Tonight I found an issue of Rolling Stone a few months ago and I read a very interesting interview James Lovelock, the scientist author of the theory as an autonomous body of the Earth (Gaia).
The inventor of Gaia in fact says that global warming is irreversible and that more than six billion people will die by the end of the century.
In short, the 
Earth will get rid of us. In 2020, droughts and other extreme weather events will be common. the Sahara in 2040 will move to Europe and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Food shortages will drive millions of people in the north, raising political tensions. Between starvation and mass migration, epidemics and reach by 2100 the world population would increase from 6.6 billion to about $ 500 million. Most of the survivors living in the more distant latitudes: Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia and the Arctic basin. At the end of the century global warming will raise the temperature of at least 14 degrees in areas such as North America and Europe, nearly double the forecast of the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which includes the best scientists in the world. Although it may seem like a crazy old man (88 years), just look at his track record to take at least a little 'seriously: h
to create a device that helped discover the hole in the ozone layer and contributed to give birth to the environmental movement in the 70's, has just introduced the theory known as Gaia
, according to which our whole planet would be a kind of superorganism. Bull of as new age nonsense, Lovelock's vision of a self-regulating Earth now is the
basis of all climate science . Lovelock
Before the Earth was seen as a warm rock that moved around the sun where life had evolved because the conditions were appropriate, not too hot, not too cold, plenty of water.
In the 70's, Lovelock asked himself a simple question: Why is the Earth different from Mars or Venus, where the atmosphere is toxic to living things?
The answer was that our atmosphere was created not by random geological events but by the cumulative distribution of all that breathes, grows and decomposes. Life, then, is not just passing on the planet, but is an active component that helps create the precise conditions for support, short
life begets life.
Lovelock was quickly adopted as a spiritual guru, the man who killed God and put the planet at the center of the religious new age . In the beginning our scientist did not see an imminent threat of global warming.
But a few years ago, alarmed by the rapid melting of Arctic ice, has become convinced that Gaia's autopilot was seriously upset. Lovelock believes the planet then find yourself a balance, but it will take millions of years. "It might well consider changes how the climate system response to get rid of an irritating species: us humans. "
The most important invention of Lovelock was the Electron Capture Detector (ECD) in 1957, he put together an instrument to measure the concentration of pesticides or other gases in the air, the instrument was then redesigned by Hewlett Packard. Lovelock was quickly adopted as a spiritual guru, the man who killed God and put the planet at the center of the religious new age . In the beginning our scientist did not see an imminent threat of global warming.
But a few years ago, alarmed by the rapid melting of Arctic ice, has become convinced that Gaia's autopilot was seriously upset. Lovelock believes the planet then find yourself a balance, but it will take millions of years. "It might well consider changes how the climate system response to get rid of an irritating species: us humans. "
In 1973, after discovering that the first element of a well-known industrial chemical called chlorofluorocarbons had polluted the atmosphere, Lovelock declared that the accumulation of CFCs was not 'no conceivable risk. " Then he quickly revised his position, but that mistake cost him the Nobel.
While on vacation in Ireland, takes a random sample of fog and found it polluted by Chlorofluorocarbons but wrong in understanding the risks they were, two other scientists won the Nobel Prize for correctly hypothesized that CFCs would burn a hole in the stratosphere, allowing dangerous levels of ultraviolet light reach Earth.
a result, CFCs were banned
.
"If Lovelock had not detected, however, those CFCs," says Paul Ehrlich, a biologist at Stanford University, "we would live in the ocean all with flippers and snorkels to escape the poisonous sun." In Oxford
once admonished Mother Teresa for telling the public to care for the poor and "leave God take care of the Earth. " As he himself explained,
"if we as a people, we do not take care of the Earth, we can be sure that the Earth will take care of us and, if necessary, we will remove '.
One day a letter arrived at NASA (1961) inviting him to a group of scientists who would explore the Moon's surface. Rather quickly concluded that the Moon was not a very interesting place. The real thrill came from Mars.
"To the Moon, the question was, is safe enough for a man walk over there?, And for the planet Mars, the question was: is there any form of life?". His colleagues
tried to design tools for tracking life forms on the surface of Mars, but Lovelock, as usual, took a different tack: instead of using a probe to excavate the soil and found bacteria, thought to analyze the chemical composition of the atmosphere. If there was life organizations were forced to use raw materials in the atmosphere, like oxygen, and leave waste products, such as methane, just as happens on Earth.
then obtained an analysis of Mars and discovered that the atmosphere was very close to chemical equilibrium, which
Uggeri s not a trace of life possible. But if this creates the atmosphere, Lovelock reasoned, it must also, in a sense, adjustment.
He knew, for example, that the Sun is now 25% hotter than when life began.
What modulate the Earth's surface, then, keeping it hospitable?
