The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: global heating, photo synthesizers, carbon dioxide abundance, United States, Coombe Mill, Second World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Lovelock (The Revenge of Gaia) presents evidence of a dire future for our planet. The controversial originator of Gaia theory (which views Earth as a self-regulating, evolving system made of organisms, the surface rocks, the ocean and the atmosphere with the goal always to be as favorable for contemporary life as possible) proposes an even more inconvenient truth than Al Gore's. No voluntary human act can reduce our numbers fast enough even to slow climate change. Nevertheless, human civilization has a duty to survive in the few safe havens—the far north and south, islands like Great Britain and Tasmania—free from the drought that will overtake most of the Earth. While Lovelock's propensity to ramble is disconcerting, his predictions are persuasive—although some readers will be appalled by his contention that democracy may need to be abandoned to appropriately confront the challenge. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

In his sixth book on Gaia, the eminent 91-year-old British scientist who originated the Gaia Theory to explain the interconnectedness between our planet's climate and life takes an elegiac tone and cosmic perspective in predicting our near future. Challenging the scientific consensus of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, he believes it is too late to reverse global warming. We must accept that Earth is moving inexorably into a long-term "hot state." Most humans will die off, and we must prepare havens like northern Canada, where some climate refugees can survive. Lovelock rejects the results of climate computer modeling when they clash with scientific observation. For example, he points out that sea levels are rising significantly faster than models predicted. Lovelock advocates solar thermal and nuclear power as the best substitutes for burning fossil fuels, and he suggests emergency global geoengineering projects that might cool the planet. But Lovelock also avows today's ecological efforts are futile. This is a somber prophecy written with an authority that cannot be dismissed. Recommended for all academic and public libraries.—David Conn, Surrey P.L., B.C.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; Book Club edition (April 13, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465015492
• ISBN-13: 978-0465015498
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,716 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An important book on our planet's future, April 13, 2009

By	Future Watch Writer (Washington, D.C. Area) - See all my reviews

Lovelock merits our attention because he has been proven right in predicting grim events. Indeed, Lovelock's grim views have in some ways been too optimistic in light of the speed with which the global environmental situation has been declining.

I think his views in this book are too pessimistic but Lovelock is a creative original thinker about science who does not fit into neat categories. He has infuriated a lot of his fellow environmentalists with his advocacy of nuclear power. He does so because he sees the huge size of the gap between what is needed and what exists. For example, President Obama has promised to "double" the percentage of renewable energy America uses in a few years. It sounds great..... until you realize renewable energy is less than one percent of America's energy now. (Meanwhile, renewable energy is being very badly hurt by the global economic crisis.) Optimistic predictions about a "boom" in renewable energy over the past 20 years by various environmental advocates have turned out to be pie in the sky. It hasn't happened. Hopefully, it will happen now. However, according to predictions of the International Energy Agency, the share of the world's energy coming from coal, the worst form of energy, is going to go up, not down by 2020. This is why Lovelock also supports research on making coal less disastrous although it's never going to be "clean" as claimed by the coal industry and its millions of dollars in advertising. (Some environmental purists have also attacked him for this.)

Lovelock's book should be read in conjunction with a new book by Gus Speth The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability What is very interesting is that Speth was the founder of the World Resources Institute, one of the main American establishment environmental groups. What is very interesting is that Speth now also calls for radical change and expresses a deep disillusionment with the kind of moderate solutions he used to advocate.

What is lacking in this book is a clearer message of realistic hope. Today's problems are not hopeless. I would recommend Lester Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised) I also have an Amazon Listmania list on my profile (which may be listed below in Listmania lists for this book) which covers other thoughtful books about the future.

Overall, Lovelock is worth reading. I have spent a good part of my life studying the scientific data about the environment. Never before in history has there been a bigger disconnect between science and politics than today. From the destruction of the world's fisheries and rain forests to the poisoning of the air and the water, the warning signs are all there and have been there for a long time.

What's new about today is that things have deteriorated to a point that debt and political and religious delusions can no longer paper over disastrous problems.

Is Lovelock correct in seeing a maximum capacity of two billion people (over four billion below today's population) on our planet? I don't know. What I do feel, however, is that if more people read his book, maybe the world could drum up the political courage to adopt long overdue reforms. If you are looking for sugary happy talk about how a "green economy" can be created by the exact same political and business leaders who created today's global disaster - without a lot of pain and tough choices, this book is not for you. We desperately need a "green economy" but the public needs to know the truth about the cost. We are living in the greatest age of "green washing" in history. I don't agree with all Lovelock says but he is truly prophetic figure who has had the courage of his convictions in dealing with both polluters and other environmental leaders. This book is worth reading.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Skeptical View of Climate Change: It Might Be Worse Than You Think, May 4, 2009

By	Justin Ritchie (Vancouver, BC) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

The Vanishing Face of Gaia is my first exposure to James Lovelock's work and is my first in-depth reading of a work about Gaia theory, the idea that the Earth is a self-regulating organism. Environmentalists and New Age movements speak of the earth being alive and this perspective is often misrepresented, being lumped in Lovelock's ideas. The origination of Gaia in the 1960's didn't win any skeptics over either. Sadly, mainstream science has sidelined Lovelock's ideas for the last 30 years, gaining acceptance only recently as predictions from the theory have been proven true time after time. In fact, 8 out of the ten major predictions (table of predictions on p.177) of Gaia theory have been proven or generally accepted, including:

1. Oxygen has not varied by more than 5% from 21% for the past 200 million years (confirmed through studying ice-core and sedimentary analysis)

2. Boreal and tropical forests are part of global climate regulation (generally accepted)

3. The biological transfer of selenium from the ocean to the land as dimethly selenide (confirmed through direct measurements)

4. Climate regulation through cloud albedo control linked to algal gas emissions (many tests indicate high probability, pollution interferes)

That's a much better hit rate than string theory, an idea receiving magnitudes of greater funding. Unfortunately the decades of widespread skepticism has prevented many leading bodies of science and policy groups to ignore the dire implications of a living Earth, most specifically in relation to climate.

