With thanks to Mac at Post Human Blues.
The End of Eden
James Lovelock Says This Time We’ve Pushed the Earth Too Far
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 2, 2006; Page C01
ST. GILES-ON-THE-HEATH, England
Through a deep and tangled wood lies a glade so lovely and wet and lush as to call to mind a hobbit’s sanctuary. A lichen-covered statue rises in a garden of native grasses, and a misting rain drips off a slate roof. At the yard’s edge a plump muskrat waddles into the brush.
“Hello!”
A lean, white-haired gentleman in a blue wool sweater and khakis beckons you inside his whitewashed cottage. We sit beside a stone hearth as his wife, Sandy, an elegant blonde, sets out scones and tea. James Lovelock fixes his mind’s eye on what’s to come.
“It’s going too fast,” he says softly. “We will burn.”
Why is that?
“Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return.”