Customer Reviews

The Revenge of Gaia

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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]

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.

I ordered this book because I read a Rolling Stone article on Lovelock and I was interested to read more about this "gloomier" version of what is going to happen to the Earth.

I didn't find it that dark or gloomy--certainly there is something hopeful about his writing style. It's a bit scary if you aren't familiar with global warming and all the reactions it will cause across the globe, but ultimately what I got out of it personally, was that global warming is going to happen and as a human race we will adapt as best we can. It may wipe out a big chunk of us, but we are overpopulated as a race anyway.

More and more I see us as the cancer on the skin of Gaia. Looks like global warming and the potentially billions of deaths it may cause, will help the earth develop a culture and lifestyle that *lives in harmony* with nature instead of constantly battling against it. The crisis we will be forced into within the next 100 years will teach us a lesson that we will never learn through mass consumerism no matter how successful it has been in allowing our race to overpopulate.

This book is a must read for any human, especially if you have kids and or are planning to have kids. Even if you disagree with much of the book, it will make you stop and think and maybe help prepare you for a future you weren't expecting.

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.

I purchased this book after reading a long story about Lovelock and his recent predictions of catastrophic global warming in the Washington Post. What was amazing about the Post story was that it was in the "Style" section. It seems like such an urgent message would not be in the entertainment section of the paper. I am not an environmentalist and never took global warming all that seriously until I read this book. The most frightening part about his studies is that he predicts untold catastrophes in my lifetime (and I'm over 50) and that there is very little we can do about it. His analysis is that in the end only a few hundred million people (out of 6 billion + people) will survive and will need to flee to artic regions. A serious scientist, he iseems to have credibility since he is the one who discovered the hole in the ozone and designed many of the tests that the U.S. used in our Mars mission to analyze if there is life on Mars. He has gotten my attention.

In his latest book James Lovelock reviews the history of his theory of Gaia and describes the terrible difficulties Gaia will undergo if the Earth continues to heat up. Can Gaia continue to manage the planet with Man, a loose cannon on the deck, releasing carbon dioxide at the rate we do?

The idea that life at the Earth's surface somehow regulated the chemistry of the atmosphere had been with him for a long time, when one day in the 1960s while looking at photographs from space, Lovelock realized that the planet Earth, unlike other planets, was alive, and that life on the surface could be considered one creature. Not long after, walking into his local village in the English countryside, he fell in with his friend and neighbour, the novelist William Golding, and outlined his hypothesis. Golding suggested that he call it Gaia, after the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth. Gaia was taken up bt the New Agers, who saw her as the great Earth mother, embodiment of Eastern religions, and comforter of feminists. Lovelock does not object to this, rather welcomes it. As long as an effort is made to understand the theory, he believes there can be consilience between religious faith of all sorts and Gaia.

The oneness of life on Earth, the essence of the theory, can be explained by the concept of symbiosis, defined by the Oxford dictionary in 1979 as "an association of two different organisms living attached to each other, or one with the other, to the advantage of both". Working with American scientists, he has established that all life on Earth is in symbiosis. He gives an amusing example: If our species was concerned only with its own well-being, the most efficient way for animals such as us to expel the nitrogen we breath in and cannot use, would be to exhale it. But instead we benefit Gaia by converting it into ammonia and peeing it out in a form plants can use. The Gaia theory, for it has been accepted by the scientific community and is no longer merely an hypothesis, is now seen to embrace the Earth's surface minerals and atmosphere as well as living things.

But Gaia is about to make a radical adjustment to eliminate Man, and most other forms of life will go with us. The sun is getting hotter. Left to itself, Gaia is estimated to have another two billion years to go, but the process is being speeded up by the greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane, which are being released in increasing quantity by our activities and she may have less than a hundred. Unless she acts!

