come back to the unavoidable fact that there are far too many of us living as we do now’.”
I find this offensive; it condemns the third world to poverty. It is easy for us in the rich developed world to say we should give up our unfettered consumption and unending development. The world must find an energy source that can allow growth in China, India and other developing countries without polluting the planet with greenhouse gases. What is your solution – to exterminate most of the human population?
We have abundant energy and resources. We must overcome our irrational fears and look to a world where all can prosper and live in peace.
The Phantom Solution
John Pratt: I think that Alan Roberts shows clearly in his article in Arena of the above title that even if the world goes to wholesale conversion to nuclear generation of electricity, there are simply not the uranium reserves to drive it over a timespan greater than about 50 years (depending on how uranium prices move and the costs are absorbed for using ore of progressively lower grade). So if you are using the electricity to produce hydrogen (by say, electrolysis of water) and using the hydrogen as fuel in internal combustion engines, and using it also as fuel to drive all stages of the uranium fission power industry from mining and refining the uranium to disposal of the waste, the uranium reserves just aren't there. (Never mind the engineering problems of the hydrogen economy, which incidentally I hope are quickly solved.)
The nuclear industry in its historic approach to waste disposal is rather like a fully laden jumbo jet that takes off from Sydney with the objective of landing on the summit of Mt Everest (itself a most worthy objective), with its crew hoping that by the time they get there, someone has built an airport. In the Age today there is an article which forebodes the diplomatic pressure that is going to be applied in the near future on Australia to take all or a great part of the world’s nuclear waste, despite the fact that a safe method of long term disposal (ie over thousands of years) has yet to be proven. I sincerely hope that borosilicate glass or ‘synroc’ works, because if it doesn’t, we all have a hell of a problem. But as it stands, only generations far removed from us will be able to answer that definitively.
My solution to greenhouse and the world’s looming energy crisis follows the first rule of medical practice as taught still, I believe, to all medical students: First, do no harm. We, this generation of humans planet wide, can only use such sources of energy as are available to us without bequeathing our problems such as waste disposal to future generations. In a progressively globalising world, no section of the human population can claim the rights of an energy aristocracy. We may have to reduce per capita energy consumption so as to be able to use renewable resources, and we may have to alter our lifestyles somewhat. Whatever the result, we will not be able to live beyond our means. Trouble is, that is what the nuclear industry appears to me to have been doing, ever since Alamagordo.
The Phantom Solution
Can I also recommend to Webdiarists that before they make up their minds on nuclear power they read Alan Roberts’ The Phantom Solution: why nuclear power isn’t the answer to global warming, linked to from the Arena site?
Nuclear power seen as 'an infected dressing'.
An Arena editorial worth reading, from which I quote:
If we cannot generate an adequate base load except by wholesale conversion to nuclear power (which proposition I seriously question) then rather than seek one last 'temporary' [!] fix, maybe we need to alter our use of electricity so as to change the base load demanded on the grid, and explore every decentralised source possible to augment grid supply.
Cofounder of Greenpeace supports nuclear energy.
Going Nuclear
A Green Makes the Case
By Patrick Moore
Sunday, April 16, 2006; Page B01
In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of US hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.
See here.
We do not have the time for debate!
Power engineering international reports here.
27 March 2006 - Britain's chief government scientific advisor Sir David King says the nuclear power should provide the county's base load power representing around 40 per cent of electricity production.
Sir David believes both nuclear power and renewable energy sources must be used together if Britain hopes to meet its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050.
Wind, waves and sun are increasingly seen as a prospective supply of carbon-free electricity. But the energy they deliver is too sporadic and unpredictable to rely upon for baseload.
We must take the emotion out of this debate. There is a good chance that the future of the planet may depend on our actions over the next few years. We need more science and less hype.
Every progressive step man has made, he has had to overcome fear. Remember, Columbus was warned he was about to sail over the edge of the world.
Unless you can come up with a better scientific solution, to slow down climate change move out of the way. The time for debate is over we now need action.
All over for nuclear power
Nuclear no nonsense
Support for Lovelock’s push for nuclear energy.
ABC Radio National Science show
Climate change will kill millions
Mr Tutty, we agree that the world is facing mass extinctions if we continue on our current path. We need to act now.
The energy crisis is a global problem and not all countries have the ability to use solar energy some only get a few hours of very bleak sunlight for most of the year. I agree, we must increase our use of solar power.
Wind power like solar is not always available and may in itself effect climate change.
Biomass should be part of our energy plan. We need to be careful as we need the land to feed the world's population. Any increase in the use of land resources to produce energy could have the effect of increasing food prices and create greater problems for the third world.
I think we have no choice we either use nuclear energy as part of the solution or we face extinction.
Nuclear energy is infinite we can use breeder reactors if we exhaust our mined uranium.
We could use the energy from nuclear power to manufacture hydrogen fuels for our transport needs.
The World Energy Council on uranium reserves
“This provides reassurance that even ignoring any excess inventories or recycling of various materials, expanding nuclear electricity generation throughout the next century could be fuelled by mined supply. With current annual reactor requirements at 64,000 tonnes of uranium per annum, a current world resource base of at least 11 million tonnes could easily accommodate a significant expansion in nuclear power throughout the next century.
There is a major paradox in attitudes to nuclear power. The aspect of the nuclear fuel cycle which is both the most and least appealing from the standard environmental viewpoint is that the uranium raw material is retained in one form or another throughout. This ensures that unlike electricity generated by the burning of fossil fuels, the nuclear fuel cycle contribution to the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and acid rain is minimal. The downside is that this leaves residual materials which the general public (but not the industry) perceive as a significant problem. One route to overcoming this is to emphasise that these could have some economic value, providing a further boost to nuclear power as a route to environmentally sustainable development.
