Reply #70: Much more on Dr. Lovelock here

[leftchick]

http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/lovebioen.htm

The Ages of GAIA

The Earth, James Lovelock proposes, behaves as if it were a superorganism, made up from all the living things and from their material environment. When he first sketched out his brilliant Gaia theory in the 1970s, people around the world embraced it, and within a short time Gaia has moved from the margins of scientific research to the mainstream.

James Lovelock argues that such things as the level of oxygen, the formation of clouds, and the saltiness of the oceans may be controlled by interacting physical, chemical and biological processes. He believes that "the self-regulation of climate and chemical composition is a process that emerges from the rightly coupled evolution of rocks, air and the ocean - in addition to that of organisms. Such interlocking self-regulation, while rarely optimal - consider the cold and hot places of the earth, the wet and the dry - nevertheless keeps the Earth a place fit for life." The New York Times Book Review has called his arguments in favor of Gaia "plausible and above all illuminating."

New fields of research have been opened by this pathbreaking concept. Lovelock adds : "if we see the world as a superorganism of which we are a part - not the owner, nor the tenant, not even a passenger - we could have a long time ahead of us and our species might survive for its "alloted span". It all depends on you and me."