Lovelock is a Green despite his dislike of environmentalism for its anthropocentricism, which makes Man the focus rather than Gaia. He is unpopular with many Greens for his support of nuclear power, which he considers less dangerous than other sources of electric power (including hydro and wind power), and vastly preferable to burning hydrocarbons. As for the waste, he is confident that nuclear fusion will be the power source of the future and the waste from nuclear fission plants can be used as fuel. In the meantime he suggests storing it in ecologically sensitive areas to keep developers out! He says that nature thrives in its vicinity and has pictures to prove it.

He is also unpopular with many Greens for favoring genetically engineered crops. His position is that unless the world's human population is drastically reduced we must go with GE crops because they yield more food per acre. We already use over half the Earth's surface for agriculture.

This reviewer finds his arguments convincing. It was reported recently that with the aid of the World Bank, the Cargiil Grain Company and a number of European fast food outlets, including Macdonald's, some 40 square miles of Brazilian rain forest is currently being cleared for the express reason of growing non-genetically engineered soy beans to eaten by European chickens who in turn will be eaten by squeamish Europeans who refuse to eat chickens who have been fed GE soybeans! O tempora, O mores. It seems that Man the predator has advanced beyond simply hunting animals to making Gaia herself his prey. One is tempted to sympathize with the protagonist of the recent novel, Ayesha, My Queendom Come, who believes in protecting Gaia by reverting to murder and cannibalism. Surely if people cared for Gaia they would simply eat the soy protein and skip the chicken stage? Lovelock says nothing about vegetarianism.

But could the great man have underestmated his own discovery?
For example, he explains how aerosols, the tiny particles that are mostly products of man's combustion of hydrocarbons, form a protective cover that reflects much of the sun's heat rays back into space. He points out that if we stop burning fossil fuels, these particles will not be replaced after they drop back to Earth. Could not this be Gaia taking care of itself? And with Global warming will there not be more evaporation from the world's oceans and lakes and hence more cloud cover?

A thought-provoking book by a great scientist.

I'm still spooked by this book. The core message could have been written-up as a snappy pamphlet: we're doomed to the beautiful momentum of the Earth's response to our diseased presence and must take radical collective action to preserve the splinters of our civilization. But The Revenge of Gaia's sound and horrifying science, succinct explanations of Gaia's living ways, and sometimes difficult to accept advice to those of us able to act in Earth's favor act mostly as illuminations of a voice wild with a true Vision of the Living Whole that is life on Earth. James Lovelock seems to write from somewhere beyond individual human consciousness, and to read his words is to sense an echo of what any Earthling must already understand: this Way is no good, We must find another.

I recommend this book because I would like the opportunity to perhaps discuss it with you someday, maybe even at a reasonably high latitude.

This is my first Lovelock book. I firmly believe in the dangers of
climate change. On the downside I found it to be eccentric, lose with
facts, not well researched for other points of view (or intentionally
ignoring them), preachy and somewhat insular. His arguments pro-nuclear
sound good but he never mentions some of the strong counter-arguments
(ie. we would need a new Yucca mountain every year if the entire world
was powered by nuclear, and no, burying nuclear waste in Lovelocks
backyard to heat his home is not a viable option for a bunch of reasons
- and an array of other counter-arguments). His argument that organic
food can not feed the world is incorrect (all of China was organic until
not long ago, many studies show this, the world doesn't need American
style industry-ag to feed itself). His core message is sound: we are in
more trouble and urgent action is needed. Also the idea that the world
is healthier cold, and heat is a sign of stress, is interesting. His
distaste for wind power because it destroys the countryside? The desire
to return to 1840 when things were a garden of eden? There were many
times I cringed "but.. but.." - Lovelock once again proves to be controversial but at the same time there are some
brilliant ideas and insights that make it worth the time to read.

Lovelock has rightly drawn our attention to the dire straits we and the earth face due to global warming.However, his thinking on related issues
leaves much to be desired.He sees our environmental problems being due to tribalism (p.4 paperback) and overpopulation (p.140). He says we put our national tribe before all others and don't recognise the unity of life. This is a simplistic attitude. He ignores the prevailing materialistic philosophy that says we must have unlimited growth. Overpopulation is not a cause, but an effect of this philosophy. He writes it might be possible to sustain a population of 10 billion living in cities and eating synthesized food. (p.140)What a horrific prospect! However, he would like to see a population of half to one billion people. This is more palatable, but he is short on ways to achieve it.