In terms of mass, depleted uranium from the enrichment process is by far the most significant residual material. It may re-enter the fuel cycle through a variety of routes, including re-enrichment, blending with ex-military highly enriched uranium (HEU) or as fuel for fast reactors. Spent fuel can be reprocessed to provide reprocessed uranium and plutonium for mixed oxide (MOX) or fast reactor fuel. If nuclear power is to expand in the next century, it is clear that these options must become better accepted.
The clock is ticking, time is running out. Nuclear waste has not killed anyone to my knowledge. Climate Change will kill millions.
nuclear: too slow, too limited, too dangerous.
Dear John, did you refer to the reference I gave? (Nuclear Power - no solution to climate change, Friends of the Earth, currently available at http://www.melbourne.foe.org.au/documents.htm).
Let me quote Professor Ian Lowe, president of the Australian Conservation Foundation:
Nuclear power is too slow and too limited in its capacity to make a difference. Even if all government approvals were granted, it would still take about 10 more years and several billion dollars to construct a power station and deliver the first electricity.
The argument that nuclear power would reduce greenhouse pollution presumes high-grade uranium ores are available. Even with such high-grade ores, there is a massive increase in greenhouse pollution from mining, processing and reactor construction before any electricity is generated. The known resources of high-grade uranium ores only amount to a few decades’ use at the present rate: an expansion of nuclear power would see those resources rapidly depleted.
It seems to me that you are only able to imagine that nuclear should be part of our future by ignoring the unsolved problem posed by the inevitable toxic, long-lived higly radioactive wastes produced by fission reactors, and grossly misrepresenting the extent of our supply of fissionable fuel.
You have pursued three different directions for misrepresenting the extent of available fissionable material:
1. The wildly unrealistic proposal that we could extract uranium from seawater (see previous discussion);
2. The erroneous suggestion that: 'Nuclear energy is infinite: we can use breeder reactors if we exhaust our mined uranium' (Breeder reactors are an unproven, untested, unsafe theory, which has been abandoned by many of those who once promoted it. This technology is not available. Plutonium is a poison to be avoided, not a commodity to be produced.)
3. Drastic misrepresentation of measurable uranium with viable fissionable fuel, as in your estimate of a current world resource base of at least 11 million tonnes. Much mineralised uranium can only be extracted and refined through massive energy inputs at the mining and milling stage. As the grade of ore decreases, the fossil fuels spent mining it increase: you need to dig more rock to get the same amount of uranium. And so too do the energy and chemical inputs required to mill the ore increase. The combined effect is to drive the already significant carbon intensity of uranium extraction and refinement towards (and beyond!) levels comparable to gas fired power.
Finally, your suggestion that it is the general public, not the industry, who sees the highly radioactive wastes generated by the nuclear industry as a problem, is just as wildly inaccurate as your claims that our global supply of nuclear fuel is unlimited. The International Atomic Energy Agency, all participating nations, and most nuclear industry bodies, recognise the serious, long term environmental and public health risks posed by the toxicity and high level radioactivity of nuclear wastes. That is why all these parties have agreed to, and instituted, controls aimed at isolating these wastes from the environment.
So while, yes, we do agree that we must not continue on our current path, I insist that nuclear is an expensive and dangerous way to waste the precious time we have remaining to minimise the impacts of the global climate meltdown.
So what should we do?
Your points about the shortcomings of some renewable energy sources are well made, and are further reason to immediately apply an appropriate level of investment into research and development of these inevitable energy industries and technologies of the future.
But for immediate results, perhaps the most effective actions are those towards energy efficiency and demand reduction.
Quoting again from Professor Ian Lowe,
Reducing energy waste is the cheapest way to reduce greenhouse pollution. For instance, more than 10 per cent of household electricity is used by keeping appliances such as TVs and videos on standby.
Australia has a wealth of opportunities to use energy more wisely. Government reports have shown that reductions in energy consumption of up to 70% are cost effective in some sectors of the economy.
The ACF draw on an important American study, which concluded that investment in energy efficiency delivers almost seven times the greenhouse gas emissions reductions per dollar than nuclear power.
Improving electrical efficiency is nearly seven times more cost-effective than nuclear power for abating CO2 emissions ... In fact, end-use energy efficiency is the single most important technological factor determining future energy consumption levels, and therefore also future CO2 emissions ... Opportunities for efficiency gains are so compelling that they suggest that global warming can best be avoided by concentrating on efficiency rather than on a rapid expansion of nuclear power.
Keepin, Bill and Kats, Gregory, December 1988, “Greenhouse warming: comparative analysis of nuclear and efficiency abatement strategies Energy Policy” Energy Policy, Vol16, No6, pp538-561.
We have the technology, but not the leadership.
In the Australian today:
The International Energy Agency, which represents 26 developed countries, is to support a study highly likely to make the case for greater reliance on nuclear power. The body is likely to conclude that nuclear power also offers the best solution for those governments wishing to meet emissions targets.
Nuclear energy can supply the world’s energy requirements for thousands of years.
See here:
One possibility for maintaining fission as a major option without reprocessing is low-cost extraction of uranium from seawater. The uranium concentration of sea water is low (approximately 3 ppb) but the quantity of contained uranium is vast - some 4 billion tons (about 700 times more than known terrestrial resources recoverable at a price of up to $130 per kg). If half of this resource could ultimately be recovered, it could support for 6,500 years 3,000 GW of nuclear capacity (75 percent capacity factor) based on next-generation reactors (e.g., high-temperature gas-cooled reactors) operated on once-through fuel cycles. Research on a process being developed in Japan suggests that it might be feasible to recover uranium from seawater at a cost of $120 per lb of U3O8.40 Although this is more than 10 times the current uranium price, it would contribute just 0.5¢ per kWh to the cost of electricity for a next-generation reactor operated on a once-through fuel cycle-equivalent to the fuel cost for an oil-fired power plant burning $3-a-barrel oil. [emphasis added]
Australia has developed a solution to the disposal of Nuclear Waste.
