Currently the increase in human population and the environmental impact of their activities, such as the multiplication of greenhouse gases may cause negative feedbacks in the environment to become positive feedback. Lovelock’s Gaia Hypothesis. In 1997, Tyler Volk argued that a Gaian system is almost inevitably produced as a result of an evolution towards far-from-equilibrium homeostatic states that maximise entropy production, and Kleidon (2004) agreed stating: "...homeostatic behavior can emerge from a state of MEP associated with the planetary albedo"; "...the resulting behavior of a symbiotic Earth at a state of MEP may well lead to near-homeostatic behavior of the Earth system on long time scales, as stated by the Gaia hypothesis". In accentuating the direct competition between individuals for resources as the primary selection mechanism, Darwin (and especially his followers) created the impression that the environment was simply a static arena". James Lovelock gave this name to his hypothesis after a suggestion from the novelist William Golding, who was living in the same village as Lovelock at the time (Bowerchalke, Wiltshire, UK). [62], The Gaia hypothesis continues to be broadly skeptically received by the scientific community. Here is what Lovelock has to say, to quote at length from his 1979 book: “Among several difficult concepts embodied in the Gaia hypothesis is that of intelligence. See search results for this author. She wrote that the composition of the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere are regulated around "set points" as in homeostasis, but those set points change with time. In some versions of Gaia philosophy, all lifeforms are considered part of one single living planetary being called Gaia. Lynn Margulis, Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and long-time advocate of the Gaia hypothesis, was a keynote speaker. USA. "Weak Gaia" asserted that life tends to make the environment stable for the flourishing of all life. Examining the Gaia hypothesis proposing that the earth is alive and behaves like a living system. The resulting co-evolving dynamical process eventually leads to the convergence of equilibrium and optimal conditions", but would also require progress of truth and understanding in a lens that could be argued was put on hiatus while the species was proliferating the needs of Economic manipulation and environmental degradation while losing sight of the maturing nature of the needs of many. Many scientists in particular also criticised the approach taken in his popular book Gaia, a New Look at Life on Earth for being teleological—a belief that things are purposeful and aimed towards a goal. [citation needed]. gaia = Erde als Muttergottheit).Die Hypothese, dass die Erde inklusive der darauf lebenden und nicht lebenden Materie einen geschlossenen Superorganismus darstellt, wurde zuerst 1972 vom britischen Astrophysiker und Ingenieur JAMES E. LOVELOCK formuliert. James Lovelock: Gaia theory creator video on coronavirus and turning 101 BBC - August 3, 2020 James Lovelock, one of Britain’s greatest scientists, is famous for developing the Gaia hypothesis, which sees the Earth as a self-regulating system. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract This work consists of two parts. Bunyard, Peter (1996), "Gaia in Action: Science of the Living Earth" (Floris Books), Abram, D. (1988) "The Mechanical and the Organic: On the Impact of Metaphor in Science" in Scientists on Gaia, edited by Stephen Schneider and Penelope Boston, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1991, Margulis, Lynn. Another influence for the Gaia hypothesis and the environmental movement in general came as a side effect of the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States of America. What are the main candidates for "daisies"? Welcome to the personal website of James Lovelock, originator of Gaia theory, inventor of the electron capture detector (which made possible the detection of CFCs and other atmospheric nano-pollutants) and of the microwave oven. The flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the soil is therefore regulated with the help of living beings. As Lovelock’s friend Stewart Brand, founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue and, like Lovelock, a proponent of Big Tech fixes for the climate crisis, recently tweeted, Novacene’s ‘message is more profound even than his Gaia Theory and even more comforting and discomfiting’. In the early 1960's, James Lovelock was invited by NASA to participate in the scientific research for evidence of life on Mars. Lovelock proposes radical theories that contrast markedly with ‘traditional green’ thinking as well as forecasting in stark detail what may occur if action is not … Are there parts of the system determined pragmatically by whatever disciplinary study is being undertaken at any given time or are there a set of parts that should be taken as most true for understanding Gaia as containing evolving organisms over time? However, in the early 1980s, W. Ford Doolittle and Richard Dawkins separately argued against this aspect of Gaia. The elements that comprise salinity do not readily change and are a conservative property of seawater. He held this view strongly and said: such an event is as unlikely as that of a Boeing747 rising, ready to fly, from a tornado-swept junk yard.