– don’t mess with Gaia says Lovelock

Geoengineering — trying to change the Earth’s climate on a global scale by doing things like seeding the upper atmosphere with reflective particles — is getting attention from serious scientists.

But not so fast, says James Lovelock, originator of the hugely influential ‘Gaia Hypothesis.‘  In an article in today’s Guardian, Lovelock says:

our ignorance of the Earth system is great; we know little more than an early 19th-century physician knew about the body. Geoengineering is like trying to cure pneumonia by immersing the patient in a bath of icy water; the fever would be cured but not the disease.

Better to leave the Earth to cleanse itself, says Lovelock, since our cure may be worse even than the ailment it currently suffers, both for the Earth and for us.

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– we’re too late, says James Lovelock

Proponents of sustainable living, recycling, ethical consumption and carbon offsets may be dismayed to hear that an environmental hero, James Lovelock — he of the original ‘Gaia’ hypothesis — thinks that all those ideas are pointless.

We have about twenty years left to enjoy life as we know it and then we’re essentially doomed to global disaster, Lovelock tells the Guardian’s Decca Aitkenhead in a profile that’s well worth a look.

“More alarming even than his apocalyptic climate predictions,” Aitkenhead reports, “is his utter certainty that almost everything we’re trying to do about it is wrong.”

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