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121-638: The Gaia hypothesis was formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and co-developed by the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Following the suggestion by his neighbour, novelist William Golding , Lovelock named the hypothesis after Gaia , the primordial deity who personified the Earth in Greek mythology . In 2006, the Geological Society of London awarded Lovelock the Wollaston Medal in part for his work on

242-462: A Medical Research Council post, working on ways of shielding soldiers from burns. Lovelock refused to use the shaved and anaesthetised rabbits that were used as burn victims, and exposed his skin to heat radiation instead, an experience he describes as "exquisitely painful". His student status enabled temporary deferment of military service during the Second World War . Still, he registered as

363-618: A Quaker and imbued with the notion that "God is a still, small voice within rather than some mysterious old gentleman way out in the universe", which he thought was a helpful way of thinking for inventors, but he would eventually end up as being non-religious. The family moved to London, where his dislike of authority made him, by his own account, an unhappy pupil at Strand School in Tulse Hill , south London. Lovelock could not at first afford to go to university, something which he believed helped prevent him from becoming overspecialised and aided

484-493: A conscientious objector . He later abandoned his conscientious objection in the light of Nazi atrocities and tried to enlist in the armed forces but was told that his medical research was too valuable for the enlistment to be approved. In 1948, Lovelock received a PhD degree at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine . He spent the next two decades working at London's National Institute for Medical Research . In

605-537: A NASA consultant, Lovelock developed the Gaia hypothesis , for which he is most widely known. In early 1961, Lovelock was engaged by NASA to develop sensitive instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces. The Viking program , which visited Mars in the late 1970s, was motivated in part to determine whether Mars supported life, and some of the sensors and experiments that were ultimately deployed aimed to resolve this issue . During work on

726-427: A claim for inventing the microwave oven . He later explained this claim in an interview with The Manchester Magazine . Lovelock said that he did create an instrument during his time studying causes of damage to living cells and tissue, which had, according to him, "almost everything you would expect in an ordinary microwave oven". He invented the instrument to heat frozen hamsters in a way that caused less suffering to

847-798: A conference of the American Geophysical Union . The first Chapman Conference on Gaia, was held in San Diego, California, on March 7, 1988. 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. Kirchner claimed that Lovelock and Margulis had not presented one Gaia hypothesis, but four: Of Homeostatic Gaia, Kirchner recognised two alternatives. "Weak Gaia" asserted that life tends to make

968-424: A coordinated whole, each part with its definite function. 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. In such case we would have all the visible attributes of a living thing, which we do not realize to be such because it

1089-433: A feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while. Statements from 2012 portrayed Lovelock as continuing his concern over global warming while at the same time criticising extremism and suggesting alternatives to oil, coal and the green solutions he did not support. In a 2012 interview aired on MSNBC , Lovelock stated that he had been "alarmist", using

1210-428: A global control system that regulates Earth's surface temperature , atmosphere composition and ocean salinity , powered by the global thermodynamic disequilibrium state of the Earth system. 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 . The originality of

1331-431: A mathematical model, Daisyworld , in which ecological competition underpinned planetary temperature regulation. Daisyworld examines the energy budget of a planet populated by two different types of plants, black daisies and white daisies, which are assumed to occupy a significant portion of the surface. The colour of the daisies influences the albedo of the planet such that black daisies absorb more light and warm

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1452-423: A multifaceted grid of thermomagnetic design, not only would the movement of elements hypothetically help restructure the movement of ions, electrons, and the like, but would also potentially and inexplicably assist in balancing the magnetic bodies of the Earth's geomagnetic field. The known sources of sodium i.e. salts are when weathering, erosion, and dissolution of rocks are transported into rivers and deposited into

1573-451: A normal and inevitable part of the environment. Our prokaryotic forebears evolved on a planet-sized lump of fallout from a star-sized nuclear explosion, a supernova that synthesised the elements that go to make our planet and ourselves. In The Revenge of Gaia (2006), where he put forward the concept of sustainable retreat , Lovelock wrote: A television interviewer once asked me, "But what about nuclear waste ? Will it not poison

1694-670: A number of scientific experiments and provided a number of useful predictions. In 1985, the first public symposium on the Gaia hypothesis, Is The Earth a Living Organism? was held at University of Massachusetts Amherst , August 1–6. The principal sponsor was the National Audubon Society . Speakers included James Lovelock, Lynn Margulis , George Wald , Mary Catherine Bateson , Lewis Thomas , Thomas Berry , David Abram , John Todd , Donald Michael, Christopher Bird , Michael Cohen , and William Fields. Some 500 people attended. In 1988, climatologist Stephen Schneider organised

1815-455: A pickle factory. She was described by Lovelock as a socialist and suffragist , who was also anti-vaccine , and did not allow Lovelock to receive his smallpox inoculation as a child. His father, Tom, was born in Fawley, Berkshire , had served six months hard labour for poaching in his teens, and was illiterate until attending technical college, later running a bookshop. Lovelock was brought up