The author has caused much controversy by his advocacy of nuclear power as the primary energy source of the future. He claims the Chernobyl disaster has only killed 75 people. Not only is this a gross underestimation, he ignores the long term effects.He does not mention that uranium is limited and will run out anyway. He does not give sufficient consideration to solar power and other alternatives. Needless to say, Lovelock does not discuss a cut in consumption. Advertisers exhort us to spend money on things we can't afford and don't need to impress people we don't like. We could cut energy use in half by only producing what we really need.

Lovelock does not give organic farming serious consideration. He falsely thinks it is just a question of sloshing around a lot of manure.(p.144)He has a weird idea for the future of Britain: a place divided into one third for cities, industries, roads; one third intensive farming; one third complete wilderness.(p.133)How can he write "most of us prefer an urban existence" when he himself lives in the countryside? For hundreds of years the large landholders in Britain forced people off the land into cities. This intensified during the industrial revolution and created a class of wage slaves in the factories. When people have a choice, they prefer the country. Just look at the country estates in Britain.

Lovelock has helped to raise awareness about global warming, but his attempt at solutions do not come to grips with the underlying issues.

In this dour assessment, Lovelock has taken his original brilliant insight of Earth as a living organism and extrapolated it into the pessimism of an environmental disaster in the making.

Until Lovelock, no one thought of all life on this planet as creating a unique living being in its own right. In retrospect, it's obvious; this is the nature of true genius. In a very scientific manner, backed by the finest research and impeccable data, Lovelock reached an understanding of the Earth that matches the basics of Native American philosophy.

This book is a timely prediction that life on earth will collapse within the next century due to human activity. His reasoning is accurate, brilliant and based on a fundamental flaw; he fails to recognize that humans continue to change. The agricultural revolution that began 10,000 years ago made profound changes; the evolution of teosinte into corn is one of a myriad of amazing progress.

Now the Industrial Revolution is changing human habitation from 95 percent rural to 95 percent urban; worldwide, 50 percent of people now live in cities, and this will be 70 percent within 50 years. It's the most profound population shift since hunter/gatherers became farmers; and, it's likely to have an ever greater impact on the natural world.

Humans have evolved from gathering food to producing food to producing things to producing intangible ideas. An intengible idea has economic value, but it is not something you can drop on your foot. It's a product of brainpower, not natural resources. Two centuries ago, the wealth of nations was their natural resources; today, the natural resources of the US are 3 percent of its wealth while the intengible ideas are 82 percent.

Lovelock ignores this ability of humans and wildlife to change. In Phoenix, the rich live in walled, guarded and video-camera'd enclaves such as Biltmore Estates; coyotes are also learning to live there and are making Shih Tzus, Sharpeis and other toys into their own fast food snacks. Coyotes once were limited to the Rocky Mountains; now, they're found in Central Park in New York and everywhere else they choose to adapt.

Life changes. People are flocking into cities which became "the dark satanic mills" of Dickens' times. Now possible to build zero-carbon cities, as planned in Abu Dhabi. Humans change. Granted, change is often costly. Without forethought, millions may die. Without change, the toll will be even greater. But, change will occur. It always has, it is now, it always will be so.

This book sets out the scenario of a potential disaster, based on the knowledge of a brilliant and innovative scientist. Neither Lovelock or any other individual will come up with all the answers; but, in reading it, every thoughtful person will be prompted to come up with their own solutions large, small and meaningful.

Lovelock presents a beautiful concept of the world, a philosophy that reaches the levels of Native American wisdom. The difference is not becoming stuck in the status quo, as with Native American religions; but, in adapting to a radically different future. This book recognizes the danger of the status quo; change (evolution) means everyone must adapt to the future. Those who don't will become extinct.

Those who do will be thankful there were books such as this to serve as guides and inspirations along the way.