The Revenge of Gaia (Hardcover)

~ (Author), J. E. Lovelock (Author), Crispin Tickell (Foreword) "As always, bad events usurp the news agenda, and as I write in the comfort of my Devon home, the New Orleans catastrophe fills the..." (more)
Key Phrases: carbon dioxide abundance, global heating, ocean algae, United States, Second World War, United Kingdom (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. The end is all but nigh for Mother Earth's inhabitants unless drastic measures are soon taken: that's the rueful prognostication delivered by Lovelock (Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth), intuitive originator of the theory that the world is a self-regulating system that, over the eons, has been able to sustain an equilibrium between hot and cold so as to support life. Now, propelled by global warming, Lovelock says, a tipping point has almost been reached beyond which the Earth will not recover sufficiently to sustain human life comfortably. Lovelock dismisses biomass fuels, wind farms, solar energy and fuel cell innovations as technologies unlikely to mitigate greenhouse gases in time to save the planet. Instead he sees nuclear energy as the only energy source that can meet our needs in time to prevent catastrophe. Chernobyl was a calamity, he notes, but nuclear power's danger is "insignificant compared with the real threat of intolerable and lethal heatwaves" and rising sea levels that could "threaten every coastal city of the world." Lovelock's pro-nuke enthusiasm, unexpected from one of the mid-20th century's most ardent environmental thinkers, is the well-reasoned core of this urgent call for braking at the brink of global catastrophe. (Aug.)
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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

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books (July 3, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 046504168X
• ISBN-13: 978-0465041688
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #379,146 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Humankind comes second", August 22, 2006

By	Stephen A. Haines (Ottawa, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

It's common knowledge that our planet's in trouble. The number of books and articles testifying to this condition are almost beyond counting. Lovelock himself acknowledges that there will be dismay at the appearance of "another book on global warming". Lovelock's approach, however, is a departure from the other offerings on this topic. Having postulated the Earth as an organic whole, he can address the problem as a physician. There will be diagnosis and analysis of symptoms. There will also be some suggested therapy. Like many medicines, his prescriptions will be unpalatable to many.

Lovelock diagnoses the Earth as suffering from a fever. Its atmospheric and oceanic temperatures are rising. The infecting agent is a complex organism that has emerged only recently in Earth's history, although it spread rapidly. It's Homo sapiens - ourselves. Humans have usurped woods and prairies, cutting down forests and turning rangeland into farms for our sustainance. Although we declare these transformations are necessary to our survival, the changes have fatally disrupted the Earth's fine balance among land, sea and air. To Lovelock, that balance is a natural system. He's named the system "Gaia" from ancient Greek mythology. Although the "Gaia" concept has its critics, from doubtful to severe, Lovelock has convinced most scientists that the interaction of many elements must be viewed as tightly integrated. What affects one part will surely influence another - or many. And the effect is incalcuable. In this case the effect appears to be terminal. Which means if "Gaia" dies, the living things on this world will go with it. That means us. Gaia's revenge will be to exterminate her affliction.

Lovelock's aim is to protect Gaia. To achieve this, he prescribes some drastic and serious doses while dismissing other, competing, cures as inadequate or lacking effectiveness. Some, indeed, will worsen the condition. What is most difficult to impart to the antigen causing the infection is the rapidity with which the terminal crisis may arise. Temperature rise may seem to be progressing at a leisurely pace. "Collapse" doesn't appear imminent today according to some forecasters. They are wrong. Past history suggests catastrophic change has occurred before and is likely to happen again. The result was the mass extinction of much life - the upcoming one will be as bad or worse. The rate discharge of our carbon by-products is increasing and the result is sure to be more severe, Lovelock says. Because the chief element in humanity's infecting their home is carbon compounds, particularly carbon dioxide, Lovelock insists on applying the therapy of nuclear energy to replace the various carbon dioxide-generating facilities now in place. Even more drastic is his suggestion that farm land be abandoned to return to its primordial state. The food human farms produce can be produced by high-tech chemical firms with minimal transition.

It's somewhat cheering that Lovelock hasn't given up on our future. He makes frequent references to his wife, Sandy, and their lifestyle. He recounts his shift from Wiltshire to Devon, dodging developers along the way. His "little patch of England" sounds idyllic. They're above the level the sea will reach when the Greenland Ice Cap dissolves into the North Atlantic. Storm waves will not lash his land, although wind and rainfall may be discomfiting. Yet, he recognises his special luck in living where he does. He wants the rest of the world to do at least as well. To that end, he endorses nuclear power vigorously, particularly since it will lead to the environmental panacea of Tokamak fusion. How the developing nations will pay for their share of this energy miracle is left unaddressed. He also embraces the idea of aerosols to be sprayed into the upper atmosphere to act as a reflective surface to sunlight. What that will do to forests and other plants is unclear. It's a paper proposal that can only be proven on a planetary scale. Finally, in the scariest of his scenarios, he admits that since most of the therapeutic methods of inhibiting the infection Gaia suffers from will come from the developed nations, there will have to be an enforcement body to make it all happen. Given the types of leaders these nations have recently elevated to "leadership" that's a daunting prospect.

Lovelock's analysis of the severity of the problem is dramatic, but hardly overblown. Our planet is under serious threat, and it's due to us. We must implement serious cures and quickly to forestall the inevitable. Once the carbon content of what we breathe reaches the critical level, there will be only some tough microbes able to sustain themselves. They will hardly be reading either this review or Lovelock's book. Nor will you or your children. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Ontario]

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very hard to ignore., July 26, 2006

By	Dave Johnson - See all my reviews

One might complain about the reletively small amount of supporting detail, but, for a concise, readable introduction to the key problem, this book is very, very hard to ignore. And doubly so if one is aware of Lovelock's long history of sheer brilliance.