1936-525: A poster of a wind turbine to remind himself how much he detested them. In Novacene (2019), Lovelock proposed that benevolent superintelligence may take over and save the ecosystem and stated that the machines would need to keep organic life around to keep the planet's temperature habitable for electronic life. On the other hand, if instead life becomes entirely electronic, "so be it: we played our part and newer, younger actors are already appearing on stage". In 2007, Lovelock and Chris Rapley proposed

2057-470: A precursor of this program, Lovelock became interested in the composition of the Martian atmosphere , reasoning that many life forms on Mars would be obliged to make use of it (and, thus, alter it). However, the atmosphere was found to be in a stable condition close to its chemical equilibrium , with very little oxygen , methane , or hydrogen , but with an overwhelming abundance of carbon dioxide . To Lovelock,

2178-464: A religion. It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don't think people have noticed that, but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use   ... The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air. In this 2012 MSNBC article, Lovelock

2299-408: A single huge ecosystem at the Earth's surface. Period". The book's most memorable "slogan" was actually quipped by a student of Margulis'. James Lovelock called his first proposal the Gaia hypothesis but has also used the term Gaia theory . Lovelock states that the initial formulation was based on observation, but still lacked a scientific explanation. The Gaia hypothesis has since been supported by

2420-463: A whole, called Gaia, seeks a physical and chemical environment optimal for contemporary life. Gaia evolves through a cybernetic feedback system operated by the biota , leading to broad stabilization of the conditions of habitability in a full homeostasis. Many processes in the Earth's surface, essential for the conditions of life, depend on the interaction of living forms, especially microorganisms , with inorganic elements. These processes establish

2541-715: A wooded valley on the Devon – Cornwall border in South West England. In 1988 he made an extended appearance on the Channel 4 television programme After Dark , alongside Heathcote Williams and Petra Kelly , among others. On 8 May 2012, he appeared on the Radio Four series The Life Scientific , talking to Jim Al-Khalili about the Gaia hypothesis. On the programme, he mentioned how his ideas had been received by various people, including Jonathon Porritt . He also said how he had

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2662-450: A world that very nearly became a solid "snowball". These epochs are evidence against the ability of the pre Phanerozoic biosphere to fully self-regulate. Processing of the greenhouse gas CO 2 , explained below, plays a critical role in the maintenance of the Earth temperature within the limits of habitability. The CLAW hypothesis , inspired by the Gaia hypothesis, proposes a feedback loop that operates between ocean ecosystems and

2783-461: Is carbon dioxide . In metal processing, a reducing atmosphere is used in annealing ovens for relaxation of metal stresses without corroding the metal. A non-oxidizing gas, usually nitrogen or argon , is typically used as a carrier gas so that diluted amounts of reducing gases may be used. Typically, this is achieved through using the combustion products of fuels and tailoring the ratio of CO:CO 2 . However, other common reducing atmospheres in

2904-416: Is a goner and moving the people to cities better positioned for the future. Most of all, he says, it's about everybody "absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization, so that it doesn't degenerate into Dark Ages, with warlords running things, which is a real danger. We could lose everything that way." Reducing environment A reducing atmosphere is an atmospheric condition in which oxidation

3025-416: Is deposited as a solid on the sea floor. Calcium carbonate is used by living organisms to manufacture carbonaceous tests and shells. Once dead, the living organisms' shells fall. Some arrive at the bottom of shallow seas where the heat and pressure of burial, and/or the forces of plate tectonics, eventually convert them to deposits of chalk and limestone. Much of the falling dead shells, however, redissolve into

3146-459: Is how the activity of photosynthetic bacteria during Precambrian times completely modified the Earth atmosphere to turn it aerobic, and thus supports the evolution of life (in particular eukaryotic life). 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

3267-572: Is impossible to test it by controlled experiment. 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. Lovelock said that the Daisyworld model "demonstrates that self-regulation of the global environment can emerge from competition amongst types of life altering their local environment in different ways". Lovelock

3388-571: Is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He further predicted in 2007 that the temperature increase would leave much of the world's land uninhabitable and unsuitable for farming, with northerly migrations and new cities created in the Arctic; furthermore that much of Europe will have turned to desert and Britain will have become Europe's "life-raft" due to its stable temperature caused by being surrounded by

3509-577: Is melting faster than the models predict. He suggested that we may already have passed the tipping point of terrestrial climate resilience into a permanently hot state. Given these conditions, Lovelock expected that human civilisation would be hard-pressed to survive . He expected the change to be similar to the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum when the temperature of the Arctic Ocean was 23 °C. Lovelock became concerned about

3630-480: Is prevented by absence of oxygen and other oxidizing gases or vapours, and which may contain actively reductant gases such as hydrogen , carbon monoxide , methane and hydrogen sulfide that would be readily oxidized to remove any free oxygen. Although Early Earth had had a reducing prebiotic atmosphere prior to the Proterozoic eon , starting at about 2.5 billion years ago in the late Neoarchaean period ,

