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The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity
James Lovelock and J.E. Lovelock
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
British geophysicist Lovelock introduced the Gaia theory in the early 1970s, envisioning the biosphere as "an active, adaptive control system able to maintain the earth in homeostasis." Since then, Lovelock has expanded the Gaia concept to embrace "physical, chemical, biological, and human components," recognizing that organisms do change the environment, none more radically than humanity. Lovelock now describes Gaia as fighting for its very existence as a rapidly increasing human population threatens to upset the precise balance of forces the make the earth conducive to life. Lovelock looks beyond biodiversity (see E. O. Wilson's The Creation, p.19) to elucidate the functions of the polar ice caps, Amazon rain forests, and ocean currents, and then explains the causes and consequences of global warming. This is solid science, a practice Lovelock seems to abandon in his strangely irresponsible arguments for nuclear energy and against sustainable energy sources (see Helen Caldicott, p.15). In spite of its flaws, Lovelock's tough-minded presentation is a valuable contribution to the urgent debate over humankind's future. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Daily Telegraph
"His final testament about the catastrophe of global warming is probably the most important book for decades."
John Gray, The Independent
"The most important book ever to be published on the environmental crisis."
Book Description
The key insight of Gaia Theory is that the entire Earth functions as a single living superorganism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature. But according to James Lovelock, the theory's originator, that organism is now sick. It is running a fever born of increased atmospheric greenhouse gases. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but the human race faces a severe test. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from "flipping" into an entirely new equilibrium that will threaten civilization as we know it. But we can do much to save humanity. In the tradition of Silent Spring, this is a call to action.
About the Author
James Lovelock is the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory) on which he has written several books. He is also the author of more than two hundred scientific papers. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. He has received honorary Doctorates in Science from seven universities in England, Sweden, and the United States. He was made a Commander of Order of the British Empire in 1990, and in 2003 a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. He lives in England.