The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity Book

An interesting book with some scary and memorable passages. Lovelock invented the Gaia hypothesis (the idea that the whole biosphere is essentially one living organism). Here, he's addressing the problems of climate change, and what we can do about it. "I'm a doctor," he says. "The Earth is my patient, and it's running a temperature." Lovelock used to be against nuclear power, but now he thinks it's our only chance. We have to bring down CO2 emissions fast, and we can't quickly wean ourselves off our energy dependence. This was another analogy I liked. We're in a 747 over the Atlantic, and we're running out of fuel. We somehow need to find enough to make a powered descent. If we just turn off the engines, we'll crash, and everyone will die.

So, nuclear power. But isn't that horribly dangerous? How will we look after all that deadly radioactive waste? The Greens have been asking these questions for two or three decades. Now, confusingly, I read that radioactivity isn't so bad for you after all. We were told that Chernobyl caused thousands of deaths. But, at least according to Lovelock in this book, that was damned lies and statistics. Apart from a few brave engineers and fire-fighters who were killed sealing up the reactor, it's just a miniscule reduction in life expectancy, averaging a few hours per person, but multiplied by most of Europe. That comes out as thousands of person-lifetimes, but who really minds giving up three hours of their life? And we hear that the area around Chernobyl, which I'd pictured as a kind of radioactive desert filled with mutant lizards and road warriors, is a lush, green paradise. People don't dare go there, so plants and animals can flourish undisturbed. Another story he tells is the massive accidental release of radioactivity from Windscale in the UK. There was no following spike in cancers.

Well, it sounds plausible, but then so did the last version. The US is once again being managed by a smart person who believes in science and actually looking at the facts. It would be great if Obama could put together a balanced commission of suitably chosen experts who were required to report quickly, weighing up the competing views and rating the arguments for and against. As a layman, I read a book like this and feel seriously confused. All our lives could depend on making the right decisions over the next ten years, and we still don't know what's going on. Now that's scary.

______________________________

Luckily, the guy on the next street was thinking the same thing, and actually did something about it. David MacKay's Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air presents exactly the kind of quantitative analysis that I was looking for. I can't recommend this book too highly.