3751-405: Is put to work a massive amount of research is needed – research which will take 20 to 30 years". Other researchers claimed that "this scheme would bring water with high natural p CO 2 levels (associated with the nutrients) back to the surface, potentially causing exhalation of CO 2 ". Lovelock subsequently said that his proposal was intended to stimulate interest and that research would be

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3872-407: Is quoted as saying: The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened. The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now. The world has not warmed up very much since

3993-442: Is reflected, reducing the heat input and eventually cooling the planet. Conversely, as the temperature falls, the black daisies outreproduce the white daisies, absorbing more sunlight and warming the planet. The temperature will thus converge to the value at which the reproductive rates of the plants are equal. Lovelock and Watson showed that, over a limited range of conditions, this negative feedback due to competition can stabilize

4114-448: Is to favor organisms that are best adapted to prevailing environmental conditions. However, the environment is not a static backdrop for evolution, but is heavily influenced by the presence of living organisms. The resulting co-evolving dynamical process eventually leads to the convergence of equilibrium and optimal conditions". James Lovelock James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022)

4235-562: Is too big, and its life processes too slow. 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. During the 1960s, the first humans in space could see how the Earth looked as a whole. The photograph Earthrise taken by astronaut William Anders in 1968 during

4356-727: The Apollo 8 mission became, through the Overview Effect an early symbol for the global ecology movement. Lovelock started defining the idea of a self-regulating Earth controlled by the community of living organisms in September 1965, while working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California on methods of detecting life on Mars . The first paper to mention it was Planetary Atmospheres: Compositional and other Changes Associated with

4477-459: The Cretaceous ( South Atlantic ), Jurassic ( Gulf of Mexico ), Permo-Triassic ( Europe ), Devonian ( Canada ), and Cambrian / Precambrian ( Gondwana ) saline giants." The Gaia hypothesis states that the Earth's atmospheric composition is kept at a dynamically steady state by the presence of life. The atmospheric composition provides the conditions that contemporary life has adapted to. All

4598-412: The Earth 's climate . The hypothesis specifically proposes that particular phytoplankton that produce dimethyl sulfide are responsive to variations in climate forcing , and that these responses lead to a negative feedback loop that acts to stabilise the temperature of the Earth's atmosphere . Currently the increase in human population and the environmental impact of their activities, such as

4719-486: The Earth's atmosphere experienced a significant rise in oxygen and transitioned to an oxidizing atmosphere with a surplus of molecular oxygen ( dioxygen , O 2 ) as the primary oxidizing agent . The principal mission of an iron foundry is the conversion of iron oxides (purified iron ores) to iron metal. This reduction is usually effected using a reducing atmosphere consisting of some mixture of natural gas , hydrogen (H 2 ), and carbon monoxide . The byproduct

4840-514: The Gaia Hypothesis in journal articles in 1972 and 1974, followed by a popularizing 1979 book Gaia: A new look at life on Earth . An article in the New Scientist of February 6, 1975, and a popular book length version of the hypothesis, published in 1979 as The Quest for Gaia , began to attract scientific and critical attention. Lovelock called it first the Earth feedback hypothesis, and it

4961-406: The biota by Darwinian process ". Lovelock (1995) gave evidence of this in his second book, Ages of Gaia , 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 . A reduced version of the hypothesis has been called "influential Gaia" in the 2002 paper "Directed Evolution of

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5082-462: The electron capture detector , which ultimately assisted in discoveries about the persistence of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and their role in stratospheric ozone depletion . After studying the operation of the Earth's sulphur cycle , Lovelock and his colleagues, Robert Jay Charlson , Meinrat Andreae and Stephen G. Warren developed the CLAW hypothesis as a possible example of biological control of

5203-404: The naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt recognized the coevolution of living organisms, climate, and Earth's crust. In the twentieth century, Vladimir Vernadsky formulated a theory of Earth's development that is now one of the foundations of ecology. Vernadsky was a Ukrainian geochemist and was one of the first scientists to recognize that the oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide in

5324-495: The scientific community as a whole. Among its most prominent critics were the evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins , Ford Doolittle and Stephen Jay Gould , a convergence of opinion among a trio whose views on other scientific matters often diverged. These (and other) critics have questioned how natural selection operating on individual organisms can lead to the evolution of planetary-scale homeostasis . In response to this, Lovelock, together with Andrew Watson , published

5445-517: The Biosphere: Biogeochemical Selection or Gaia?" by Andrei G. Lapenis, which states the biota influence certain aspects of the abiotic world, e.g. temperature and atmosphere. This is not the work of an individual but a collective of Russian scientific research that was combined into this peer-reviewed publication. It states the coevolution of life and the environment through "micro-forces" and biogeochemical processes. An example

5566-685: The British security service, for decades. Bryan Appleyard , writing in The Sunday Times , described him as "basically Q in the James Bond films ". James Lovelock was born in Letchworth Garden City to Tom Arthur Lovelock and his second wife Nellie. Nell, his mother, was born in Bermondsey and won a scholarship to a grammar school but was unable to take it up, and started work at thirteen in

