Memorandum submitted by Professor James
Lovelock CH CBE DSc FRS
I am a wholly independent scientist and a long standing
environmentalist. My credentials include the invention of an ultra
sensitive detector that confirmed Rachel Carson's warning that
pesticides and herbicides were being overused to the detriment
of wild life. I also was the first to discover that chlorofluorocarbons
(CFCs) were accumulating on a global scale and to demonstrate
that they decomposed in the stratosphere. My principle contribution
has been the development of Gaia theory, otherwise called Earth
System Science that sees the Earth as a self regulating planet
that normally actively sustains a habitable environment.
I fear that the climate change, consequent upon
greenhouse gas emissions and unwise farming practices, will come
sooner and be more severe than was thought only a year ago. Evidence
coming from the monitoring of the global climate reveals changes
as great as the most pessimistic of earlier predictions by such
professional bodies as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC). The wholly unexpected and unprecedented heat in
the European summer of 2003 when over 30,000 died was an example.
We should take seriously the warnings of the Government Chief
scientist, Sir David King, who in 2004 said that global warming
is a more serious threat than terrorism.
Secure supplies of energy, especially electricity,
are needed to sustain our civilised way of life and the United
Kingdom needs a secure energy base that does not depend on imports
from what may soon become a troubled and unstable world. There
is no energy source immediately available to us other than coal,
gas or nuclear. Nuclear is available now, coal burning, if it
is to continue, needs the early development of equipment to sequester
the carbon dioxide before it leaves the furnace chimneys. Natural
gas from the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea will soon run out
and other sources are far distant and likely to be insecure. More
important than this I grow concerned over the greenhouse effect
of a large increase in the use of gas for energy; natural gas
is twenty five times more potent a greenhouse gas as is carbon
dioxide, so that a leak as small as 2% of gas, anywhere from the
wells to the homes or the power stations, will make it as harmful
as burning coal and a 4% leak would make it three times as dangerous.
The leak rate from North Sea gas wells has been reported as 6%,
and the Russian gas fields are unlikely to be better. Renewable
energy is a courageous idea but so far is unable to supply more
than a token supply of energy and at present is uneconomic and
unreliable in comparison with the other sources.
I would recommend that every effort be made
to start nuclear new build and coal burning power stations that
sequester the emitted carbon dioxide. The dangers of nuclear energy
have been much exaggerated as have the problems of nuclear waste.
They are minor compared with those that threaten from global heating.
21 February 2005
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