Life "doomed" by four degree rise in global temps

James Lovelock, the former Nasa scientist and chief proponent of Gaia theory, has hit the headlines again with 'doomsday' predictions of the effects of climate change.

Climate change will wipe out most life on Earth by the end of this century and mankind is too late to avert catastrophe, a leading British climate scientist said.

Lovelock, 89, has said higher temperatures will turn parts of the world into desert and raise sea levels, flooding other regions.

His apocalyptic theory foresees crop failures, drought and death on an unprecedented scale. The population of this hot, barren world could shrink from about seven billion to one billion by 2100 as people compete for ever-scarcer resources.

"It will be death on a grand scale from famine and lack of water," Lovelock told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. "It could be a reduction to a billion (people) or less."

More worryingly, he claims that even if the world found a way of cutting emissions to zero, it is now too late to cool the Earth.

Ironically, this comes just a few weeks after experts at Britain's top climate research centre launched an attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.