5687-552: The CFC–ozone depletion hypothesis for several years, calling the US ban of CFCs as aerosol propellants in the late 1970s arbitrary overkill. Drawing from the research of Alfred C. Redfield and G. Evelyn Hutchinson , Lovelock first formulated the Gaia hypothesis in the 1960s resulting from his work for NASA concerned with detecting life on Mars and his work with Royal Dutch Shell . The hypothesis proposes that living and non-living parts of

5808-512: The Earth as an integrated whole, a living being, has a long tradition. The mythical Gaia was the primal Greek goddess personifying the Earth , the Greek version of " Mother Nature " (from Ge = Earth, and Aia = PIE grandmother), or the Earth Mother . 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

5929-435: The Earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism . Named after the Greek goddess Gaia at the suggestion of novelist William Golding , the hypothesis postulates that the biosphere has a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that acts to sustain life. While the hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been widely accepted within

6050-467: The Earth's atmosphere result from biological processes. During the 1920s he published works arguing that living organisms could reshape the planet as surely as any physical force. Vernadsky was a pioneer of the scientific bases for the environmental sciences. His visionary pronouncements were not widely accepted in the West, and some decades later the Gaia hypothesis received the same type of initial resistance from

6171-573: The Earth's climate. Lovelock was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. He served as the president of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) from 1986 to 1990 and was an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford (formerly Green College, Oxford ) from 1994. As an independent scientist , inventor and author, Lovelock worked out of a barn-turned-laboratory he called his "experimental station" located in

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6292-568: The Gaia hypothesis relies on the assessment that such homeostatic balance is actively pursued with the goal of keeping the optimal conditions for life, even when terrestrial or external events menace them. Since life started on Earth, the energy provided by the Sun has increased by 25–30%; however, the surface temperature of the planet has remained within the levels of habitability, reaching quite regular low and high margins. Lovelock has also hypothesised that methanogens produced elevated levels of methane in

6413-427: The Gaia hypothesis. Topics related to the hypothesis include how the biosphere and the evolution of organisms affect the stability of global temperature , salinity of seawater , atmospheric oxygen levels, the maintenance of a hydrosphere of liquid water and other environmental variables that affect the habitability of Earth . The Gaia hypothesis was initially criticized for being teleological and against

6534-471: The Gaia paradigm have become better known to the Western scientific community. These scientists include Piotr Alekseevich Kropotkin (1842–1921) (although he spent much of his professional life outside Russia), Rafail Vasil’evich Rizpolozhensky (1862 – c.  1922 ), Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (1863–1945), and Vladimir Alexandrovich Kostitzin (1886–1963). Biologists and Earth scientists usually view

6655-532: The Presence of Life , co-authored with C.E. Giffin. A main concept was that life could be detected in a planetary scale by the chemical composition of the atmosphere. According to the data gathered by the Pic du Midi observatory , planets like Mars or Venus had atmospheres in chemical equilibrium . This difference with the Earth atmosphere was considered to be a proof that there was no life in these planets. Lovelock formulated

6776-865: The Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets   ... I find it sad, but all too human, that there are vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organisations devoted to decommissioning power stations, but nothing comparable to deal with that truly malign waste, carbon dioxide. In 2019 Lovelock said he thought difficulties in getting nuclear power going again were due to propaganda, that "the coal and oil business fight like mad to tell bad stories about nuclear", and that "the greens played along with it. There's bound to have been some corruption there – I'm sure that various green movements were paid some sums on

6897-618: The United States, he conducted research at Yale , Baylor College of Medicine and Harvard University Medical School . In the mid-1950s, Lovelock experimented with the cryopreservation of rodents, determining that hamsters could be frozen and revived successfully. Hamsters were frozen with 60% of the water in the brain crystallised into ice with no adverse effects recorded. Other organs were shown to be susceptible to damage. A lifelong inventor, Lovelock created and developed many scientific instruments, some of which were designed for NASA in its planetary exploration program. While working as

7018-416: The animals, as opposed to the traditional way, which involved putting red-hot spoons on the animals' chests to heat them. He believed that, at the time, nobody had gone that far and made an embodiment of an actual microwave oven. However, he did not claim to have been the first person to have the idea of using microwaves for cooking. After developing his electron capture detector, in the late 1960s, Lovelock

7139-480: The atmosphere, the seas and the terrestrial crust would be results of interventions carried out by Gaia through the coevolving diversity of living organisms. The Gaia paradigm was an influence on the deep ecology movement. The Gaia hypothesis posits that the Earth is a self-regulating complex system involving the biosphere , the atmosphere , the hydrospheres and the pedosphere , tightly coupled as an evolving system. The hypothesis contends that this system as