Again we have the technology, but not the guts (leadership) to lead the world.
See here:
Synroc has been around decades but now the technology looks like it is about to pay big dividends by effectively storing liquid radioactive waste. The idea behind Synroc was that if nature's rocks can safely contain radioactive substances within their structure for millions of years, then surely synthetic rock would be ideal to store radioactive waste created by humans.
Designed to mimic the rocks' natural processes, synroc was developed in the late 1970s at the Australian National University and later at ANSTO (the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation)
We have a serious threat of extinction see here:
The Earth could see massive waves of species extinctions around the world if global warming continues unabated, according to a new study published in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.
nonsense!
What nonsense, Mr Pratt.
Where does the claim that 'Nuclear energy can supply the world’s energy requirements for thousands of years' come from? Known (surveyed and proven) viable ores are actually quite limited. They couldn't supply the world's current energy demands for more than a few years. This question has been explored at length.
But read on, and we find that you are actually fantasising about the finely distributed volumes of uranium in sea water. This cannot be taken seriously! The energy and chemical inputs required to extract these tiny fractions of uranium from the huge volumes of seawater (3.3mg U per cubic meter of seawater) are astronomical. Energy costs alone would be well beyond what could be gained by then applying the uranium in a fission reactor.
'If half of this resources were recovered' - Do you seriously expect such a high yield (50%)? More to the point, do you seriously imagine processing the planet's entire inventory of 1.37 billion cubic kilometers of seawater?? The more I consider your proposal, the crazier it sounds!
You're also quite off target with the claim that, 'Australia has developed a solution to the disposal of Nuclear Waste'
Actually, the nuclear industry has become noticably hushed on synroc in recent years, and for good reason. Whereas Uranium238 has a halflife of over 4 billion years, this untested technology only claims to be reliable for a few thousand. And while that may match the legislated period of responsibility, it falls a little too far short for comfort (with human health and environmental responsibility). The prevaling philosophy endorsed by the nuclear industry, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is one of responsible short term management of these dangerous wastes.
No one is seriously suggesting we have a 'final solution' to nuclear waste. Even proponents of deep burial admit that current trials are purely experimental. What we do have is a responsibility to manage these wastes in the short term, in a manner which does not impinge on the capacity for future generations to take over that management role. One immediate objective of this philosophy is to avoid the risk that, once out of sight, this dangerous legacy could slip from our minds. Another is to work towards the hope that the next generation may come up with improved management practices and critera.
However, you are so right when you recognise that 'We have a serious threat of extinction' that I'll quote your quote :
"The Earth could see massive waves of species extinctions around the world if global warming continues unabated"
Without question or argument, the broad global impacts of the climate meltdown represent an unprecedented environmental threat, which calls humanity to come together and work in unity, as never before.
In the face of such a serious and immediate global threat, it is unacceptable to waste what precious time, energy, finances and other resources we have at our disposal, on such a slow, costly, draining non-solution as nuclear.
To anyone interested in the many faults with the erroneous proposal that nuclear power could somehow help avert the impending global climate meltdown, I refer you to the excellent publication 'Nuclear Power - no solution to climate change' by Friends of the Earth, currently available here.
what we need is leadership - and disaster."
The Sunday Times online See Here:
Richard Mabey reviews The revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
So, shackled by our reflexes, by craven and short-sighted governments, and by the hard fact that totalitarian planning simply doesn’t work for complex living systems, we seem to be stymied. But perhaps Gaia’s model of success, so eloquently described by Lovelock, might be a better spur than its impending demise. It’s a federation not a monolith, and maybe an unplanned accretion of obdurate local communities, visionary businesses, and nations prepared to act on their own rather than wait for the lowest common consensus — something truer to our organic origins and our present psychologies — might just turn things around.
Lovelock is fierce in his insistence on the need to embrace nuclear energy: “Renewable energy sounds good, but so far it is inefficient and expensive. It has a future, but we have no time now to experiment with visionary energy sources: civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear energy now, or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.
From an interview with Lovelock in Guardian Books see here:
One of the awful things I find today is that young people come to me and ask if there is any hope. Of course there's hope. At the moment, we are just waiting as we were in the 30s, when everyone knew war was coming but no one knew what to do about it. The moment the war started, we knew that the prospect was pretty awful, but there was a wonderful sense of purpose. There were no consumer goods, and food was strictly rationed. We never considered that time hopeless. When climate change gets bad, then there will be excitement, and that's the payoff. As Crispin Tickell said, what we need is leadership - and disaster.
Three Cheers for Pluralism.
I believe JH Calvinist, in mentioning pluralist solutions, has hit upon the key to this problem.
Burning fossil fuels as a one size fits all approach to our energy needs is no longer feasible. We should be looking at our different needs and matching them with the most appropriate solutions. For example, we know that our homes can work on far less energy if we employ clever design and efficient appliances. Also, we have seen the advent of hybrid cars which, even at at this nascent stage of development, still put a big dent in petrol consumption. I assume these same cars could also run on bio fuels, thereby adding to their attraction. The only challenge will be convincing certain segments of our population that they can survive without a V6 4WD.
