Anthro-centric global scare-mongering, XXXI

It's interesting to me to see the sorts of people that gravitate to the anthro-centric global warming movement. This article quotes James Lovelock, "a renowned environmental scientist":

"Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic."

I thought at first that the guy was just another global warming doom-sayer, but he's a doom-sayer with a difference. That is, he has very strong ideas about what should be done to prevent the doom he predicts.

Lovelock is the originator of the "Gaia" hypothesis:

The close interrelation between life and its environment, and its philosophical significance, was noted by the British chemist James E. Lovelock and the American biologist Lynn Margulis. They called this idea of complementary evolution of life and environment the Gaia hypothesis after Gaia, the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. As Lovelock put it, this is “a new insight into the interactions between the living and the inorganic parts of the planet. From this has arisen the hypothesis, the model, in which the Earth's living matter, air, oceans, and land surface form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place for life.”

The Gaia hypothesis is highly controversial because it intimates that individual species (e.g., ancient anaerobic bacteria) might sacrifice themselves for the benefit of all living things. Furthermore, the hypothesis has yet to be formulated quantitatively and in a scientifically testable manner. However, regardless of the eventual validity of the idea that life controls its environment for its own benefit, the recognition that the Earth's physical, chemical, and biological components interact and mutually alter their collective destiny, by accident or design, is a profound insight. [ "climate." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 18 Mar. 2007 < http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-53371 >. ]

Lovelock was embraced by many in the environmental movement until one fateful day in 2004 when he ruined the ride for everybody by declaring that "only nuclear power can now halt global warming". This makes me like the guy. The originator of the New Age Gaia theory believes that technology can save the planet. What a concept!