7260-436: The atmospheric gases other than noble gases present in the atmosphere are either made by organisms or processed by them. The stability of the atmosphere in Earth is not a consequence of chemical equilibrium . Oxygen is a reactive compound, and should eventually combine with gases and minerals of the Earth's atmosphere and crust. Oxygen only began to persist in the atmosphere in small quantities about 50 million years before

7381-517: The backdrop of renewed UK government interest in nuclear power , Lovelock again publicly announced his support for nuclear energy , stating, "I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy". Although those interventions in the public debate on nuclear power were in the 21st century, his views on it were longstanding. In his 1988 book The Ages of Gaia , he stated: I have never regarded nuclear radiation or nuclear power as anything other than

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7502-420: The breakdown of CFCs in the stratosphere would release chlorine that posed a threat to the ozone layer , concluded that the level of CFCs constituted "no conceivable hazard". He later stated that he meant "no conceivable toxic hazard". However, the experiment did provide the first useful data on the ubiquitous presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. The damage caused to the ozone layer by the photolysis of CFCs

7623-460: The clay body, as it is in most stoneware , then it will be affected by the reduction atmosphere as well. In most commercial incinerators , exactly the same conditions are created to encourage the release of carbon bearing fumes. These fumes are then oxidized in reburn tunnels where oxygen is injected progressively. The exothermic oxidation reaction maintains the temperature of the reburn tunnels. This system allows lower temperatures to be employed in

7744-431: The cloud cover, hence control the surface temperature, help cool the whole planet and favor precipitation necessary for terrestrial plants. Lately the atmospheric CO 2 concentration has increased and there is some evidence that concentrations of ocean algal blooms are also increasing. Lichen and other organisms accelerate the weathering of rocks in the surface, while the decomposition of rocks also happens faster in

7865-418: The composition of seawater is far from equilibrium, and it is difficult to explain this fact without the influence of organic processes. One suggested explanation lies in the formation of salt plains throughout Earth's history. It is hypothesized that these are created by bacterial colonies that fix ions and heavy metals during their life processes. In the biogeochemical processes of Earth, sources and sinks are

7986-458: The computer model Daisyworld in 1983, which postulated a hypothetical planet orbiting a star whose radiant energy is slowly increasing or decreasing . In the non-biological case, the temperature of this planet simply tracks the energy received from the star. However, in the biological case, ecological competition between "daisy" species with different albedo values produces a homeostatic effect on global temperature. When energy received from

8107-424: The construction of ocean pumps to pump water up from below the thermocline to "fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom". The basic idea was to accelerate the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean by increasing primary production and enhancing the export of organic carbon (as marine snow ) to the deep ocean. A scheme similar to that proposed by Lovelock and Rapley

8228-557: 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. 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 . In some versions of Gaia philosophy , all lifeforms are considered part of one single living planetary being called Gaia . In this view,

8349-507: The development of Gaia theory. After leaving school Lovelock worked at a photography firm, attending Birkbeck College during the evenings, before being accepted to study chemistry at the University of Manchester , where he was a student of the Nobel Prize laureate professor Alexander R. Todd . Lovelock worked at a Quaker farm before a recommendation from his professor led to him taking up

8470-561: The early atmosphere, giving a situation similar to that found in petrochemical smog, similar in some respects to the atmosphere on Titan . This, he suggests, helped to screen out ultraviolet light until the formation of the ozone layer, maintaining a degree of homeostasis. However, the Snowball Earth research has suggested that "oxygen shocks" and reduced methane levels led, during the Huronian , Sturtian and Marinoan / Varanger Ice Ages, to

8591-421: The effects of the addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. This eliminates the planet's negative feedbacks and increases the likelihood of homeostatic positive feedback potential associated with runaway global warming . Similarly, the warming of the oceans is extending the oceanic thermocline layer of tropical oceans into the Arctic and Antarctic waters, preventing the rise of oceanic nutrients into

8712-407: The environment stable for the flourishing of all life. "Strong Gaia" according to Kirchner, asserted that life tends to make the environment stable, to enable the flourishing of all life. Strong Gaia, Kirchner claimed, was untestable and therefore not scientific. Lovelock and other Gaia-supporting scientists, however, did attempt to disprove the claim that the hypothesis is not scientific because it

8833-413: 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. Opponents of this view sometimes reference examples of events that resulted in dramatic change rather than stable equilibrium, such as

8954-524: The frequency of wildfires and conflagration of forests. This mechanism, however, would not raise oxygen levels if they became too low. If plants can be shown to robustly over-produce O 2 then perhaps only the high oxygen forest fires regulator is necessary. Recent work on the findings of fire-caused charcoal in Carboniferous and Cretaceous coal measures, in geologic periods when O 2 did exceed 25%, has supported Lovelock's contention. Gaia scientists see

9075-410: The fuel and raises the level of carbon inside the kiln. At high temperatures the carbon will bond with and remove the oxygen in the metal oxides used as colorants in the glazes. This loss of oxygen results in a change in the color of the glazes because it allows the metals in the glaze to be seen in an unoxidized form. A reduction atmosphere can also affect the color of the clay body. If iron is present in