For me the heart of the book was the set of three maps comparing the state of the world as it is now, as it was when average temperatures were five degrees Celsius colder (i.e. the last ice age), and what is likely if the world becomes five degrees warmer. These do not sound like big differences, but on a global scale such temperature changes make huge differences, and Lovelock's maps show just how massive the changes really are. Never mind a picture being worth a thousand words, these maps save a couple of million words. Looking at them will leave you wondering about real estate prices in Labrador.

Lovelock also does a good job of explaining concisely the nature of positive feedback loops that are starting to come into play in the global climate changes. I happen to be fortunate in that I am an engineer with much previous experience dealing with control systems and feedback loops, so I was in a position to follow his argument fairly comfortably in the first place. Naturally, not every reader will have such a convenient background, but I encourage everyone who does read the book not to skip over these sections, since they explain why the climate change may be both much worse and much quickeer than one might expect.

To use more ordinary terms, when Lovelock talks about "positive feedback" he is talking about a "vicious circle", in which each change for the worse makes it easier for the next change to make things even worse. Unfortunately it is not just one such circle, but half a dozen or more, all pushing the climate in the same unpleasant direction.

I must say also that some of Lovelock's ideas will seem absurd at first glance, but don't let that stop you from finishing the book or taking it seriously. For the most part he sounds strange sometimes because he is looking at things from another point of view, so naturally the scene he describes will sound unfamiliar, and especially so because he does not waste very many words. He just describes what he sees, and then leaves it largely up to his readers to draw their own conclusions. That is to say, the book is not propaganda, but rather a cold-blooded analysis of the problem. Bear in mind that Lovelock has spent most of his career writing for other scientists, who can be expected to check the facts and the conclusions independently, and he is clearly trusting all of us to be smart enough to do the same.

33 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Views on nuclear and renewable energy are out to lunch, January 13, 2007

By	Christopher E. Greacen (Bangkok, Thailand) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While Lovelock's career focusing on Gaia may annoy a number of scientists, he clearly has been influential in shaping the opinions of a substantial portion of the public. His message on climate change, though frightening, is more or less the scientific consensus: the planet is in for massive and painful changes and these have come about because of human addiction to burning stuff and leveling forests. Lovelock goes further than most scientists are willing to do by exploring the consequences - the main one being that most of the planet will become scrub desert and what is left of humanity will have to escape to the polar latitudes - and waxing philosophical about human greed, ignorance and hubris that have led us to this situation.

I have one big bone to pick with the book. Lovelock's perspectives on electricity appear to come straight from a nuclear energy lobbying group: "I believe that nuclear power is the only source of energy that will satisfy our demands and yet not be a hazard to Gaia". This is dangerous because in making brash statements like this he dismisses much of the portfolio of technologies and approaches that are critical for addressing the roots of anthropogenic climate change.

First of all, his focus is almost exclusively on the supply-side, ignoring the fact that saving energy is much more cost-effective than building and fueling power plants. There's reason to believe that two-fold reductions in energy and resource consumption are well within reach with no negative impacts to quality of life. (Google "factor four" for example).

Lovelock puts high faith in nuclear fusion - a technology that has consumed over 30 billions of dollars over half a century and is still unable to produce any usable energy. The obstacles to usable fusion energy lie not only in the physics of confining fusion fuel at 100 million degrees C or more, but in the advances in materials science needed to safely contain what amounts to a small sun.

Grudgingly recognizing that fusion is at best couple decades away, Lovelock paints a glowing recommendation for nuclear fission in the short/medium term, largely ignoring the most problematic aspects of this technology: that nuclear fission requires a complicated commodity chain (fuel mining, fuel-fabrication, reactors, reprocessing, and disposal) that is exceptionally unforgiving when it comes to error or malice. It's way too easy to make a very big deadly mess, and increasingly there are groups with the intention and ability to do this. Strangely, Lovelock is very quiet on the issue of terrorism and nuclear fission, although he does invoke terrorism to help in his case against natural gas pipelines. Similarly, he omits mention of the very serious link between nuclear electricity and nuclear weapons proliferation: the stuff that goes into and comes out of nuclear reactors can make the world's deadliest weapons, and it only takes a few kilograms. His arguments about nuclear safety and cost ring hollow when one considers that in the USA nuclear power has only been possible through quiet renewal of the Price Anderson Act which subsidizes the nuclear industry by limiting its liability in the event of a major accident. The UK has similar laws, as do a host of other countries. If nuclear energy is so safe and cheap, the industry should abolish these subsidies and accept the consequences.

Lovelock's pro-nuclear arguments are combined with a dismissal of renewable energy that borders on the ridiculous. He sets his sights particularly on wind power, alternately presenting it as frighteningly industrial ("what was left of the German landscape has been diminished by becoming the site for 17,000 huge wind turbines") and pathetically undeveloped ("at present wind energy... is not much more efficient than were those early biplanes together with wire"). These silly sideswipes are complemented by two points: "wind is intermittent" and "wind is costly". Sure, windpower is intermittent, but that doesn't keep Denmark from relying on it for 20% of its electricity - and the lights aren't going out for Danish homes. Meanwhile, wind energy only accounts for 1% of electricity production in the UK, despite that fact that the UK has some of the best wind sites in Europe. With a few pointers from Danish transmission engineers, the UK could put in a lot more wind without the need for new backup generation as Lovelock claims. Lovelocks claims that wind power is "two and a half times more expensive than gas or nuclear" are highly contested, as any Google search will show. Lovelock's treatment of solar electricity is about 20 years out of date, and he fails to mention promising technologies like biogas that reduce methane emissions (20 times more potent than CO2) while generating considerable electricity.