The fact remains, however, that even with perfectly designed homes and ultra efficient cars, the savings in energy would be next to nothing compared to the enormous demand, and waste, coming from the industrial and commercial sectors.
These sectors need such great amount of kilowatts during peak times that alternative sources would not be able to keep up with demand. It's easy to supply, for example, 1 Kw of power each hour for 8 hours a day with solar or wind because production could keep up with consumption. However, if you need .25 Kw for the first six hours of your working day and then 60 Kw for the last two, you would blow the system. Unfortunately, as electricity cannot be warehoused, it has to be available on demand. The only sources that can supply that demand, in this country, are fossil fuel and nuclear power. There are some lucky places like Norway and the Canadian Province of Quebec that can supply peak demands with hydro-electric power, but not many.
My preference would be to see industry and infrastructure powered by nuclear energy with domestic/vehicular energy needs being met by a plurality of sustainable sources.A Fourth Cheer for Pluralism
John Henry Calvinist and Mark Ross, I agree there's no one-size-fits-all solution to the joint problems of CO2 enrichment and energy demand. I didn't mean to simply dismiss biomass/ethanol-based solutions; there are a lot of settings in which biomass makes a lot of sense. One use is as an energy source for "co-generation," eg. using sugar by-products to power sugar refining operations and/or other energy demands. Mark Sergeant has alluded to this solution, and it's catching on in Australia and elsewhere.
My major point in that post was to 1) emphasise the scale of the problem (huge); 2) keep the idea in our discussion that pretty much any solution to the energy demand problem carries some environmental cost and/or runs up against some limitation (eg. water).
The other advantage of "pluralism" is that many of the alternative energy sources are appropriate to local/regional applications. Eg. wind farms, small-scale hydro, solar, biomass. I suspect these will become more competitive as the cost of fossil-fuel-based energy, which tends to be large-scale, highly centralised, and capital-intensive gets more expensive to generate and transport.
Nuclear power also has this scale problem, and is energy-intensive in itself, so isn't the panacea some might be tempted to believe. By the time you get done mining, refining, transporting, building the plants themselves, disposing of the waste, etc., you've used a lot of energy and generated a lot of CO2, aside from the safety and security concerns.
Another problem with big centralised energy generation is that increasing capacity this way inevitably runs up against the "NIMBY" principle. Nobody wants to have a huge, megawatt-generating plant in their backyard, no matter if it's nuclear, coal, or a massive hydro dam (which may put your backyard under water). Whereas a few solar cells or wind turbines nearby might not be such a problem.
Power utilities in some urban areas of the USA reached the point 10-20 years where they started spending money to put in place energy conservation and efficiency measures for their customers. Up to a point the cheapest source of "new" energy for them is what they can get consumers not to use; it's cheaper than building new capacity. Even building new plants flat-out with no regard for environmental considerations it would be hard to keep up with growth of demand.
A Vodka baased economy
I was forgetting that side of it, John Henry. There's a lot of shit being dumped off Bondi that could be put to use. That would be close to "no regrets", I reckon.
But if we are talking about agricultural "waste", or, particularly, dedicated plantations, then we are getting back to water and nutrients. Which is still an issue with the Bondi Floaters.
So I can see it as important (very important), but basically piggy-backing on other industries.
There is this thought: I am your average industrial capitalist. I make widgets (finest kind!). I shop around, but pay too much for energy. I make too much waste - it costs so much to dispose of legally. Maybe I could ferment that waste and use the energy. Cut the energy costs and the waste disposal. But my business is widgets.
A question, John Henry. Why alcohol? Personally, I prefer alcohol to methane, but that's probably just me. Alcohol would be easier as liquid fuel, but in an enclosed fermenter surely you'd take what is easiest to get, which I'd have thought was methane - with bits and pieces of alcohol and God knows what else.
And a further question, for anyone competent or foolish enough to comment: How about putting spring-loaded platforms at the Town Hall ticket barriers? Every step generates a little bit of electricity! A stationary bike/generator at every workstation might be going too far, but would attack the obesity crisis as well!
Land Use and Alcohol
Mark, the approach to alcohol as a fuel which is, by far, the most interesting/useful takes conversion of the entire biomass - particularly cellulose - as it's source, via bacterial digestion. In consequence, any organic matter whatsoever would be grist for the mill, allowing us to abandon monocultures in this area, for a start (very useful re biodiversity, if managed to that end), and also to make sustainable use of land which is clearly unsuitable for raising crops (again, if done sensibly). The whole issue, as far as I can gather, needs a lot more study/trial programs in marginal landscapes before we can see exactly what the long-term potential is - but I do think that it'll be some part of our future energy approaches...
Of course, I may just be reflecting the several drinks now coursing through my bloodstream?
All the best.
One less chop
On the biomass question and aside from the issues Will Howard raised: aren't we talking about either converting land currently used for food production or putting marginal land under cultivation? And massive areas?
Can I live on one less chop a month?
Will mentioned the water and nutrients requirements. The world's marginal and irrigated agricultural land is already headed towards saline desert. Wouldn't we just be helping it along?
Pluralist solutions, then?
Gaia on alcohol?
ohn Henry Calvinist writes "I've yet to run across a proper - ie: atmospheric carbon-based - objection to a cellulose-driven alcohol fuel regime. My, admittedly naive, take on same is that... plants absorb carbon/we convert to alcohol/alcohol burns to atmospheric carbon - and, so... if the processes are sufficiently clean, said cycle could - possibly - be properly sustainable... and, even if not - it'd almost certainly be much better than burning oil!
So... can anyone explain to me exactly WHY we can't play this game w/photosynthesis... otherwise, I'll be damned if I can see why the current fuel crisis isn't (in principle) solvable... and, given our heritage re land and sun, might not easily work to our advantage?"