9196-399: The future. Of the claims "the science is settled" on global warming, he stated: One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it. He criticised environmentalists for treating global warming like

9317-407: The hypothesis. In 1971 microbiologist Dr. Lynn Margulis joined Lovelock in the effort of fleshing out the initial hypothesis into scientifically proven concepts, contributing her knowledge about how microbes affect the atmosphere and the different layers in the surface of the planet. The American biologist had also awakened criticism from the scientific community with her advocacy of the theory on

9438-505: The incinerator section, where the solids are volumetrically reduced. The atmosphere of Early Earth is widely speculated to have been reducing. The Miller–Urey experiment , related to some hypotheses for the origin of life, entailed reactions in a reducing atmosphere composed of a mixed atmosphere of methane , ammonia and hydrogen sulfide . Some hypotheses for the origin of life invoke a reducing atmosphere consisting of hydrogen cyanide (HCN). Experiments show that HCN can polymerize in

9559-423: The metal processing industries consist of dissociated ammonia, vacuum, and/or direct mixing of appropriately pure gases of N 2 , Ar, and H 2 . A reducing atmosphere is also used to produce specific effects on ceramic wares being fired. A reduction atmosphere is produced in a fuel fired kiln by reducing the draft and depriving the kiln of oxygen. This diminished level of oxygen causes incomplete combustion of

9680-413: The middle of this century, with a massive extension of tropical deserts . In 2012, Lovelock distanced himself from these conclusions, saying he had "gone too far" in describing the consequences of climate change over the next century in this book. In his 2009 book, The Vanishing Face of Gaia , he rejected scientific models that disagree with the findings that sea levels are rising and Arctic ice

9801-505: The millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time   ... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that. In a follow-up interview also in 2012, Lovelock stated his support for natural gas; he favoured fracking as a low-polluting alternative to coal. He opposed the concept of " sustainable development ", where modern economies might be powered by wind turbines , calling it meaningless drivel. He kept

9922-444: The movement of elements. The composition of salt ions within our oceans and seas is: sodium (Na), chlorine (Cl), sulfate (SO 4 ), magnesium (Mg), calcium (Ca) and potassium (K). The elements that comprise salinity do not readily change and are a conservative property of seawater. There are many mechanisms that change salinity from a particulate form to a dissolved form and back. Considering the metallic composition of iron sources across

10043-458: The multiplication of greenhouse gases may cause negative feedbacks in the environment to become positive feedback . Lovelock has stated that this could bring an extremely accelerated global warming , but he has since stated the effects will likely occur more slowly. In response to the criticism that the Gaia hypothesis seemingly required unrealistic group selection and cooperation between organisms, James Lovelock and Andrew Watson developed

10164-512: The next step, and several research studies were published in the wake of the original proposal. However, these estimated that the scheme would require a huge number of pipes, and that the main effect of the pipes may be on the land rather than in the ocean. Sustainable retreat is a concept developed by Lovelock to define the necessary changes to human settlement and dwelling at the global scale to adapt to global warming and prevent its expected negative consequences on humans. Lovelock thought

10285-520: The ocean below the carbon compensation depth. One of these organisms is Emiliania huxleyi , an abundant coccolithophore algae which may have a role in the formation of clouds . CO 2 excess is compensated by an increase of coccolithophorid life, increasing the amount of CO 2 locked in the ocean floor. Coccolithophorids, if the CLAW Hypothesis turns out to be supported (see "Regulation of Global Surface Temperature" above), could help increase

10406-399: The ocean surface. In contrast to the hypothesized early reducing atmosphere, evidence exists that Hadean atmospheric oxygen levels were similar to those of today. These results suggests prebiotic building blocks were delivered from elsewhere in the galaxy. The results however do not run contrary to existing theories on life's journey from anaerobic to aerobic organisms. The results quantify

10527-523: The ocean. He was quoted in The Guardian in 2008 that 80% of humans will perish by 2100, and this climate change will last 100,000 years. In a 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said that democracy might have to be "put on hold" to prevent climate change. He continued: Even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have

10648-472: The oceans. The Mediterranean Sea as being Gaia's kidney is found ( here ) by Kenneth J. Hsu , a correspondence author in 2001. Hsu suggests the " desiccation " of the Mediterranean is evidence of a functioning Gaia "kidney". In this and earlier suggested cases, it is plate movements and physics, not biology, which performs the regulation. Earlier "kidney functions" were performed during the " deposition of

10769-442: The origin of eukaryotic organelles and her contributions to the endosymbiotic theory , nowadays accepted. Margulis dedicated the last of eight chapters in her book, The Symbiotic Planet , to Gaia. 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". She defined Gaia as "the series of interacting ecosystems that compose

