Is anyone else readng Lovelock's new book Revenge of Gaia?

[Odin2005]

In it have just read about a computer model that one we hit around 500ppm of CO2 there will have beeen enough warming to trigger a catastrophic dieoff of marine algae, devastating the ocean ecosystem and shifting the Earth into Hothouse mode. :scared:

[AngryAmish]

1. No

I'm getting drunk and watching wrestling.

[hatrack]

2. Just saw it the other day in the bookstore, and dipped into it

No cash to buy it, alas - maybe this week.

[htuttle]

3. I've read a synopsis, but not the book yet

The punchline to the synopsis was pretty much the case that you described.

[ramapo]

4. Happy, happy, joy, joy

Are we not gluttons for bad news and mental punishment?

[Odin2005]

5. Finished reading the book.

He absolutely condemned the nucleophobes and criticized many people who call themselves enviromentalists as naive city people who know jack about the envioment and spew fantasy instead (the main fantasies being the notions that we can rely totally on renewables and that nuclear energy is dangerous). Lovelock and I agree on so many things it's almost scary.

[bananas]

6. Does he really believe only 45 people died from Chernobyl?

That's crazy.

John Barrett : In the Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Carmichael) asked Professor Lovelock about deaths following Chernobyl. Professor Lovelock said that be believed that 45 deaths were attributable to Chernobyl. My hon. Friend asked whether he was aware of the figures suggesting that between 25,000 and 85,000 deaths were associated with Chernobyl. John Robertson : What was his answer? John Barrett : The evidence from the World Health Organisation was that there were tens of thousands of deaths, and when Professor Lovelock was asked whether he would stick to 45 he said yes. I was in a cancer hospital in Ukraine 10 years after Chernobyl and it was full of 10-year-old children who were suffering as a direct result of Chernobyl. The doctors confirmed that. There were more than 45 people in that one ward and I do not believe Professor Lovelock's figure.

http://www.nuclearspin.org/index.php/James_Lovelock

[Dead_Parrot]

7. Out of interest...

...do you have a link for the WHO stating tens of thousands of deaths?

[NNadir]

8. All 46,989,000 people in the Ukraine will die.

It is hardly a coincidence that Chernobyl happens to be located in the Ukraine.

http://www.tsunamigeneration.com/infobycountry/ukraine_statistics.html#0

While the number 46,989,000 would seem to set an upper limit on the number of people who die from Chernobyl, but it doesn't.

Everyone who will ever live in the Ukraine in the future will also die. This fact has been unavoidable since the Chernobyl accident.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Maybe some of them will turn into mutant zombies and die twice

It's just interesting that the WHO still seems to be quoting a few thousands, (which is bad enough) while the MP for Orkney and Shetland seems to think it's anywhere up to 80,000.

I think the sheep have been feeding him misinformation.

Dammit, everything has been sheep since I moved here. I'm getting worried.

[NNadir]

10. No data on sheep in the UNSCEAR report.

http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/annexj.pdf

Sorry.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Well, there wouldn't be...

Now that sheep have infiltrated every level of the world's governments, they want to keep thier power base hidden. That they are not mentioned in the UNSCEAR report is proof of that.

Hmm. Must be time for my meds.

[NNadir]

12. I had no idea the sheep were running things.

I thought they were only electing the people who run things.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. Sadly, I think the Military/Industrial/Oil Corp. directors run things

The election is just a 4-yearly sheep dip to get rid of those annoying itches: Everything else is woolly thinking and bleating.

[bananas]

15. "a few thousands" only if you can't add

[Dead_Parrot]

18. And you think 4,000+5,000="between 25,000 and 85,000"? lol

Why you think I should be able to add figures when you hadn't supplied them is a mystery. Perhaps you think I'm psychic?

All of which is is the eventual death toll. The number of people who have died - again, from your quote - is indeed a lot closer to the figure Lovelock gave. It's probably up to 60 by now.

[bananas]

20. 4,000+5,000+16,000=25,000 see my reply #19

We're posting replies at the same time.
I think I'm done for tonight anyway.

[Dead_Parrot]

22. You're probably right

We'll argue in the morning :)
:hi:

[MrPrax]

33. That's why it's important...

to sever the head from the body...

So they don't come back to life...everyone knows that!

There really is a lot of pseudo-science still in the whole zombie dilemma, I see.

(sarcasm)

[bananas]

14. The WHO website "overview" has 9,000 plus some unknown number

It doesn't actually say "9,000", it says 4,000 here and 5,000 there and we don't want to know how many over there...

The Expert Group concluded that there may be up to 4 000 additional cancer deaths among the three highest exposed groups over their lifetime (240 000 liquidators; 116 000 evacuees and the 270 000 residents of the SCZs). ...

