Lovelock: Paris A Desert, China 'Uninhabitable' By 2040

Jeff Poor

March 22, 2008 - 1:51pm

It’s not a script for the next science-fiction thriller, but renowned British scientist James Lovelock is giving human civilization less than 32 years before all hell breaks loose because of the effects of global warming.

Lovelock said the impact of climate change is irreversible regardless of what mankind does.

“By 2040, the world population of more than six billion will have been culled by floods, drought and famine,” Sarah Sands of The Daily Mail (U.K.) wrote in an article published on March 22 [1]. “The people of Southern Europe, as well as South-East Asia, will be fighting their way into countries such as Canada, Australia and Britain. We will, he says, have to set up encampments in this country, like those established for the hundreds of thousands of refugees displaced by the conflict in East Africa. Lovelock believes the subsequent ethnic tensions could lead to civil war.”

According to the article, Lovelock has the ear of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and even the Queen of England. The 88-year-old scientist also supports the work of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “Firms such as Shell have consulted him about his theories. Prince Charles has invited him to lecture at his summer school this year,” said the article.

But Lovelock isn’t calling for the draconian solutions set forth by climate change treaties like the Kyoto Protocol – which will eventually cost Japan $500 billion by the year 2020 [2].

“Lovelock believes it is too late to repair the damage. Government targets are ‘futile,’” Sands wrote. “Britain contributes such a tiny amount of emissions compared with countries such as China that our self-regulatory measures are pathetic.”

“Everyone could burn coal all day and drive around in 4x4s and it would not make a scrap of difference,” Lovelock said to The Daily Mail.

According to Lovelock, several scenarios will play out by the time the magical year 2040 arrives. The Chinese will inhabit Africa, the Russians will migrate to Siberia and Americans will move into Canada. He told The Daily Mail he believes “white Americans” will adapt easily to these Armageddon circumstances.

“White Americans are descended from those who had the guts to cross on rough old ships and find a new life,” Lovelock said. “They have the right spirit of can-do.”

The British Isles will survive this pending doom because Lovelock estimates the Gulf Stream that has kept Britain warm for hundreds of years will end and counteract the rise in global temperature. Unfortunately, the rest of Europe won’t be as fortunate.

“By 2040, parts of the Sahara desert will have moved into middle Europe,” Lovelock said. “We are talking about Paris. As far north as Berlin. In Britain we will escape because of our oceanic position.”

Lovelock emphasized the futility of the efforts touted by many of the global warming alarmists. In fact, he warned a lot of those efforts would not only have economic consequences on developed nations, but they would make matters worse. He cited the recent climate change agreement made in Bali in late 2007.

“Bali may make things worse,” Lovelock said. “One peculiarity is that when you burn coal and fuel you not only put CO2 into the atmosphere, which makes the Earth warmer, but you also put out a lot of dust and haze, which acts as a screen and cools the Earth.”

These end-of-the-world claims aren’t uncharacteristic from Lovelock. In October 2007, Lovelock told Rolling Stone that predictions [3] of the earth’s warming would be likeliest predictions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.” He said climate change would all but wipe out civilization, killing 6 billion and leaving only 500 million survivors, but only in the far northern latitudes – Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic Basin.

Not all climate scientists agree warming is a problem. Prominent hurricane forecaster Dr. William M. Gray, a professor at Colorado State University, told the audience at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change on March 4 [4] in New York that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures related to the salinity (the amount of salt) in ocean water was responsible for some global warming that has taken place. However, he said that same cycle means a period of cooling would begin within 10 years.

“We should begin to see cooling coming on,” Gray said. “I’m willing to make a big financial bet on it. In 10 years, I expect the globe to be somewhat cooler than it is now, because this ocean effect will dominate over the human-induced CO₂ effect and I believe the solar effect and the land-use effect. I think this is likely bigger.”

BMI's Special Report "Fire & Ice: Journalists have warned of climate change for 100 years, but can't decide weather we face an ice or warming" [6]

Climate of Bias [7]: BMI's page devoted entirely to global warming and climate change in the media.