\"Further in this review, and concerning the microbiological research re… Calcium carbonate is used by living organisms to manufacture carbonaceous tests and shells. Lovelock responds that it is better than referring to a “biological cybernetic system with homeostatic tendencies.” The colour of the daisies influences the albedo of the planet such that black daisies absorb more light and warm the planet, while white daisies reflect more light and cool the planet. One of the most unpredicted outcomes of the space program was the Gaia hypothesis, the theory the biosphere itself works to regulate the temperature and chemical content of the Earth’s atmosphere. Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: the gaia hypothesis. Some studies and spiritual practitioners, scientists, and the general consensus would probably be aware at some point or another that by an evolutionary perspective backed up by pluralistic cognition that the conceptualization of subjective belief is valid to the individual supposing their subjective needs while the world around them continues to proliferate said stability, while also recognizing the resources and objective science that would back up this 'hypothesis' as a genuine and quantifibale point regarding the colloquial and qualitative body, as well the quantitative and objective when looking at molecular, geological and biological compositions and bodies. In 2006, the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock the Wollaston Medal in part for his work on the Gaia hypothesis.[3]. In 1961, atmospheric scientist James Lovelock was… [64] The CLAW hypothesis,[18] initially suggested as a potential example of direct Gaian feedback, has subsequently been found to be less credible as understanding of cloud condensation nuclei has improved. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. Lovelock's Gaia theory was written in the 1970s, but by now has become one of the most iconic environmental and scientific hypotheses, and for that reason alone, it is worth a read. And if we could see this whole, as a whole, through a great period of time, we might perceive not only organs with coordinated functions, but possibly also that process of consumption as replacement which in biology we call metabolism, or growth. WHAT IS GAIA? In the biogeochemical processes of Earth, sources and sinks are the movement of elements. The Gaia theory is a scientific hypothesis which originated with Dr. James Lovelock in the 1960s. The Gaia Paradigm /ˈɡaɪ.ə/, also known as the Gaia theory or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. Less accepted versions of the hypothesis claim that changes in the biosphere are brought about through the coordination of living organisms and maintain those conditions through homeostasis. [69], Paradigm that living organisms interact with their surroundings in a self-regulating system, Gribbin, John (1990), "Hothouse earth: The greenhouse effect and Gaia" (Weidenfeld & Nicolson), Lovelock, James, (1995) "The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth" (W.W.Norton & Co). This revolutionary hypothesis was seen as heretical, but has since been accepted as fact; a theory, no longer a hypothesis. by James Lovelock Most of us sense that the Earth is more than a sphere of rock with a thin layer of air, ocean and life covering the surface. The photograph Earthrise taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 during the Apollo 8 mission became, through the Overview Effect an early symbol for the global ecology movement.[37]. James Lovelock will go down in history as the scientist who changed our view of the Earth from a barren rock covered with a thin coating of life. He also states that most of his critics are biologists but that his hypothesis includes experiments in fields outside biology, and that some self-regulating phenomena may not be mathematically explainable.[59]. The first Chapman Conference on Gaia,[48] was held in San Diego, California on March 7, 1988. [2] Lovelock named the idea after Gaia, the primordial goddess who personified the Earth in Greek mythology. The Gaia Hypothesis has since been supported by a number of scientific experiments[20] and provided a number of useful predictions,[21] and hence is properly referred to as the Gaia theory… By the time of the 2nd Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis, held at Valencia, Spain, on 23 June 2000,[51] the situation had changed significantly. individualis, Fred Pearce prays that the Earth Goddess will stay in control of our planet, The first major review of the evidence finds insufficient backing for the appealing Gaia hypothesis, but we should still celebrate its impact on research, Why did the public love James Lovelock’s Gaia theory so much while scientists hated it? Lovelock, who introduced the Gaia Hypothesis describing life on Earth as a vast self-regulating organism some 40 years ago, also stated that since 2000, warming had not happened as expected. Lovelock suggested detecting such combinations in other planets' atmospheres as a relatively reliable and cheap way to detect life. In Lovelock’s terminology Gaia hypothesis refers to this first version and Gaia theory to the further elaborated version of the 1980s. temperature and atmosphere. With a PhD in medicine, Lovelock began his career performing cryopreservation experiments on rodents, including successfully thawing frozen … In 1970, chemist James Lovelock and his research partner Lynn Margulis (the wife of Carl Sagan at the time) proposed that the earth is a living being, self-regulating the elements to sustain life on it. The percentage of white and black