Life itself, Lovel concluded ck. As the planet warms, the plants lower the level of carbon dioxide and other gases that warm the atmosphere, it cools, the levels of this gas rise, warming the planet. She was born the idea of \u200b\u200bthe Earth as superorganism
. The idea was not entirely new: Leonardo da Vinci was convinced more or less the same things, but Lovelock was the first to assemble all the thinking on the subject.
The hippies loved him. Darwinists do not. In their view, the concept of Lovelock fled in the face of evolutionary logic, and seemed to suggest a kind of default order. In the minds of peers, Lovelock was dancing very close to God, and the scientific debate around Gaia continued until the 80's. is maintained as a consultant to the MI5 (British counterintelligence
) therefore developed a method to monitor the movements of KGB spies in London using an ECD to track the paths of their vehicles to him, this was tantamount to writing novels garbage and get easy money. Within the scientific is redeemed by a second book, New Age
of Gaia, which offered more rigorous exploration of biological mechanisms that maintain and geophysical Earth's atmosphere favorable to life. The plankton in the oceans, for example, helps cool the planet by releasing dimethyl sulphide, a substance at the base of cloud formation, which in turn reflect the sun's heat. Gaia offered a positive vision of how the world works.
After all, if the Earth is a superorganism that can evolve, this means that there is a certain amount of forgiveness
inherent in our world. In fact, Lovelock thought that global warming was something that the planet would correct itself.
Then in 2004, Richard Betts, a researcher at the Hadley Center, invited him to go from there. Lovelock heard the latest news on the ice at the poles melted, decimated the rain forests, the carbon cycle in the oceans ... That evening, while he was driving home, he thought that the resistance of the system was gone. Forgiveness was over. A few weeks after he began work on his most recent book, dark, The Revenge of Gaia ( The Revenge of Gaia
), published in 2006. According to Lovelock defects created on the computer climate models are painfully obvious. According to these models such as the Greenland ice sheet takes a thousand years to melt, but the evidence coming from the real world suggest the worst. Three million years ago, when the temperature rises a few degrees to today's level, the oceans rose to 58.42 cm, but 24 meters. In addition, recent satellite measurements indicate that Arctic ice is melting so fast as to risk leaving the ice-free region by 2030. And here's the
Lovelock's doomsday scenario: increasing heat means more melted ice at the poles, that is, more water and land. That, in turn, increase the heat, causing further melting of the ice. The sea rises, the heat generated heavier rainfall in some areas and drought in others, the Amazon rain forest, pines and firs, covering Alaska, Canada and Siberia, first grow, then fade forever, the eternal snows melting in the north in latitude, releasing methane, a gas twenty times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The climate of the planet makes a leap toward a new stadium, warmer. Not the end of the world, but the end of the world as we know it. In the opinion of Lovelock modest cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases are not helpful. is too late to stop global warming by replacing our SUVs with hybrids, the whole concept of development Sustainable is wrong: "We should think of a sustainable strategic retreat." In his view it is time to prepare plans for the emigration of millions of people who arrive in Europe from disadvantaged regions such as Bangladesh, to admit that the New Orleans disaster was a warning signal and transfer people to cities that are best positioned. "I wish I could say that wind turbines and solar panels will save us," Lovelock says, "but I can not. There is no solution possible. " However, this should not make us believe that the view of science is that we frolic while the world burns.
Quite the contrary.
According to him we have two choices: we can return to a more primitive lifestyle and live in balance with the planet as a group of hunters, or we can close in a sophisticated and hi-tech civilization. As a last resort Lovelock believes that humans may be forced to manipulate the Earth's climate by erecting solar shields in space or building equipment to eliminate large amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
"In some ways we're back in 1939. The threat is obvious [referring to the Nazis], but we failed to understand what is at stake. We're still talking about appeasement. We will live in a world without desperate time. I think it's time for a "version global warming, "the famous speech that Winston Churchill spoke to prepare Britain for World War II:" I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. "People understand what is going much better than most politicians. "
Regardless of how you present to the future Lovelock did not like the idea of \u200b\u200bbeing there to see it.
avoids talking about his legacy, saying that despite jokes that would be read on his tombstone that he never thought of be a condemning others into exile. dall'epitaffio Regardless, Lovelock's legacy is assured in my opinion. And no matter how dull and sententious his concept of Earth as a dynamic system unitary vision of hope remains. His vision is an antidote to the chaos of the twentieth century, which has fragmented the world in quantum mechanics and the unfathomable mysteries. As for the threat that awaits us, Lovelock may well be wrong.
Not because he misunderstood the scientific data (which is possible), but because he misunderstood human beings. And in fact, believes that, despite our cell phones and space shuttles, we are still tribal animals,
unable to act for the common good and to take long term decisions for our welfare
.
But perhaps this is exactly the point of the impending apocalypse. One of the questions that fascinates Lovelock is this: life is built on the land for more than three billion years, but to what end?
"Whether we like it or not, we are the brain and nervous system of Gaia. We have taken responsibility for the welfare of the planet. How do you manage? ".
Alfano, the Minister of Justice who has created (?), Which also reminds me of a brother Gigi D'Alessio. 