So you want to get the old girl drunk eh? You naughty boy.
It's a good question, JHC. The problem lies in the net rates at which we're moving carbon out of fossil fuel storage and into the atmosphere+ocean+ active biosphere. The
natural carbon cycle in a nutshell works like this Wikipedia diagram (some of the numbers have been revised, but the gist is about right. I'd put in my own carbon cycle diagram but I haven't worked out how to incorporate graphics in posts).
If you look at the rate at which we transfer FF carbon into the atmosphere, it's about 6 billion tons carbon (I'll abbreviate as GTC, or "gigatons carbon") per year, out of an estimated 4000 GTC still in fossil fuel reserves. At that rate, we run out of FF in 5-6 centuries (the FF's may be present, but they won't be cheap or easy to extract). The terrestrial biosphere (that's all the "active" carbon making up trees, grass, cows, people), by contrast is in the neighborhood of 600 GTC (and we're burning that too, at some 1-3 GTC/year). The "gross" (approx. balanced, probably) rates of exchange between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere are ~60 GTC/year (largely driven by the deciduous vegetation cycle in the Northern Hemisphere). The ocean also exchanges a "gross" amount of carbon with the atmosphere that's similar in magnitude with the terrestrial exchange.
So here's the deal. If we started burning biomass at the same rate we burn FF, we'd run out of stuff to burn in something a century. It's a bit like burning the furniture in hopes the trees outside will grow faster. All evidence so far suggests the carbon "fertiliser effect" on plant growth is not sufficient to balance the fossil-fuel burning. There are metabolic limits to carbon uptake, and plants are limited by requirements other than carbon in many settings, like water and nutrients.
Also, the net uptake rates by both the terrestrial biosphere and the ocean would still be slower than our "burning" rate, so at least on a time-scale of centuries, we would still be building up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At present the ocean, the main destination of anthropogenic CO2, takes up something like 2-3 GTC/year. The atmosphere currently stands at a bit over 750 GTC in total (as CO2), compared to its pre-industrial "stock" of about 590 GTC.
That's my quick answer to the "why can't we just switch to biomass?" question. I'll add a few more points later. The "time-scale" question is an important one, and speaks very directly to the "Gaia" concept for understanding how the feedbacks in the earth's biogeochemical cycles work.
chicken and whatnot . . . can't we find a better sol-ution?
Thanks for the interesting reviews!
Allow me to underscore the observations:
"In Lovelock’s view, the nuclear waste problem is a non-event...
... There will be disagreement on this matter."
with my faourite Lovelock quote, from The Guardian, which in 2000 reported:
Lovelock further argues that:
I have told the BNFL that I would happily take the full output of one of their big power stations. I think the high-level waste is a stainless steel cube of about a metre in size and I would be very happy to have a concrete pit that they would dig.
The waste would serve two purposes, Lovelock says:
One would be home heating. You would get free home heat from it. And the other would be to sterilise the stuff from the supermarket, the chicken and whatnot, full of salmonella. Just drop it down through a hole. I'm not saying this tongue-in-cheek. I am quite serious. (Radford, Tim, September 16, 2000, “The whole world in our hands”, The Guardian (UK),)
Clearly the poor fellow is quite out of touch with the very real risks and dangers posed by the long lived and toxic radioactive wastes which are an inevitable product of nuclear power.
But I must agree with Lovelock when he puts the Chernobyl disaster down to ”the worst example of the wrong kind of nuclear technology.” Quite so. The best example of nuclear energy remains our original sustainable fusion reactor - Sol.
Gaia...a More Realistic View
Ian, now, I haven't actually read his latest - the one under review - but, as far as I'm aware, he's never actually viewed Gaia as an "organism," unless he's now changed his mind, which I'd be very surprised by. Rather, Gaia is much more properly seen as a self-regulating system - a rather different, and MUCH more flexible (albeit much less forgiving to its "components"...such as humans) sort of thing. This is actually an important point, and we'd be well-advised not to forget it!
Which is why, Ian, your view of Gaia - that "we are as mitochondria inside the single cell of a free-living organism" - is far, far too reassuring! Look... any cell evolved to rely on mitochondria (ie: all non-bacteria) would (almost immediately) die without them, as any cell biologist could tell you. Whereas Gaia - the system, not the "organism" - would merely cycle on without us...because, on Gaia's scale/scope, our recent activities are (so far) merely an irritation - which has (possibly/probably) succeeded in driving the system back toward a previous systemic mode - one which is much less favourable to ourselves, but perfectly viable as a whole. This, you must realize, is a considerably different pattern than you suggest.
Me... I've always much preferred Lynn Margulis' approach to Gaia - as she's repeatedly said, "Gaia is a tough bitch" - since, given the overwhelming importance/dominance of microbial life (with its incredible adaptability and - collectively - enormous environmental range from below freezing to well-over boiling temperatures), it is in actuality the ONLY real key player in the game. Margulis constantly stresses this - making her very unpopular with the mystic and/or anthropocentric types - but, the fact of the matter is, Lovelock agrees with her - it's just that he likes playing with the metaphor!
However, that doesn't at all mean that he's not still doing serious science here... merely that his readers need to see the anthropomorphic metaphor of Gaia as simply that: a way of making the concept come alive for his readers.
Unfortunately, this is hard for most to grasp. "Unconsciously", here, does NOT have the same meaning as it would for the actions of, say, a sleepwalker - possessed, nonetheless, of a very gradually evolved system capable of consciousness. Instead, nonconsciously would be a much more accurate term - albeit, probably, still somewhat misleading. Put simply, Gaia is a system that happens to work - so far! But the system has NONE of the evolved safeguards of a living organism... selectively descended (since almost all of its sisters and brothers are now without issue) and sequentially modified in the direction of autopoesis (homeostasis is the older, much less accurate term) so that it is NOW a veritable "miracle" of self-correction...