Projections concerning cancer deaths among the five million residents of areas with radioactive caesium deposition of 37 kBq/m2 in Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine are much less certain because they are exposed to doses slightly above natural background radiation levels. Predictions, generally based on the LNT model, suggest that up to 5 000 additional cancer deaths may occur in this population from radiation exposure, ...

Chernobyl may also cause cancers in Europe outside Belarus, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. ...

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs303/en/index.html

According to Nature Magazine, they were trying to minimize the estimates:

Melissa Fleming, a press officer working at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, who helped coordinate the report's publicity, says the scientists involved checked the press material. But she admits a decision was made to focus on the lower 4,000 figure, ...

Cardis is also about to publish a study of the pan-European impact. She concludes that, of 570 million people in Europe at the time, 16,000 will ultimately die as a result of the accident...

http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060417/full/440982a.html

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Thanks...

I'd missed that on my google :)

Still a long way short of 85,000 though.

Still, if we're down to 0.6% of cancer deaths in the Ukraine, I'm guessing they have bigger problems than Chernobyl to deal with... (Assuming the other 99.4% of cancer deaths are important, that is. I could name some groups that don't give a shit).

[bananas]

19. Actually, it's not that far off

WHO estimated 4,000 for the high-exposure groups and 5,000 for the nearby Russian states, Cardis estimates 16,000 for Europe, that's 25,000 total, pretty darn close to 85,000 for these kinds of estimates.

[Dead_Parrot]

23. Well...

I think being out by x3 is a little hazy - and I'm still unconcinced that the guy from the islands isn't just pulling figures out of his arse, but It'll be interesting to look at the Cardis paper.

At least we're back out of the millions that (ahem) some groups still claim. And it's well under the 15 million or so who have snuffed from fossil fuels in the meantime...

I'll maintain my position that Chernobyl caused many more deaths by putting people off nuclear power, than it actually caused by radiation...

[bananas]

25. who says millions???

The Nature article links to the Green Party "TORCH" study,
which estimates 30,000-60,000 cancer deaths: http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/default/dok/118/[e-mail]

Googling for greenpeace finds a BBC article where they estimate 93,000 cancer deaths and 107,000 other deaths for a total of 200,000 deaths:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4917526.stm

WHO+Cardis: 4,000+5,000+16,000 = 25,000 cancer deaths
Green Party: 30,000-60,000 cancer deaths
Greenpeace: 93,000 cancer deaths + 107,000 other deaths = 200,000 deaths

[NNadir]

27. And this compares to how many people that die from air pollution each

year in New York City alone?

How does this compare to the number of persons who will die from global climate change? The number of people who died in China alone coal mining in the last decade? By the way, you offer no data for your "WHO Estimates" for Chernobyl, nor do you offer any assessment whatsoever, or any insight into how many Chernobyls it would take to match these deaths you don't care about.

The UNSCEAR report contains 477 scientific references by my count, broadly sampling all of the literature on Chernobyl up until 2001. Nowhere in that report is a representation of 25,000 dead. Discussions of Chernobyl at this point come down to assertions of people who who may have their lives shortened by Chernobyl related effects and will not be killed outright. I note that many, many, many, many, many, many people will also have their lives shortened by exposure to fossil fuels. This is why gas pumps in California for instance are all labelled with "this product contains compounds that are known by the State of California to cause cancer."

Nor do you note that the Chernobyl accident has not been repeated in 20 years, representing nearly 40% of the extent of nuclear power production history. Nor is anyone on earth speaking of building another example of a RMBK type reactor, nor would anyone dream of operating a reactor in the manner Chernobyl was operated during the experiment.

Finally you do not offer a single scalable form of energy that is totally risk free.

The fact is that people are being killed continously by all forms of energy, and the proportions depend very much on the amount of energy produced in exajoules (or fractions of an exajoule). This is inescapable. Viewed in this way, even if the city of Kiev had been wiped out by Chernobyl, nuclear energy would still be lower risk than coal fired power. But Kiev was not wiped out.

Chenobyl represents the worst case possible for a nuclear accident - the release of a significant portion of it's radioactive inventory under volatilization conditions. Moreover it represents almost the entire number of persons killed in the 50 years of nuclear operations, and therefore however many people may have had their lives shortened by Chernobyl needs to be divided by 50 to get an annualized figure.

The conceit here is more and more, again, of "nuclear exceptionalism," the claim that issues which apply to all forms of energy should only garner attention in the nuclear case. This is moral decision, and not a particularly appealing one either.

An ethical person - a person who actually cares about making decisions that saves lives - would immediately recognize that every nuclear plant that is not built represents murder.

[sabbat hunter]

31. nuclear power

nuclear power is generally a safe power source. what happened in chernobyl was because of a very poor design (no containment structure, graphite cooled)

the systems used in countries like france and the US (3 mile island not withstanding) are safe and reliable. and if we bothered to reprocessed the "spent fuel" we would not have all that much dangerous waste (the reprocessing can get more fuel out of the rods plus use other parts for medical purposes)

[Odin2005]

17. 30% of all people in the developed world will die of cancer...