daisies will continually change to keep the temperature at the value at which the plants' reproductive rates are equal, allowing both life forms to thrive. Speakers included James Lovelock, George Wald, Mary Catherine Bateson, Lewis Thomas, John Todd, Donald Michael, Christopher Bird, Thomas Berry, David Abram, Michael Cohen, and William Fields. Lovelock, together with microbiologist Lynn Margulis, developed these realisations into the Gaia Hypothesis. Are the feedbacks sufficiently strong to influence the evolution of climate? [45] In fact, wider research proved the original hypothesis wrong, in the sense that it is not life alone but the whole Earth system that does the regulating;. The temperature will thus converge to the value at which the reproductive rates of the plants are equal. However, she objected to the widespread personification of Gaia and stressed that Gaia is "not an organism", but "an emergent property of interaction among organisms". As the temperature rises closer to the value the white daisies like, the white daisies outreproduce the black daisies, leading to a larger percentage of white surface, and more sunlight is reflected, reducing the heat input and eventually cooling the planet. [14], The existence of a planetary homeostasis influenced by living forms had been observed previously in the field of biogeochemistry, and it is being investigated also in other fields like Earth system science. Probably not. What has this meant for the man behind the still-controversial Gaia? Gaia : And the Theory of the Living Planet Paperback – April 30, 2005 by James Lovelock (Author) › Visit Amazon's James Lovelock Page. Opponents of this view sometimes reference examples of events that resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium, such as the conversion of the Earth's atmosphere from a reducing environment to an oxygen-rich one at the end of the Archaean and the beginning of the Proterozoic periods. [31] CO2 excess is compensated by an increase of coccolithophoride life, increasing the amount of CO2 locked in the ocean floor. Lovelock was careful to present a version of the Gaia hypothesis that had no claim that Gaia intentionally or consciously maintained the complex balance in her environment that life needed to survive. According to the data gathered by the Pic du Midi observatory, planets like Mars or Venus had atmospheres in chemical equilibrium. PIE grandmother), or the Earth Mother. but the term established nowadays is Gaia theory. Er verlieh damit der grünen Bewegung in den 1960ern Antrieb und wurde zu einem weltweiten Symbol im Kampf gegen den Klimawandel. [68] This statement needs to be understood as referring to the "strong" and "moderate" forms of Gaia—that the biota obeys a principle that works to make Earth optimal (strength 5) or favourable for life (strength 4) or that it works as a homeostatic mechanism (strength 3). What is its history? 8 James E. Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 22. Decades later James Lovelock changed to support also nuclear power as a solution to the energy needs on this planet. The Gaia theorem states that the Earth's atmospheric composition is kept at a dynamically steady state by the presence of life. Almost every debate on global warming, pollution and damage to biodiversity references this idea at some point, and with good reason, as it is an interesting idea that certainly has some valid … Lovelock's Gaia theory was written in the 1970s, but by now has become one of the most iconic environmental and scientific hypotheses, and for that reason alone, it is worth a read. The GAIA theory: from Lovelock to Margulis. However, he finds that the two weaker forms of Gaia—Coeveolutionary Gaia and Influential Gaia, which assert that there are close links between the evolution of life and the environment and that biology affects the physical and chemical environment—are both credible, but that it is not useful to use the term "Gaia" in this sense and that those two forms were already accepted and explained by the processes of natural selection and adaptation. Gaia theory simply maintains that Earth's natural cycles work together to keep the Earth healthy and support life on Earth. In 1979 James Lovelock published the Gaia “hypothesis” which has risen up the science rankings and is now begrudgingly accorded the status of a theory. Lovelock 1995 (xx): “Gaia theory for ces a planetary p erspective. Once dead, the living organisms' shells fall to the bottom of the oceans where they generate deposits of chalk and limestone. For example, against the charge that Gaia was teleological, Lovelock and Andrew Watson offered the Daisyworld Model (and its modifications, above) as evidence against most of these criticisms. James Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia (New York: W. W. Norton, 1988), 18. Sign up to read our regular email newsletters, We now have the evidence to pass judgement on James Lovelock’s wildly popular notion that life engineers hospitable worlds, says oceanographer Toby Tyrrell, The world would be warming even faster if forests weren’t calling in the clouds. The known sources of sodium i.e. James E. Lovelock, „The Electron Capture Detector: Theory and Practice,“ Journal of Chromatography A 99 (1974). Its study has, however, generated many new and thought provoking questions. However, the Snowball Earth[17] research has suggested that "oxygen shocks" and reduced methane levels led, during the Huronian, Sturtian and Marinoan/Varanger Ice Ages, to