10890-459: The oxygen concentration in the atmosphere, changing it to what is known as an oxidizing atmosphere. This rising oxygen initially led to a 300 million-year-long ice age that devastated the then-mostly anaerobe -dominated biosphere , forcing the surviving anaerobic colonies to evolve into symbiotic microbial mats with the newly evolved aerobes . Some aerobic bacteria eventually became endosymbiont within other anaerobes (likely archaea ), and

11011-513: The participation of living organisms in the carbon cycle as one of the complex processes that maintain conditions suitable for life. The only significant natural source of atmospheric carbon dioxide ( CO 2 ) is volcanic activity , while the only significant removal is through the precipitation of carbonate rocks . Carbon precipitation, solution and fixation are influenced by the bacteria and plant roots in soils, where they improve gaseous circulation, or in coral reefs, where calcium carbonate

11132-517: The planet's temperature at a value which supports life, if the energy output of the Sun changes, while a planet without life would show wide temperature changes. 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. It has been suggested that the results were predictable because Lovelock and Watson selected examples that produced

11253-416: The planet, while white daisies reflect more light and cool the planet. 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. 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

11374-448: 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". M. Staley (2002) has similarly proposed "...an alternative form of Gaia theory based on more traditional Darwinian principles... In [this] new approach, environmental regulation is a consequence of population dynamics. The role of selection

11495-457: The presence of ammonia to give a variety of products including amino acids . The same principle applies to Mars , Venus and Titan . Cyanobacteria are suspected to be the first photoautotrophs that evolved oxygenic photosynthesis , which over the latter half of the Archaen eon eventually depleted all reductants in the Earth's oceans, terrestrial surface and atmosphere, gradually increasing

11616-528: The principles of natural selection , but later refinements aligned the Gaia hypothesis with ideas from fields such as Earth system science , biogeochemistry and systems ecology . Even so, the Gaia hypothesis continues to attract criticism, and today many scientists consider it to be only weakly supported by, or at odds with, the available evidence. Gaian hypotheses suggest that organisms co-evolve with their environment: that is, they "influence their abiotic environment, and that environment in turn influences

11737-576: The responses they desired. Ocean salinity has been constant at about 3.5% for a very long time. Salinity stability in oceanic environments is important as most cells require a rather constant salinity and do not generally tolerate values above 5%. The constant ocean salinity was a long-standing mystery, because no process counterbalancing the salt influx from rivers was known. Recently it was suggested that salinity may also be strongly influenced by seawater circulation through hot basaltic rocks, and emerging as hot water vents on mid-ocean ridges . However,

11858-520: The resultant symbiogenesis led to the evolution of a completely new lineage of life — the eukaryotes , who took advantage of mitochondrial aerobic respiration to power their cellular activities, allowing life to thrive and evolve into ever more complex forms. The increased oxygen in the atmosphere also eventually created the ozone layer , which shielded away harmful ionizing ultraviolet radiation that otherwise would have photodissociated away surface water and rendered life impossible on land and

11979-402: The scientific community. Also in the turn to the 20th century Aldo Leopold , pioneer in the development of modern environmental ethics and in the movement for wilderness conservation, suggested a living Earth in his biocentric or holistic ethics regarding land. It is at least not impossible to regard the earth's parts—soil, mountains, rivers, atmosphere etc,—as organs or parts of organs of

12100-521: The scientific community. Most accusations of teleologism ceased, following this conference. By the time of the 2nd Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis, held at Valencia, Spain, on 23 June 2000, the situation had changed significantly. Rather than a discussion of the Gaian teleological views, or "types" of Gaia hypotheses, the focus was upon the specific mechanisms by which basic short term homeostasis

12221-515: The side to help with propaganda". Writing in The Independent in 2006, Lovelock argued that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century. The same year he suggested that "we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time

12342-428: The soil, thanks to the activity of roots, fungi, bacteria and subterranean animals. The flow of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the soil is therefore regulated with the help of living organisms. When CO 2 levels rise in the atmosphere the temperature increases and plants grow. This growth brings higher consumption of CO 2 by the plants, who process it into the soil, removing it from the atmosphere. The idea of

12463-432: The star . Lovelock argued that Daisyworld, although a parable, illustrates how conventional natural selection operating on individual organisms can still produce planetary-scale homeostasis. In Lovelock's 2006 book, The Revenge of Gaia , he argued that the lack of respect humans have had for Gaia, through the damage done to rainforests and the reduction in planetary biodiversity , is testing Gaia's capacity to minimise

12584-437: The star is low, black daisies proliferate since they absorb a greater fraction of the heat, but when energy input is high, white daisies predominate since they reflect excess heat. As the white and black daisies have contrary effects on the planet's overall albedo and temperature, changes in their relative populations stabilise the planet's climate and keep the temperature within an optimal range despite fluctuations in energy from

12705-576: The stark contrast between the Martian atmosphere and chemically dynamic mixture of the Earth's biosphere was strongly indicative of the absence of life on Mars . However, when they were finally launched to Mars, the Viking probes still searched (unsuccessfully) for extant life there. Further experiments to search for life on Mars have been carried out by additional space probes, for instance, by NASA's Perseverance rover , which landed in 2021. Lovelock invented

