One of the leading experts on planet Earth, James Lovelock, believes that there is very little we can do to stave off global warming catastrophes. Lovelock is the man who created the Gaia theory – that the earth is essentially a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism.

“Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change from radically impacting on our lives over the coming decades.” This is the stark conclusion of James Lovelock, the globally respected environmental thinker and independent scientist who developed the Gaia theory in an interview this week with The Guardian.

Lovelock developed the Gaia hypothesis as an outgrowth of his work for NASA on methods of detecting life on Mars. The theory drew withering criticism from many in the scientific establishment.

Today, Lovelock believes that a rapid drop in carbon in the atmosphere could actually do more damage than good. He believes that the global warming that we are currently experiencing is offset by a cooling of 2-3ºC, caused by Global Dimming -essentially, the reduction of direct irradiance at the earth’s atmosphere as a result of industrial pollution, known to others as aerosol particles.

It’s a horrible catch 22 situation that leaves only a very small gap for any joy at all. If we continue to do nothing (note the use of the word continue), then we will doom ourselves. If we do do something, like a massive cut back in the emission of carbon in to our atmosphere, Lovelock believes that we would further damage Earth.

“Any economic downturn or planned cutback in fossil fuel use, which lessened aerosol density, would intensify the heating,” Lovelock will say, in a lecture to the Royal Society today. “If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler. We live in a fool’s climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly.”

What’s worse is that Lovelock believes that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are underestimating the severity of climate change. He has labeled a report issued by the IPCC earlier this year as “properly cautious”. He believes the report leaves a tone of “we can fix this”, when there is none, adding that possibly six to eight billion people will suffer food and water shortages, intolerable climates, and the extinction of entire ecosystems.

“We are at war with the Earth and as in a blitzkrieg, events proceed faster than we can respond.” In his speech to the Royal Society, he will argue that when a model includes the whole Earth system it shows that “…when the carbon dioxide in the air exceeds 500 parts per million the global temperature suddenly rises 6ºC and becomes stable again despite further increases or decreases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This contrasts with the IPCC models that predict that temperature rises and falls smoothly with increasing or decreasing carbon dioxide.”

Lovelock believes that we should attempt to lower greenhouse gases, and minimize the destruction of forests; but he believes that that will simply not be enough.

The bottom line, according to Lovelock, is that we will simply have to adapt.

adapted from materials at: http://www.dailygalaxy.com/

The researchers from the University of Sheffield and the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science have shown that the combination of marine microbes that can grow on plastic waste varies significantly from microbial groups that colonise surfaces in the wider environment. This raises the possibility that the plastic-associated marine microbes have different activities that could contribute to the breakdown of these plastics or the toxic chemicals associated with them.

Plastic waste is a long-term problem as its breakdown in the environment may require thousands of years. “Plastics form a daily part of our lives and are treated as disposable by consumers. As such plastics comprise the most abundant and rapidly growing component of man-made litter entering the oceans,” explained Jesse Harrison.

Over time the size of plastic fragments in the oceans decreases as a result of exposure to natural forces. Tiny fragments of 5 mm or less are called “microplastics” and are particularly dangerous as they can absorb toxic chemicals which are transported to marine animals when ingested.

While microbes are the most numerous organisms in the marine environment, this is the first DNA-based study to investigate how they interact with plastic fragments. The new study investigated the attachment of microbes to fragments of polyethylene — a plastic commonly used for shopping bags. The scientists found that the plastic was rapidly colonised by multiple species of bacteria that congregated together to form a ‘biofilm’ on its surface. Interestingly, the biofilm was only formed by certain types of marine bacteria.

The group, led by Dr. Mark Osborn at Sheffield, plans to investigate how the microbial interaction with microplastics varies across different habitats within the coastal seabed — research which they believe could have huge environmental benefits. “Microbes play a key role in the sustaining of all marine life and are the most likely of all organisms to break down toxic chemicals, or even the plastics themselves,” suggested Mr Harrison. “This kind of research is also helping us unravel the global environmental impacts of plastic pollution,” he said.

Adapted from materials provided by Society for General Microbiology,