By the end of the 21st century, the Earth will turn into hell. Today's prosperous cities will be like ashes. Temperatures in the tropics will rise by several degrees, the soil will become unsuitable for cultivation, rivers and lakes will dry up, and most of the islands and coastal areas will disappear. Many animals will die. And only in the north of Canada, Russia and Iceland will life glimmer. It is there that hordes of hungry migrants will rush from all over the planet….
DEAD AND LIVING
However, "hordes" - it is loudly said: in 100 years from humanity there will be horns and legs - no more than 20% of the world's population. A similar scenario for the development of upcoming events is offered to us by James Lovelock, a 98-year-old encyclopedic scientist from Great Britain. He announced this back in January 2006, giving an interview to a major British newspaper. Lovelock bluntly told readers that by the end of this century "billions of people will die, the survivors can be counted on one hand, and they will all end up in the Arctic." The rest of the planet will become uninhabitable for at least 100,000 years.
Yet 40 years ago, the future of our common home did not seem so bleak to Lovelock. The British scientist said that the Earth is a giant superorganism, the ability of which to self-regulate surpasses all conceivable limits. It was his work at NASA that prompted Lovelock to this conclusion. In 1961, the Americans invited the scientist to a research group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory so that the British would seek intelligence in space. And Lovelock diligently sought him out - including on Venus and on Mars. However, the scientist's research, which included a scrupulous comparison of the terrestrial and Martian atmospheres, led Lovelock to unexpected results. It turned out that the atmosphere of Mars tends to chemical equilibrium with a predominance of carbon dioxide, the concentration of which is off scale: it is about 23% higher than on Earth. Therefore, there is no need to talk about any life on the Red Planet. Perhaps, once, the scientist suggested, Mars was a blooming oasis, but not now: “In the“inanimate”planets, which is Mars, the composition of the atmosphere is in thermodynamic equilibrium with the average chemical composition of the planet. The atmosphere of a lifeless planet sooner or later balances its own contents, thus achieving energy peace."
As for the Earth, then everything is exactly the opposite. The atmosphere of our planet is extremely heterogeneous in its physical properties and is distinguished by “deep chemical disequilibrium”. Oddly enough, it is this disharmony that sustains life on the planet. The earth as a living organism regulates itself, takes care of “a comfortable climate and chemical composition for the organisms that inhabit it,” wrote James Lovelock.
VIVAT ONE CELL
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Lovelock named his theory in honor of the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth - the Gaia Hypothesis. This reference to ancient myths seemed all the more pertinent since, in the view of James Lovelock, the Earth looked like a real fairy-tale creature. Judge for yourself. She herself regulates and maintains all parameters of the environment in a relatively stable state. “Thanks to the incessant activity of living organisms, conditions on the planet have been maintained in a favorable state for life over the past 3.6 billion years. Any species that adversely affect the environment, making it less suitable for offspring, will, in the end, be expelled as well as weaker, evolutionarily unadapted species …”- wrote the scientist.
Lovelock gave the role of the first violin in maintaining stability on the planet … to unicellular ones. In his opinion, it is bacteria, all sorts of staphylococci, streptococci, fungi and yeast that work like bees so that the air is saturated with oxygen, and life boils in sea water, the tropics, the desert and even at the North Pole. Thanks to their invisible but tireless work, our planet has turned into a multi-level and multi-layered living organism, somewhat reminiscent of a nesting doll: the biosphere as a whole - biocenosis - organisms - organs - cells.
James Lovelock's findings had the effect of a bomb. His theory, to put it mildly, was not supported. Most of all, the Americans were indignant. Instead of looking for life in space, the Briton came up with the Gaia Hypothesis, which undermined the very foundations of the very project for which he was invited to NASA!
GRAY PREDICTION
But the entire environmental community greeted Lovelock with open arms. And the scientist himself willingly joined the green. In 1964, the Briton declared himself "an independent scientist, free from any restrictions associated with the influence of international companies on the direction of scientific research." As for the attacks of his former colleagues in the shop, he paid no attention to them. And besides, from year to year the ranks of Lovelock's critics thinned, and all because the predictions of the Briton began to come true, and his "crazy" theory - to receive practical confirmation. Thus, Lovelock's "sulfuric prediction" came true. Contrary to the general scientific opinion, the scientist was convinced that the sulfur that enters the world's oceans from the soil does not return back to land in the form of hydrogen sulfide. Consistent with Gaia's own hypothesis, Lovelock assumedthat microorganisms are somehow involved in this process - and it turned out to be right: studies have confirmed that sulfur rises into the atmosphere in the form of a volatile liquid with an unpleasant odor, produced by … decomposing algae.
A little later, Lovelock discovered chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere - substances synthesized by man: chlorine, fluorine and bromine contained in it destroy the ozone layer. It was Lovelock who first spoke about the greenhouse effect and global warming. True, the scientist himself saw another confirmation of his theory in this dangerous phenomenon: the planet, turning into a greenhouse, simply survives a person - it gets rid of the "extra element" that encroached on stability in his own home.
HUMAN MORE DANGEROUS RADIATION
For many years, James Lovelock has been an icon for environmentalists. But in 2004 he sharply "changed his orientation." He made a sensational statement, the essence of which boiled down to the following: … a peaceful atom will save us from an impending ecological catastrophe. Following this, the Briton committed sacrilege - he deserted into the ranks of the members of the Ecologists for Atomic Energy movement. Lovelock clarified his position: "I continue to be green, but I beg you to abandon the erroneous views against nuclear energy." In Gaea's Revenge, he wrote: “One day a TV reporter asked me, 'What about nuclear waste? Will they not poison the entire biosphere, will they not remain in it for millions of years? " But I always knew: this nightmare fantasy has no real basis … An amazing fact, but all places that have been seriously contaminated with radioactive nuclides,are distinguished by the wealth of wildlife. This is true of the vicinity of Chernobyl, the Pacific sites where nuclear tests were carried out, the Savannah River area, where an atomic weapons plant was located during the Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as a danger; even if it threatens them with an insignificant reduction in lifetimes, then this risk cannot be compared with the risk that they are exposed to in the presence of a person and his pets … "even if it threatens them with an insignificant reduction in lifetimes, then this risk cannot be compared with the risk that they are exposed to in the presence of a person and his pets … "even if it threatens them with an insignificant reduction in lifetimes, then this risk cannot be compared with the risk that they are exposed to in the presence of a person and his pets …"
So one should not be afraid of an atom, but a person. The Earth has long understood this - and slowly began to survive a person “from home”. Humanity has no time to think. James Lovelock is 100% sure of this. And given that he has earned a reputation as the only scientist whose predictions always come true, it would not hurt to listen to his words.
Vladimir STROGANOV
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In 2006, James Lovelock, speaking on Australian television, entered into a controversy with a journalist who said that the discovery of the atom led to the appearance of the world's worst bomb. Lovelock's remark sounded reasonable: "Modern nuclear power plants are unsuitable for the production of atomic bombs," but after the telecast the greens showered the scientist with eggs and tomatoes.