Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Lovelock:- Crazed old fool?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Niels Corfield <mudguard@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Lovelock:- Crazed old fool?
  • Date: Thu, 06 Jul 2006 09:52:51 +0100


jedd wrote:

On Thursday 06 July 2006 6:01 pm, Niels Corfield wrote:
] To overlook the nuclear issue is really to gloss over his politics.

OTOH, to focus solely on it, and ignore the rest of what he
has to say, may reveal an abundance about yours.


Yes, quite likely.
He thinks that nuclear is the only solution to global energy demands.
In short he advocates, in Peak Oil Speak, a "techno-fantasy" solution.
Which I was under the impression that most folk on the list are clear that this is untenable.

You say that "he reckons we're all fucked already" despite him
asserting, during pretty much every interview he's done in
recent times, that this is most definitely *not* his view. I haven't
read TROG yet, but I don't expect to find those words in that
tome ... not even in the epilogue.


That is the stance put forward at the lecture attended by friends in Totnes.
Massive increases in temp, significant population losses, far polar extremes only remaining habitable.

You say that :
"... how he has offered to store all of the UK's nuclear waste in
his backgarden. Since he somehow believes that the quantities
will be so insignificant and the same is true for toxicity."

Whereas in his interview with Mark Lawson recently, he made it
quite clear he was happy to have some waste in his back yard,
wrapped up, as it were, in a sizeable lump of concrete.

I never got the impression he thought the total quantities being
talked about were trivial, or that he'd want all waste shipped to that
spot over there, between his clothes line and the compost bin.

You say that:
"/The Revenge of Gaia/ Why not just call it ... /Gaia 2 -the Sequel/
/(this time it's for real!) or Gaia's II -She's Back! And She's Pissed!/"

I'm not sure if you're suggesting the title of the book is too
melodramatic (I don't believe it is - most people are hugely
underestimating the problems coming up, and it is, after all,
just an appellation) or if it's too much of a nod to pop culture,
or perhaps it's just not *serious* enough for a book title. The
complaint does sound a smidgen petty, though.


So if Gaia is an encompassing "self-regulating system" then how can she have "revenge".
It makes her out to be a god, exacting retribution on her wayward subjects.

We all know climate change is real.
We don't need, I think (better add that one in) to spend time chasing round after "experts" telling us how this or that technology is in our best interests.
And how it is our only hope.

Disclaimer -- I'm not an advocate for all his beliefs, and I don't
believe he has a Full And Complete Answer For Every Problem, but
at the very least he's got an impressive track record of research, and
an audience that's bigger than anyone else's on 'our side' has, with
the consequence that he's likely to get a lot of people thinking about
a lot of issues that we (generic) might consider both important and
related. I think it would be churlish to dismiss, and encourage
others to dismiss, all his varied insights, thoughts, and suggestions
merely because you happen to disagree with one of them.

For my own part, I think nuclear fission is not a worthwhile
investment of our rapidly dwindling resources, and I think there are
other things he's revealed during his interviews that are far less
encouraging than his pro-fission stance.

Jedd.


In my lighter moments of reflection of him, when I'm not seething with anger, I like to think of him a man in the park wearing a sandwich-board (you know a sign strapped to his person) with the words: "The End of the World is Nigh" ;-)

BTW Has anyone read the review of TROG in Perma Activist?




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page