This article was published 17 years ago. Looks like we’re right on schedule for this prediction.

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange

by paradoxicalmind_420

5 comments

  1. When they get old, they get very ornery.

    He saw renewable energy as the biggest failure – today 80% of UK’s grid is powered by clean energy.

    In 2008, the UK’s electricity grid carbon intensity was 495 gCO2/kWh. In 2024 it was 125g and all coal was phased out.

    In 2020 he recanted, [saying](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/18/james-lovelock-the-biosphere-and-i-are-both-in-the-last-1-per-cent-of-our-lives):

    > It is beginning to look as if renewable energy – wind and solar – if properly used, may be the answer to the energy problems of humanity.

    May Lovelock RIP.

  2. I’m not even a climate scientist, and I predicted it (to my wife) not long after that.

    2010-ish, and I told her that when our kids get to be our age (which was mid 40s at the time), the world will bear a greater resemblance to the world of *The Walking Dead* than the world of 2010. Minus the zombies, of course, but in terms of global population reduction, societal collapse, etc.

    They’ll be getting to that age around 2050, and the current acceleration in warming has us crossing 3C of warming at around 2054 (according to the ERA5 dataset, based on a Foster/Rahmstorf 2025 preprint study entitled “Global Warming has Accelerated Significantly”).

    The Guardian had a story a few months back in which actuaries (some of the most cautious and conservative people around) were calling for 4 billion deaths at 3C. So yeah, it all kinda tracks.

  4. “One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

    ― Edward Abbey

  5. >This article was published 17 years ago. Looks like we’re right on schedule for this prediction.

    I wonder if he and I had a chance to talk forty years ago…

    Oh, well.

    But, as he said, enjoy it while it lasts. (Something I also advise.)

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