This month, two different (albeit related) news have been echoed by the
Web and scientific journals.
The first news
The 13th of April, Working Group 3 from the
IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) released a new report
concerning “mitigation of climate change”. Somehow, the title summarizes at its
best what is heavily shown in the attached pages: despite previous reports and
international forums (including the Kyoto protocols), anthropogenic emissions
of greenhouse gases have continuously increased in the time-lapse taken into
account by the report (1970-2010). Moreover, it is shown that when you
consider all CO2 emissions (cumulative) between 1750 and 2010, half
of them occurred in the last 40 years, reaching a pick in
2010 (being only slightly affected by the world economic crisis in 2007/2008).
The report goes on with possible scenarios and trends on global temperatures
(supposed in the range +3.7°C <-> + 4.8°C in 2100, assuming no efforts to
reduce emissions). Rapid climate change seems almost inevitable; the point is
not how to stop it, but how we can adapt to such effects. The report provides
different pathways to cut emissions and
mitigate climate change. Several technical solutions are illustrated, spanning
from CO2 capture to nuclear power or bioenergy. Some economists
frankly noticed that, if IPCC suggestions have to be implemented at the
political level, this will not be without effects on economical exchanges (and
the current trends of market competition)[1].
The scientific community, by the voice of the journal Nature, simply titled “IPCC
report under fire”[2]
where the absence of country-specific guidelines for lowering emissions was
questioned. Therefore, the simple message that CO2 emissions should
be reduced seems unsatisfactory because lacking of tangible and pragmatic ways
of implementation. This is a classical problem for science when confronted with
society.
The second news
The second news is inspiring and comes “in resonance” with the IPCC and
global change.
At the Science Museum in London, an exhibition about the life and work of
James Lovelock opened this month. James Lovelock probably is one of the most
eclectic scientists today (a “natural philosopher” of the XXth Century, much
like Stephen Jay Gould or D’Arcy Thompson in other fields). Lovelock is
well-known for the theory of Gaia (a name suggested to him by William Golding,
yes, that William Golding), also known under the metaphor of the living Earth.
He first developed the
theory while working at Nasa on the question of how to reveal the presence of
life forms on Mars. This resulted in the
idea that life could be revealed by analyzing the planet atmosphere: if an atmospheric
disequilibrium was found, that is the footprint of life at work. This is indeed
the case with Earth, making our world a “living” planet. These reflections inspired the
first version of the Gaia theory. As Lovelock says[3],
the theory of the Earth as a living organism or, better, as self-regulated system,
was challenged by scientists like Dawkins and Doolittle, with the argument that
the unit of natural selection is the organism, not the biosphere. The new model
was called “Daisy World”. Lovelock imagined a planet populated with “daisies”
existing in two different colours: white or black. The planet would
self-regulate its own temperature as white daisies will be the fittest in a hot
climate, and the opposite for the black ones, in a cold climate. This model was
pure abstraction. However, it revealed for the first time that a
self-regulating planet was indeed possible (at least theoretically), and paved
the way to find out real feed-back mechanisms of climate homeostasis on our
planet.
Lovelock has just published his
new book: “A Rough Ride to the Future”[4],
where the role of man in Gaia is positively re-evaluated, compared to his
previous books. Probably, more than that, the book contains its legacy for this
century. In a recent interview by Philip Ball in Nature[5],
that I found inspiring, Lovelock is asked to explain his concept of
“sustainable retreat” regarding climate change. He argues that lack of food
during WWII almost led Britain to defeat and, mutatis mutandis, today’s agricultural supply is not in line with
the needs of the world population[6].
Therefore, Lovelock was clearly pointing to agriculture at the heart of the
sustainability problem.
 |
| CO2 emissions pie chart based on the IPCC report and on [2] |
This is interestingly matching with this resuming graph for the IPCC
report[7],
illustrating the percentage of direct CO2 emissions in 2010 for
different sectors (indirect emissions account for 25% of the total): agriculture (along with forestry and other
land use) emitted 24% of total CO2. Industry was second for direct
emissions, at 21%. Maybe we should start to solve the problem in the right order, starting with A (A, as Agriculture),
instead of C (C, as Climate) and follow Lovelock: “it is far better to think about how we can protect ourselves”[8].
[1] Sylvestre
Huet, ‘L’objectif des 2°C échauffe les esprits’, Libération, 15 April
14AD, p. 17.
[2] Quirin
Schiermeier, ‘IPCC Report under Fire’, Nature, 508 (2014), 298–298
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/508298a>.
[3] James Lovelock,
‘Gaia: The Living Earth’, Nature, 426 (2003), 769–70
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/426769a>.
[4] Tim Lenton,
‘Earth Systems: No Place like Home’, Nature, 508 (2014), 41–42
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/508041a>.
[5] Philip Ball,
‘James Lovelock Reflects on Gaia’s Legacy’, Nature, 2014
<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature.2014.15017>.
[6] Ball.
[7] Schiermeier.
[8] Ball.
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