But - sadly - Gaia simply cannot be such - as Lovelock and Margulis both insist - because, quite simply, it/she is alone, and original... albeit her "parts" have evolved - but, on her own terms, she, quite simply, can not!
Trouble is, therefore, we have very little chance of formally understanding Gaia as an evolving system. All of our evolutionary science offers us little or no way to understand a lone, effectively immortal (by our measure) evidently self-regulating system, "descended" from no parent, whose internal components, nonetheless, are independent (and, by Gaia's standards) ridiculously short-lived and extremely diverse organisms that do evolve via the means we're now seriously beginning to fully grasp. This is not - in any way - "normal" territory for our theories... and it's truly important that those who invoke Gaia understand this... because, it means that we have very, very little - apart from a few EXTREMELY simplified models, and the historical record - to guide us as to how Gaia may change.
Agency... which Lovelock used as a (perhaps misguided) metaphor, you appear to be taking literally - with the result that you appear to expect some "neat" and simple action in response to our actions... Sadly, this is foolish - because, for a start, Gaia's reaction time is enormously slow, and her means quite different, by our measure. Perhaps, instead, you should try seeing us as a tumour, on an organism with no nervous or immune system? Nonetheless, cancer having metastasized, the temperature rises... finally, beyond the "preferences" of the cancer cells themselves.
The host itself, however, has a MUCH wider heat tolerance - and can, therefore, kill off/disable most of the cancerous cells, without actually having to take any "action" whatsomever. The new situation is, then, what Gaia is (no "necessary" return to previous conditions, as this is not a normally-unified organic system in our sense), and, her components, subsequently (and bottom-up, remember, bacteria lead due to both their biomass...and rapid evolutionary abilities) reconfigure themselves as ecosystems within, on this basis.
This is actually much, much closer to Gaia's "reaction" than your envisioning, and I'm sure that Lovelock and Margulis would agree. Trouble is, it doesn't explain well - or easily - and, it certainly doesn't have the anthropomorphic appeal that Lovelock's rhetoric often does. But - look beyond that, and - in every book of his I've ever read, he does eventually move beyond the figurative, and, what he then says is closely akin to what I just suggested.
Because "deliberate purpose" isn't - at all! - what's going on here. "Goals" are - definitely - a metaphor...because, and both Lovelock and Margulis have repeatedly said this, while we do know that Gaia has nonesuch, literally, we also know that the system has, despite repeated shocks, roughly maintained itself within the tolerance-range of our (dna-based) form of life over billions of years, despite the fact of increasing solar temperatures throughout. However, as Margulis insists, the main evolutionary driving-force throughout has probably been bacterial.
But... that has nothing to do w/"volcanoes, earthquakes, mountain building and the drift of continents"...except (probably) peripherally in the last case...because, yet again - you're insisting on an agency-based approach to what are mere metaphors! Try reading some complexity theory, Ian - "goals" in such cases are merely systemic attractors, they do NOT function at all in the way that "goals" do for conscious beings, which is why Lovelock uses "goal directed", because there's no notion of conscious direction involved. Meanwhile, the Gaia system has no inputs into the core, etc... so, obviously, there can be no sense in which the core is part of the system. Core outputs may, at times, impact on Gaia - as do asteroids - but these are external inputs: just as an asteroid hitting you (or me!) would be. And, irrespective of water vapour's role - and that of other factors - we have clearly disturbed the latest cyclical pattern - no question! How that impacts is - of course - very, very difficult to predict...but - by my estimation - it could just as easily be the next ice age (via melt and ocean current disturbance).
Only thing I can say is...we'd better damn well get ready for some catastrophic climate change asap - and seriously! - or we'll probably end up with much more than we bargained for!
And, finally... Gaia's "aging" - again - is a metaphor, re (in this case) the Sun's heating which...as Lovelock considers, is nearing the peak of what the current Gaia systemic setting can reasonably moderate. Hence, global warming or no... in the near future by Gaia's clock (read: the next few ten million years), the entire system is probably going to turn over into a new (hotter) cycle, possibly dooming all non-bacterial life.
And, so, to recap - and, expand: Gaia is nothing at all like any "organism" we have real understanding of...so, despite Lovelock's figurative rhetoric - we would be MOST unwise to conceive of Gaia in such terms. What we do know, however, is that what are probably the key players within Gaia (bacteria)'re capable of dealing with, whilst the evidence we have from paleontology strongly suggests that periods of rapid and erratic environmental change are probably reasonably common... particularly in interglacial/glacial periods such as we now live in.
Gaia - to expand on Margulis - doesn't give a shit... She's a tough - and very flexible - bitch... 'cause if she wasn't, she'd've gone dead billions of years ago. It's bacteria that fuel her basic changes - that, and the ongoing play to defuse the relentless rise in solar output. We couldn't kill her if we tried... not with all the nukes we could ever build. But, fragile epiphenomena that we are, we could (easily) do for ourselves...
