Climate change is happening faster than anyone predicted, and its consequences could be dire for the survival of civilisation in the 21st century because of the chaos it will cause in terms of famine, drought and mass migration, according to a leading scientist.

James Lovelock, the inventor of the Gaia theory (which likens the Earth to a living organism) will tell the the Royal Society in London this evening that humans have in effect declared war on the planetary survival system, causing it to explode out of control.

Man-made emissions of greenhouses gases have been triggering a positive feedback in the climate, in which temperature increases have generated further temperature rises and the release of vast amounts of carbon dioxide from natural stores on land and in the oceans.

“I see our predicament as like that faced by any nation that is about to be invaded by a powerful enemy: now we are at war with the Earth and, as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond,” he will say.

“We are in a strange position of living on a planet where climate and compositional change is now so rapid that it happens too fast for us to react to it.”

Professor Lovelock’s address will spell out why he believes change is happening faster than many experts had predicted.

“The positive feedback on heating from the melting of floating Arctic and Antarctic ice alone is causing an acceleration of system-driven heating whose total will soon or already be greater than that from all of the pollution CO2 that we have so far added,” he says.

But Professor Lovelock believes there is some hope that the natural, “negative” feedback cycles of the planet can be exploited to soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

“‘How fearsome must the headlines be about tomorrow before people change their ways today?’ Gibbs asked (Sept.24).

“Psychologically speaking, people need to worry more about the present to change. Our brains are hardwired to respond to imediate dangers, not ones that are years or decades away. And a term like global warming is too benign, especially for those like me who live in a cold climate and might welcome an increase of a few degrees. Perhaps we should use the term global boiling, like the proverbial experiment in which a frog stays in a gradually warming pot of water and eventually dies. Maybe we all need to visualize the destruction to make us feel a sense of immediate danger.”

Today is Blog Action Day when bloggers all over the world write about the issue of the environment.

We at Peakfood believe that the ever-increasing rate at which fossil fuels are been used will contribute to more erratic and extreme weather conditions. This in turn will mean more droughts and floods which will reduce agricultural yields. When you remember that every year there will be more people (8 billion expected in 2020) but less agricultural grade land, a future global food shortage looks likely.

The moment in time when per capita availability of food in the world reaches a maximum and then begins to decline is called Peak Food.  Such a situation should concern us all.

All that would be needed for this to turn into world famine would be a sudden slow down or stop in oil supplies – perhaps a terrorist act, civil war or unfriendly government. You can find out more in our ebook – Famine in the West – which is available now, or our printed version which finally will be available in about 10 days.

The affect on food production of strange and extreme weather is already helping to push up prices in the shops. The African floods follow drought, there again is drought in Australia causing the government there to again cut it’s yield estimate for this years wheat crop. In Europe we had record breaking rainfall in early summer in the west of the continent at the same time as drought in the east. Large areas of theUS also had severe drought.

If all this is caused by a one degree rise in average temperature, how on earth will we cope with the two degrees and more that now seems certain without drastic action being taken?

The award was originally created by Climate of Our Future to recognise bloggers who “are trying to build awareness among their readership in order to create a more sustainable and enlightened future.”

BLOGGERS FOR POSITIVE CHANGE AWARD

Our thanks go to Sara from Farming Friends who was kind enough to nominate us.  Amongst other things, Sara writes a blog  of everyday life on her 250 acre arable and livestock farm.  Her video clip of a lamb being born is well worth a look.

We in turn nominate the following blogs for the Positive Global Change Award:

1)  The Oil Drum – A thought provoking website that discusses energy and our future

2) Peak Oil - a site that posts news on peak oil

3) Climate Ark – the original biocenric climate science, policy and advocacy search engine Read more