Lovelock made a good point that nearly all cancer is the result of that most deadly carcinogen, OXYGEN. the imput's from artificial sources are extremely tiny. Media sensationalism had made us so scared of artificial things causing cancer even though very few are actually caused by man-made things.

[skids]

21. In your love for this guy...

...try to keep your feet on the ground.

"Nearly all cancer" is NOT "caused by oxygen." That's just silly. Start believing crap like that and the next thing you know you'll be into Dianetics or Scientology.

(EDIT: I said Biometrics. Meant Dianetics. Fixed.)

[Dogmudgeon]

24. But cancer does, indeed, need oxygen

Cancer is very "energetic" and demands -- steals -- both glucose and oxygen from healthy tissue.

So, cancer is kind of like cellular Republicanism.

I'm not sure what Lovelock said, or whether Odin's explanation did him justice. But many of us have come to similar conclusions about the course we are following, with different amounts and styles of fear, outrage, and loathing.

There's even a fairly large number of Scientologists who are concerned about the damage we are doing to our world and our civilization (if not Oprah's furniture).

If anyone thinks that environmental and energy issues can be determined by "hipness", whatever their position may be on the specifics, they might as well take a number and wait in line for the die-off.

--p!

[Odin2005]

26. Aerobic metabolism creates free radicals, which damage DNA.

That is pretty much common knowledge among biologists.

[skids]

28. Here's my concern, Odin.

Oxygen is indeed part of one mechanism that leads to cancer. Cancer can and does "occur naturally" no argument here. However, to say that it is "responsible for most cancer" ignores a good deal of epidemological research on environmental contamination. I'm not talking necessarily about radiation here, but chemical insult.

If you're so zealous in your support for any material that supports nuclear power that you buy this line, then you buy into a falsehood that leads one to totally ignore the carcinogenic danger posed by chemical contiminants in our homes, workplaces, and outdoor environment -- you know the very stuff that environmentalists try to fight when they aren't fighting that one big global warming problem... which isn't the only one of our worries.

Now, many authors that go over the top such as this do have good points buried in there. Try to dig them out and separate them from the grasping screed portions of the work. You'll get farther that way than trying to build up as an idol someone who obviously has no qualms about playing fast and loose with the truth.

[jpak]

35. I know some oncologists that would be highly amused by that statement

Another reason why Lovelock is a loon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcinogenesis

[jpak]

29. Lovelock has no credibility among biogeochemists, paleoclimatologists,

ecologists and geologists.

In 1988 and 2000, the American Geophysical Union dedicated their annual Chapman Conference (an invitation-only symposium attended by the top authorities in earth science - a BIG DEAL in geosciences) to an examination of Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis.

His hypothesis was falsified and thoroughly discredited.

If Lovelock's hypothesis had merit, we would see NEGATIVE biotic feedbacks to anthropogenic climate change - i.e., the biosphere would respond to cool the Earth.

All the biotic feedbacks that have been identified and examined so far are POSITIVE and will accelerate anthropogenic climate change.

The only negative feedback identified so far is the removal of anthropogenic CO2 by crustal weathering and subsequent sequestration of carbon in marine sediments. (CO2 dissolves in raindrops to form carbonic acid. Carbonic acid reacts with Al-silicate rocks to form dissolved silicate and bicarbonate. Bicarbonate is delivered to the ocean where it forms carbonates that are ultimately buried in marine sediments). This feedback will operate in the absence of life - no Gaia needed.

(note: it will take ~100k years for weathering to remove all anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere).

Furthermore, ecologists in the early 20th century rejected the notion that large ecosystems behave as "superorganisms" - and that idea has been falsified numerous times since then. The bottom line - there is no Gaia - and no Revenge of Gaia.

And who the hell crowned Lovelock King of the Environmentalists????

The right wing media and RW pundits, that's who. No environmental group embraces Gaia or environmentalism as "religion".

period.

If people feel the need to embrace pseudoscience in their quest to further the cause of nuclear power, they are free to do so.

But don't tell us that Lovelock or his Gaia Hypothesis represent the views and findings of the professional Earth Science community.

[Odin2005]

30. You are very misinformed.

The Gaia hypothesis is now accepted to at least some degree by most geologists, climatologists, and ecologists. The only major relavent group that are dead set against it are the gene selectionists like Dawkins.

The negative feedback loops work on timescales longer then the 250 years since the statrt of the Industrial Revolution. also, deforestation and farming are distroying the sources of the negative feedback loops. And the biosphere DOES play an important role in the CO2-Carbonate cycle; CO2 from respiring plant roots in the form of carbonic acid helps errode bedrock, increasing how much calcium ions are available to react with CO2 in seawater to form limestone. Plant matter in soil also acts as a carbon sink. Both of those reasons explain why CO2 levels dropped sharply in the Devonian period. Protists with shells also make limestone deposition more efficient.

