Sunday, March 02, 2008

The cheerful pessimist, and fake meat

'Enjoy life while you can' | From the Guardian | The Guardian

James Lovelock expects climatic disaster starting within 20 years, but still thinks we should enjoy themselves now.

He's not exactly a pal to most Greenies:
"....All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do." ...

To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.

Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100.
Yes, I've heard him express these views before. But what is "Quorn"?

Turns out it's a fungus based meat substitute. Wikipedia explains its origins.

Is it even sold in Australia? The only imitation meat I have ever tried here is that dried Textured Vegetable Protein. I actually don't mind a chilli con carne recipe based on it, except for the horrendous amount of flatulence it produces. I can't stand to be near myself for 24 hours.

2 comments:

DANIELBLOOM said...

Gary Peters, in Post No. 36 above, quotes Sir James Lovelock’s interview in the Guardian on Saturday — March 1, 3008 — and it is a must-read:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2008/mar/01/scien ceofclimatechange.climatechange

He says he writing a new book now, too. To fill us in on what comes next. I don’t know if I have told anyone here this, but last month I sent some images of my polar cities concept to Dr Lovelock by email, and he wrote back the next day, saying: “Thanks for showing me those images. It may very happen and soon.”

I know Dr Lovelock has not been knighted yet by the Queen and maybe never will be, so he is not actually a “Sir” as I kiddingly wrote above, but he certainly should be honored that way. Sir James Lovelock. Yes. Has a good ring to it.

His interview in Saturday’s Guardian will knock your socks off. NSFW. But a very important interview. Read it and weep. (And then get back to work again, doing what you can to try to mitigate the impacts of climate change on this unsuspecting Earth that has been so kind to us for so many years as to give us a home for many many generations now. Soldier on, all who know that global warming is for real!)

— Posted by Danny Bloom

DANIELBLOOM said...

see polar cities here

http://pcillu101.blogspot.com