All the best
PS: I certainly agree that Lovelock - like most/all boosters re nuclear power - ignores the possibility/probability that we could get much/most of what we actually needed - were we sensible - from a smart mix of the cleanest sources we could access. So... don't go thinking that this is some simply negative analysis. But... I (really!) do think that we need to take proper measure of Lovelock's metaphors... and (please?) don't go assuming that Gaia is some kind of saviour... because - as Margulis insists - Gaia "is a tough bitch" - and, she isn't up to (or "interested" in) that kind of game. If we're going to save ouselves - and, contra the doomsayers - I suspect that we might (just) make it... we're gonna have to be smart enough to do it by ourselves...
pps: I've yet to run across a proper - ie: atmospheric carbon-based - objection to a cellulose-driven alcohol fuel regime. My, admittedly naive, take on same is that... plants absorb carbon/we convert to alcohol/alcohol burns to atmospheric carbon - and, so... if the processes are sufficiently clean, said cycle could - possibly - be properly sustainable... and, even if not - it'd almost certainly be much better than burning oil!
So... can anyone explain to me exactly WHY we can't play this game w/photosynthesis... otherwise, I'll be damned if I can see why the current fuel crisis isn't (in principle) solvable... and, given our heritage re land and sun, might not easily work to our advantage?
A more realistic view, JHC?
John Henry Calvinist: Amidst all this debate about nuclear power, I have found time to respond to your rather patronising post of April 19, 2006 - 7:07am.
You say to me:
Ian, now, I haven't actually read his latest - the one under review - but, as far as I'm aware, he's never actually viewed Gaia as an "organism," unless he's now changed his mind, which I'd be very surprised by. Rather, Gaia is much more properly seen as a self-regulating system - a rather different, and MUCH more flexible (albeit much less forgiving to its "components"...such as humans) sort of thing. This is actually an important point, and we'd be well-advised not to forget it!
I can understand you putting the exclamation point in at the end there, as it adds emphasis to your statement that we’d be well advised not to forget that Gaia is not an organism, but a different and much more flexible, system. Unfortunately, 6 paragraphs later you have managed to forget it yourself. You say:
Agency... which Lovelock used as a (perhaps misguided) metaphor, you appear to be taking literally - with the result that you appear to expect some "neat" and simple action in response to our actions... Sadly, this is foolish - because, for a start, Gaia's reaction time is enormously slow, and her means quite different, by our measure. Perhaps, instead, you should try seeing us as a tumour, on an organism with no nervous or immune system? Nonetheless, cancer having metastasized, the temperature rises... finally, beyond the "preferences" of the cancer cells themselves.
Perhaps I should try seeing “us as a tumour on an organism”. Then again, perhaps I should not, because if I did I would run afoul of your advice to me not to see Gaia as an organism at all. Just shows, I suppose, how easy it is to fall into this ‘foolishness’. Lovelock uses ‘agency’ as a perhaps misguided metaphor and I appear to be taking it literally? Careful you don’t find metaphors where none were intended. Or ‘appearances’.
Incidentally, I have never said that I accept the Gaia hypothesis. I keep an open mind. But it looks good.
In his first book, Lovelock defined Gaia as “a complex living entity,” with a jacket note (presumably approved by Lovelock): “The system appears to exhibit the behaviour of a single organism, even of a living creature, and one having such formidable powers deserves a name: Gaia…” A system only contracts a disease when that system happens to be an organism. From a human point of view, we can talk, for example, of a river system having a ‘disease’ (high nitrate, algal blooms) if we like, ‘self correcting’ only with the aid of an external source like rainfall. Organisms remain the best examples of self-regenerating and self-stabilising systems, in constant apparent defiance of that old destroyer, the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
‘System’ is a word used at all levels of biology. Below the level of the cell for example, we talk of membrane transport systems. Below the level of the organism we have such entities as digestive and reproductive systems. The word can also stand for the entire human or animal body, as in the expression ‘absorb into the system’. Above the organism level, we of course have such things as ecosystems. But the part of Gaia that works at entropy reduction, and with it regulation of the climate of the Earth in favour of its present biota I suggest on present science is the biota itself.
Mostly, organisms have well defined boundaries; boundaries of systems are less well defined. The definition of ‘organism’ does not fit the individual ant or bee as well as it does the colony, leading to the concept of the ‘superorganism’, which does. I would argue that in terms of the current dominant paradigm in biology, there was once a time in the history of the Earth when there was no cellular life anywhere, but the primordial ocean was a rich soup of organic molecules, some of which were nucleic acids with the ability to replicate themselves from simpler components. Arguably, at this stage the Earth itself was the first cell, a situation that lasted until the first membrane-bounded collections of molecules appeared; needless to add, on a much smaller scale. The Earth at that stage was arguably a single celled organism, and at the same time, a system. Those two labels can still be simultaneously applied, and those who try to stick religiously to the latter will find it hard to avoid the former. As well, and I am sure Lovelock would agree, much if not all of that original organism quality has survived the evolution of that first cell’s contents to form cellular and multicellular life.
Which is why, Ian, your view of Gaia - that "we are as mitochondria inside the single cell of a free-living organism" - is far, far too reassuring! Look... any cell evolved to rely on mitochondria (ie: all non-bacteria) would (almost immediately) die without them, as any cell biologist could tell you. Whereas Gaia - the system, not the "organism" - would merely cycle on without us...because, on Gaia's scale/scope, our recent activities are (so far) merely an irritation - which has (possibly/probably) succeeded in driving the system back toward a previous systemic mode - one which is much less favourable to ourselves, but perfectly viable as a whole. This, you must realize, is a considerably different pattern than you suggest.
I am not so naïve as to believe that cells normally possessed of mitochondria can survive without them, (though I could just have easily used chloroplasts as the analogues, in which case that would be true in some circumstances.) I put it to you that the analogy does not stand or fall on the Earth’s or the biosphere’s ability to survive without us. For most of the planet’s history, there have been no Homo sapiens, nor genus Homo, nor phylum Chordata for that matter. Both Earth and biosphere have clearly been able to do without us, and if we should quit the stage, will do so again I am sure.