a world that very nearly became a solid "snowball". He proposes that to avoid disaster we must adopt the best of technology and bend our minds to halting and reversing the effects of global warming – now. James Lovelock shot to fame with his famous “Gaia Hypothesis”. Could it be that Gaia is not so helpless after all, asks Stephen Battersby, Compounds released by living organisms such as trees, marine bacteria and livestock have an effect on cloud formation ­– and we might be changing it, The Earth is not the nurturing mother of life of James Lovelock’s famous theory – instead it is far more like murderous Medea, argues biologist Peter Ward, James Lovelock, the man behind the Gaia theory, thinks that climate change will wipe out most of us this century – but there may be one way to save ourselves, James Lovelock has risked reputation, livelihood, everything by going it During the "philosophical foundations" session of the conference, David Abram spoke on the influence of metaphor in science, and of the Gaia hypothesis as offering a new and potentially game-changing metaphorics, while James Kirchner criticised the Gaia hypothesis for its imprecision. Intelligent Earth. By David Orrell Here is a brief introduction to Gaia theory, as developed by Lovelock, Margulis and others. Like the inventor of the periodic table Dmitri Mendeleyev, crop biodiversity pioneer Nikolai Vavilov and numerous top Soviet scientists, he fell into the black hole created by the Cold War. In response, Lovelock contended that, “In no way is this [Gaia] theory a contradiction of Darwin’s great vision. Since barriers existed throughout the twentieth century between Russia and the rest of the world, it is only relatively recently that the early Russian scientists who introduced concepts overlapping the Gaia paradigm have become better known to the Western scientific community. The Revenge of Gaia is a scientific book by esteemed scientist James Lovelock which discusses the effect human activity is having on the planet and what (if anything) can be done to halt the damage we have already caused. When CO2 levels rise in the atmosphere the temperature increases and plants grow. Learn about Author Central. Gaia theory: the revision in response to critics — the combined physical, chemical and biological components of the earth system regulate the planet so as to maintain it as a habitat for life. It would appear that the claim that Gaia acts "intentionally" was a statement in his popular initial book and was not meant to be taken literally. Lovelock (1995) gave evidence of this in his second book, showing the evolution from the world of the early thermo-acido-philic and methanogenic bacteria towards the oxygen-enriched atmosphere today that supports more complex life. The black daisies are assumed to grow and reproduce best at a lower temperature, while the white daisies are assumed to thrive best at a higher temperature. It was while working with Nasa in the early 1960s and thinking about how we might detect life on other planets by measuring the chemical composition of their atmospheres, that Lovelock formulated the Gaia hypothesis in collaboration with the visionary evolutionary theorist and biologist Lynn Margulis. [4][5][6] Lovelock also once described the "geophysiology" of the Earth. [60], Evolutionary biologist W. D. Hamilton called the concept of Gaia Copernican, adding that it would take another Newton to explain how Gaian self-regulation takes place through Darwinian natural selection. Earlier "kidney functions" were performed during the "deposition of the Cretaceous (South Atlantic), Jurassic (Gulf of Mexico), Permo-Triassic (Europe), Devonian (Canada), Cambrian/Precambrian (Gondwana) saline giants."[25]. A significant argument raised against it are the many examples where life has had a detrimental or destabilising effect on the environment rather than acting to regulate it. His job was to design instruments, capable of detecting the presence of life, which could… \"The distinguished cosmologist Fred Hoyle made a rare error when he rejected the possibility that life might have originated on the earth's surface. Today the term Gaia hypothesis is used mainly by Gaia skeptics. Symbiotic Planet: A New Look At Evolution. In [this] new approach, environmental regulation is a consequence of population dynamics. [46] The principal sponsor was the National Audubon Society. [22], Ocean salinity has been constant at about 3.5% for a very long time. For instance, arguments both for and against it were laid out in the journal Climatic Change in 2002 and 2003. Salisbury, Wilts. Responding to this critique in 1990, Lovelock stated, "Nowhere in our writings do we express the idea that planetary self-regulation is purposeful, or involves foresight or planning by the biota". Seine Theorie ging davon aus, dass die Erde ein einziger sich selbst regulierender Organismus sei und sich durch Selbstorganisation im Gleichgewicht halte. [citation needed] Lately the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased and there is some evidence that concentrations of ocean algal blooms are also increasing.