You also aprently haven't heard of the relationship between biologically produced dimethyl sulfide and oceanic cloud cover:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyl_sulfide
http://saga.pmel.noaa.gov/review/dms_climate.html

[jpak]

32. Hardly - I'm a member of AGU and a biogeochemist

and I know what I'm talking about.

Also I worked with DMS and DMSP (the precursor to DMS) as part of my dissertation work (and published it) and most recently collaborated with other researchers measuring DMS fluxes in the Ross Sea (Antarctica) Polynya Pheocystis bloom.

DMS concentrations at the height of the bloom were so high you could smell it on deck. It also permeated the ship's freshwater supply. We drank it and showered with it for the better part of a month.

As far as the so-called DMS/CCN feedback mechanism is concerned, it's principal proponent R. J. Charlson has retracted his support for it.

Charlson, R. L. (1995) The Vanishing Climate Role of Dimethyl Sulfide. In: G.M. Woodwell and F.T. MacKenzie (eds) Biotic Feedbacks in the Global Climate System, Will the Warming Feed the Warming? Oxford Press pp. 251-252.

To be short, there is no greenhouse climate mechanism that would stimulate ocean productivity. Ocean productivity - and DMS production will decrease as the ocean warms. A strengthening thermocline will decrease diffusive upwelling of nutrients over large areas of the ocean and reduction in surface water pH will adversely affect coccolithophorids, forams and calcareous macroalgae. Marine primary production, photosynthetic draw-down of atmospheric CO2 and DMS emissions will decline. Furthermore, as the ocean warms, the solubility of CO2 in seawater will decline and result in a net release of CO2 to the atmosphere.

Again, all the marine biotic climate feed backs are positive, and it's old news to the climate community - and no one promotes the DMS/CCN feedback mechanism today (except maybe Lovelock).

As far as carbon sinks in natural terrestrial systems are concerned, there is little evidence that CO2 fertilization will result in a substantial negative feedback. Elevated CO2 might stimulate some C3 plant growth over the short term (days months), but on longer time scales, nutrient limitation will not allow plant communities to exploit elevated levels of CO2.

Elevated temperatures may also stimulate terrestrial respiration, releasing CO2 to the atmosphere, and canceling any potential negative feedbacks from CO2 stimulated primary production. The jury is still out on that though...

As far as weathering is concerned, it is widely recognized that soil microbes,vascular plants and lichens do play a role in soil and rock weathering. It is also widely recognized that weathering proceeds quite well without the aid of biota.

During the Neoproterozoic glaciations (the so-called Snowball Earth period), sea ice and glaciers covered nearly the entire planet (even the tropics) and effectively shutdown marine photosynthesis. These glacial periods terminated when CO2 released from volcanism reached concentrations high enough to cause "super-greenhouse" conditions. In these transition periods, deglaciation and sea ice retreat were catastrophic. Elevated global temperatures and CO2 concentrations combined with an accelerated hydrological cycle greatly increased weathering on the continents. This in turn, resulted in a rapid decrease in atmospheric CO2 and the massive deposition of carbonates (the so-called cap carbonates) in the ocean - and ultimately the rapid return of Snowball Earth conditions.

And all this occurred without any biologically assisted weathering on the continents.

So there...

:P

[bperci108]

34. jpak said:

{quote}

So there...

:P

{unquote}


:rofl:


A scientist with a sense of humor...I love it.

[intaglio]

36. Are you aware that your view seems anthropocentric then?

Because you allow far to little time for the feedback effects of both sorts to appear.

The short term effects you are looking for have little to do with the hypothesis as a whole. Your remarks regarding the Neoproterzoic glaciation are still regarded as highly contentious and if true should have allowed a continual recurrance of such snowball earth effect.

Are you aware that according to about 50% climate models the effect of global warming will be a sudden and steep drop in temperature due to cooling and dilution effects?

Have you been keeping track of the Met Office/BBC Climate change distributed computing model where an inadequate nerf for phosphate pumping showed we should have been in a runaway heating cycle already?

Do you also completely discount the work of Margulis and others?

Do you also discount the "Daisyworld" model?

Lastly to a small degree I agree with you. The Gaia model does fall short of what is required but at least it is there. There has been no other model that has come close to explaining the near homeostasis of the globe since the Neoproterzoic period. Even in geological terms this period is a long one.

[Odin2005]

37. Lovelock-bashers take a few of his gaffes...

...like oxygen levels turning out not being as stable as he thought, as if it discredited the whole concept and all the evidence that supports it. There is also a bunch of Gene Selectionists like Dawkins who refuse to beleive that natural selection can create a self-regulating biosphere.