Put simply, Gaia is a system that happens to work - so far! But the system has NONE of the evolved safeguards of a living organism... selectively descended (since almost all of its sisters and brothers are now without issue) and sequentially modified in the direction of autopoesis (homeostasis is the older, much less accurate term) so that it is NOW a veritable "miracle" of self-correction...
But - sadly - Gaia simply cannot be such - as Lovelock and Margulis both insist - because, quite simply, it/she is alone, and original... albeit her "parts" have evolved - but, on her own terms, she, quite simply, can not.
I take it that you mean Gaia cannot enter into a survival of the fittest race with other similar “self-regulating system[s] - rather different, and MUCH more flexible (albeit much less forgiving to [their] ‘components’...such as humans) sort of thing[s]”? But that looks unlikely as the means for a living planet to evolve safeguards, since for a start all examples of the type will be isolated from one another by the vastness of space. The biosphere is made up of both cooperating and competing organisms. Like an individual multicellular organism, it constantly reproduces itself within itself. And though it evolves only as the populations of the species making it up do so, and the ecosystems those populations are embedded in, it nonetheless evolves within itself. That, of course, is where the organism analogy ceases to apply, at least in terms of organisms as we know them, despite embryological and developmental evidence that might apparently support the contrary.
… "deliberate purpose" isn't - at all! - what's going on here. "Goals" are - definitely - a metaphor...because, and both Lovelock and Margulis have repeatedly said this, while we do know that Gaia has nonesuch, literally, we also know that the system has, despite repeated shocks, roughly maintained itself within the tolerance-range of our (dna-based) form of life over billions of years, despite the fact of increasing solar temperatures throughout. However, as Margulis insists, the main evolutionary driving-force throughout has probably been bacterial.
But... that has nothing to do w/"volcanoes, earthquakes, mountain building and the drift of continents"...except (probably) peripherally in the last case...because, yet again - you're insisting on an agency-based approach to what are mere metaphors! [IM: At which point I ask, is that so? Then you condescend to advise me:} Try reading some complexity theory, Ian - "goals" in such cases are merely systemic attractors, they do NOT function at all in the way that "goals" do for conscious beings, which is why Lovelock uses "goal directed", because there's no notion of conscious direction involved.
I don’t need to read complexity theory, ‘JHC’. Your post is more than enough. As I said, negative feedback, no trouble. But unconscious, (or non-conscious) and at the same time ‘goal directed’? Please explain? Are you thinking perhaps of something like a rolling stone, whose ‘goal’ is the bottom of a hill? Vary the starting conditions, and the path details will vary, but the ‘goal’ will be reached every time. Complexity and chaos theories undoubtedly offer valuable insights into that, but we are not compelled thereby to junk the classical explanation/s. Particularly if they are simpler and just as useful. A reminder that those today who still learn and master the art of celestial navigation live for that purpose not in an Einsteinian, not even in a Newtonian, but in a Ptolemaic universe.
For the record, I did not introduce complexity theory because Lovelock did not invoke it anywhere in his book, or give an index reference to it. He devotes one half page paragraph to ‘chaos and chaos theory’ in the glossary at the end, and while a few of the works in his recommended reading list look like they may deal with it, he gives no annotation to that effect. His main concern is the likely effect of rising atmospheric CO2 concentration, and what we can do about it. I included what I think is an apposite quote in my review:
Gaia, the living Earth, is old and not as strong as she was two billion years ago. She struggles to keep the Earth cool enough for her myriad forms of life against the ineluctable increase of the sun’s heat. But to add to her difficulties, one of those forms of life… has tried to rule the Earth for their benefit alone. With breathtaking insolence they have taken the stores of carbon that Gaia buried to keep oxygen at its proper level and burnt them. In so doing they have usurped Gaia’s authority and thwarted her obligation to keep the planet fit for life; they have thought only of their own comfort and convenience.
Gaia here is more organism than system; she is clearly likewise to those who call her ‘Mother Earth’ or ‘a tough bitch’. In Lovelock’s view, she buries carbon as coal measures in order to keep oxygen at its proper level; behaving like a wise old lady with intentions and goals. Those goals do not have to be inflexible.
My long-held belief is that a reviewer must answer two questions for the reader of the review: (1) What is this author trying to achieve? And (2) has he or she succeeded? The commonest mistake a reviewer makes is abusing an author for not achieving something that the author was never trying to do in the first place. (With all due respect, I suggest your comment on my review shows that you have managed to fall into that trap too.) Another is to assume that the author’s ‘real’ meaning is not to be found in the words actually used, which only serve as a screen for this more subtle and ‘deeper’ meaning. (For example, it is commonly said that the author/s of the first chapter of Genesis did not really mean that the Earth was created in seven solar days.) Some of that in your post as well.
I took Lovelock at his literal word, and did not set out to find a shovel, pitchfork or feather duster when he wrote of a spade. But I will conclude here with a quote from him:
The philosopher Mary Midgley in her pellucid writing reminds us that the twentieth century was the time when Cartesian science triumphed. It was a period of excessive hubris and called itself the century of certainty; at its start there were eminent physicists saying, ‘there are only three things left to discover’, and at the end they were seeking the ‘theory of everything’. Now in the twenty-first century we are beginning to take seriously the remark of that truly great physicist, Richard Feynman, about quantum theory: ‘anyone who thinks they understand it probably does not.’ The universe is a much more intricate place than we can imagine. I often think our conscious minds will never encompass more than a tiny fraction of it all and that our comprehension of the Earth is no better than an eel’s comprehension of the ocean in which it swims…
Needless to add, Lovelock’s book is replete with examples of classical cause and effect phenomena.