[32]. While rejecting Gaia, we can at the same time appreciate Lovelock's originality and breadth of vision, and recognize that his audacious concept has helped to stimulate many new ideas about the Earth, and to champion a holistic approach to studying it". Gaia hypothesis was used to make predictions – for example, that marine organisms would make volatile compounds that can transfer essential elements from the ocean back to the land. James Lovelock has plenty of vision. After initially receiving little attention from scientists (from 1969 until 1977), thereafter for a period the initial Gaia hypothesis was criticized by a number of scientists, such as Ford Doolittle,[54] Richard Dawkins[55] and Stephen Jay Gould. Optimising Gaia: that Gaia shaped the planet in a way that made it an optimal environment for life as a whole. Biologists and Earth scientists usually view the factors that stabilize the characteristics of a period as an undirected emergent property or entelechy of the system; as each individual species pursues its own self-interest, for example, their combined actions may have counterbalancing effects on environmental change. James Lovelock developed the Gaia theory in the 1960s while working with NASA. James Lovelock, one of Britain’s greatest scientists, is famous for developing the Gaia hypothesis, which sees the Earth as a self-regulating system. It is at least not impossible to regard the earth's parts—soil, mountains, rivers, atmosphere etc,—as organs or parts of organs of a coordinated whole, each part with its definite function. The composition of salt ions within our oceans and seas is: sodium (Na+), chlorine (Cl−), sulfate (SO42−), magnesium (Mg2+), calcium (Ca2+) and potassium (K+). [27] Since the start of the Cambrian period, atmospheric oxygen concentrations have fluctuated between 15% and 35% of atmospheric volume. In such case we would have all the visible attributes of a living thing, which we do not realize to be such because it is too big, and its life processes too slow. [20], In response to the criticism that the Gaia hypothesis seemingly required unrealistic group selection and cooperation between organisms, James Lovelock and Andrew Watson developed a mathematical model, Daisyworld, in which ecological competition underpinned planetary temperature regulation.[21]. David Landis Barnhill, Roger S. Gottlieb (eds. [54] Dawkins meanwhile stated that for organisms to act in concert would require foresight and planning, which is contrary to the current scientific understanding of evolution. Coccolithophorides increase the cloud cover, hence control the surface temperature, help cool the whole planet and favor precipitations necessary for terrestrial plants. Earth’s response is not revenge but healing. [28] Traces of methane (at an amount of 100,000 tonnes produced per year)[29] should not exist, as methane is combustible in an oxygen atmosphere. The constant ocean salinity was a long-standing mystery, because no process counterbalancing the salt influx from rivers was known. England & Lynn Margulis Department of Biology, Boston University, 2, Cummington Street, Boston, Mass. Are you an author? And there is in fact only one possible procedure which might bring a permanent cure for climate change, but we are unlikely to adopt it. From a homeostatic to a cognitive autopoietic worldview Luciano Onori • Guido Visconti Received: 31 January 2012/Accepted: 31 May 2012/Published online: 26 June 2012 The Author(s) 2012. Margulis dedicated the last of eight chapters in her book, The Symbiotic Planet, to Gaia. His outlook is grim. [26] The atmospheric composition provides the conditions that contemporary life has adapted to. Lovelock admitted that the relentless criticism pained him. Lovelock argues that humans have now pushed Gaia … The stability of the atmosphere in Earth is not a consequence of chemical equilibrium. In this view, the atmosphere, the seas and the terrestrial crust would be results of interventions carried out by Gaia through the coevolving diversity of living organisms. One of these organisms is Emiliania huxleyi, an abundant coccolithophore algae which also has a role in the formation of clouds. "[56] He wanted to know the actual mechanisms by which self-regulating homeostasis was achieved. Lovelock explains that the initial formulation was based on observation, but still lacked a scientific explanation. The book's most memorable "slogan" was actually quipped by a student of Margulis'. salts are when weathering, erosion, and dissolution of rocks are transported into rivers and deposited into the oceans. Recent work on the findings of fire-caused charcoal in Carboniferous and Cretaceous coal measures, in geologic periods when O2 did exceed 25%, has supported Lovelock's contention. James Lovelock developed the Gaia theory in the 1960s while working with NASA. Lovelock has stated that this could bring an extremely accelerated global warming,[19] but he has since stated the effects will likely occur more slowly. 9 Ebd. Lovelock argues that the earth and its physical makeup, such as its geological and chemical properties, are tied to the world's ecosystems, and that their coexistence influences, if not governs completely, the geological, chemical, and biological circumstances, … [38][39] The first paper to mention it was Planetary Atmospheres: Compositional and other Changes Associated with the Presence of Life, co-authored with C.E. She defined Gaia as "the series of interacting ecosystems that compose a single huge ecosystem at the Earth's surface. It postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that promotes life overall; the Earth is homeostatic in support of life-sustaining conditions. The CLAW hypothesis, inspired by the Gaia hypothesis, proposes a feedback loop that operates between ocean ecosystems and the Earth's climate.

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