12826-721: The start of the Great Oxygenation Event . Since the start of the Cambrian period, atmospheric oxygen concentrations have fluctuated between 15% and 35% of atmospheric volume. Traces of methane (at an amount of 100,000 tonnes produced per year) should not exist, as methane is combustible in an oxygen atmosphere. Dry air in the atmosphere of Earth contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen , 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon , 0.039% carbon dioxide , and small amounts of other gases including methane . Lovelock originally speculated that concentrations of oxygen above about 25% would increase

12947-420: The surface waters and eliminating the algal blooms of phytoplankton on which oceanic food chains depend. As phytoplankton and forests are the main ways in which Gaia draws down greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide, taking it out of the atmosphere, the elimination of this environmental buffering will see, according to Lovelock, most of the Earth becoming uninhabitable for humans and other life-forms by

13068-413: The theories of cryonics (the cryopreservation of humans). He invented the electron capture detector and, using it, became the first to detect the widespread presence of chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. While designing scientific instruments for NASA , he developed the Gaia hypothesis. In the 2000s, he proposed a method of climate engineering to restore carbon dioxide –consuming algae . He

13189-459: The threat of global warming from the greenhouse effect . In 2004 he broke with many fellow environmentalists by stating that "only nuclear power can now halt global warming". In his view, nuclear energy is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that can both fulfil the large scale energy needs of humankind while also reducing greenhouse emissions . He was an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy (EFN). In 2005, against

13310-445: The time ( Bowerchalke , Wiltshire , UK). Golding's advice was based on Gea, an alternative spelling for the name of the Greek goddess, which is used as prefix in geology, geophysics and geochemistry. Golding later made reference to Gaia in his Nobel prize acceptance speech. In the eighteenth century, as geology consolidated as a modern science, James Hutton maintained that geological and biological processes are interlinked. Later,

13431-466: The time was past for sustainable development and that we had come to a time when development is no longer sustainable . Therefore, we needed to retreat. Lovelock stated the following to explain the concept: Retreat, in his view, means it's time to start talking about changing where we live and how we get our food; about making plans for the migration of millions of people from low-lying regions like Bangladesh into Europe; about admitting that New Orleans

13552-470: The whole biosphere and persist for millions of years?" I knew this to be a nightmare fantasy wholly without substance in the real world   ... One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife. This is true of the land around Chernobyl, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States' Savannah River nuclear weapons plant of

13673-445: The words "All right, I made a mistake," about the timing of climate change and noted the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the book The Weather Makers as examples of the same kind of alarmism. Lovelock still believed the climate to be warming, although not at the rate of change he once thought; he admitted that he had been "extrapolating too far." He believed that climate change is still happening, but it will be felt further in

13794-463: Was a way to explain the fact that combinations of chemicals including oxygen and methane persist in stable concentrations in the atmosphere of the Earth. Lovelock suggested detecting such combinations in other planets' atmospheres as a relatively reliable and cheap way to detect life. Later, other relationships such as sea creatures producing sulfur and iodine in approximately the same quantities as required by land creatures emerged and helped bolster

13915-405: Was an English independent scientist , environmentalist and futurist . He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis , which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system. With a PhD in the chemistry of disinfection, Lovelock began his career performing cryopreservation experiments on rodents, including successfully thawing frozen specimens. His methods were influential in

14036-418: Was an outspoken member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy , asserting that fossil fuel interests have been behind opposition to nuclear energy , citing the effects of carbon dioxide as being harmful to the environment and warning of global warming due to the greenhouse effect . He wrote several environmental science books based upon the Gaia hypothesis from the late 1970s. He also worked for MI5 ,

14157-403: 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. 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. This new statement of the Gaia hypothesis was more acceptable to

14278-426: Was later developed independently by a commercial company. The proposal attracted widespread media attention and criticism. Commenting on the proposal, Corinne Le Quéré , a University of East Anglia researcher, said "It doesn't make sense. There is absolutely no evidence that climate engineering options work or even go in the right direction. I'm astonished that they published this. Before any geoengineering

14399-452: Was later discovered by Sherwood Rowland and Mario Molina . After hearing a lecture on the subject of Lovelock's results, they embarked on research that resulted in the first published paper that suggested a link between stratospheric CFCs and ozone depletion in 1974 (for which Sherwood and Molina later shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul Crutzen ). Lovelock was sceptical of

14520-423: Was maintained within a framework of significant evolutionary long term structural change. The major questions were: 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 Axel Kleidon (2004) agreed stating: "...homeostatic behavior can emerge from a state of MEP associated with

14641-505: Was the first to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. He found a concentration of 60 parts per trillion of CFC-11 over Ireland and, in a partially self-funded research expedition in 1972, went on to measure the concentration of CFC-11 from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic aboard the research vessel RRS  Shackleton . He found the gas in each of the 50 air samples that he collected but, not realising that

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