Lovelock was the first scientist to invent instrumentation that could accurately demonstrate the accumulation of CFCs in the atmosphere, leading to international action on the hole in the ozone layer. And his work on atmospheric, geological and ecological sciences led him to become the first researcher to link the fields, understanding that the earth's life regulates the atmosphere, and that the earth's atmosphere regulates life. How is this so? The original Daisyworld model created by Lovelock (although seemingly common sense to us now but revolutionary for its time) was a convincing demonstration.


Years of added complexity later, Daisyworld still stands up as an accurate model of reality and the most definitive link between climate and biology. Unlike the IPCC projections of a gradual climate change, trending towards warmer temperatures is not how the earth or biology acts. Massive leaps are common as demonstrated by several graphs in the book. Disturbingly, the coldest years are prior to the major warming years, giving a false sense of security. Anthony Watts, through his blog, provides quality commentary on scientific information that disputes the IPCC climate change models, however Anthony doubts that global warming is occurring. Lovelock shares similar skepticism but provides evidence that the IPCC models are not severe enough in their projections of the serious lifestyle changes we'll need to make to mitigate a changing climate. Scientists have held up the progress of the world for a long time, with their Cartesian deterministic views, perhaps the eminence of a scientist is measured by the length of time he holds up progress. Lovelock quotes Ogden Nash to demonstrate,

`I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
`You mean,'he said, `a crocodile.'

Lovelock's perspective is credible and valuable, disputing many claims of the environmental movement, leading me to question some of my own approaches. For one, Lovelock states that nuclear fission is our only hope to avoid poverty and CO2 accumulation. Unfortunately I think we've missed the boat on this because the US couldn't build the political will to dedicate $700 billion dollars for a secure future. Why nuclear? A fission plant has no emissions other than water vapor while in operation. Nuclear waste fades away after 600 years. The yearly output of a 1,000MW station is enough to fill a medium sized car. Compared with the ash from coal that no one seems to think about, the CO2 emitted, or the manufacturing that goes into transporting a wind turbine/PV panel the entire process of nuclear fission energy is by far the cleanest. The issue of nuclear waste is no different than dealing with the issue of defunct PV panels or wind turbine components, only the nuclear waste is much lower in volume while needing greater attention and security. Lovelock goes on to give some excellent examples of how nuclear energy is mis-represented, with 27 people having lost their lives due to the historical operation of nuclear power plants. How does that measure up? On December 3rd, 1984 a pesticde plant accident in Bhopal, India instantly killed 3,800 when a cloud of methyl isocyanate gas leaked into the night air. (And many more in the following weeks.) Yes, nuclear energy isn't perfect but it is as close to perfect as we can get.

Why not renewables? Lovelock argues that the focus on "green" energy is propagated by those seeking to drive new financial bubbles, continuing the manufacturing status quo, and doing little to actually mitigate climate impacts. We always idealize the wind turbine but forget that a combustion turbine has to be run on-site at a wind farm to keep the frequency of the turbines regulated for use on an electric grid. This simple fact has led some studies to conclude that wind farms are greater contributors to CO2 emissions than a coal plant, with wind farms emitting more than 840 pounds of CO2 per MWh vs 8.8 for nuclear power. Photovoltaics are better, but land requirements are devastating, 8 acres per megawatt. Whereas a few hundred acres can house a 2,500MW nuclear plant. We need that land for farming and for return to Gaia so that the earth can do what it does best, self regulate. Where I significantly diverge from Lovelock is through is views on farming. On p. 134 of the book he details how synthesized food may be our only hope. If it is count me out. Real food can't be substituted for and the nutrient model of eating has been proven as flawed.

This book is full of interesting insights and interesting perspectives on how screwed we are. The basis of Lovelock's argument, and reason for writing the book, is that we've outgrown the Earth as a species. Humans must learn to view themselves as equals in the scheme of ecology, not as a domineering species. The massive population we now support is subsidized at the expense of slowly renewing resources like coal and oil and at the cost of a damaged biosphere. As we exceed Gaia's limits, the climate will adjust to fix the problem. This doesn't mean the end of humanity but a severe readjustment to population centers and population numbers. James Lovelock has convinced me of this through his analysis of Gaia theory applied to the Earth. Could we avoid massive global warming? Yes. An unexpected minimum of sunspots like we are currently experiencing. Massive volcanic eruptions. Successful geoengineering efforts(although highly unlikely, as Lovelock states). These could all bring an end to global warming. But they are highly unlikely. Our only plan as a species should be to adapt and realize our intelligence as human beings. Only then can we ensure our duty to survive and to carry on the legacy of the Earth. The relentless critique of the "green movement" and of environmentalism, a field many credit Lovelock for starting, was cause enough for me to find this book valuable. But the scientific discussion within is of far greater importance as we enter a turbulent time in the existence of the human species. This is a challenging read for the climate skeptic and the climate evangelists alike.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Doomer's Bible, May 1, 2009

By	James L. Scott (Arizona) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Essential reading for everyone concerned about the survival of family and progeny as this century progresses and the disasters of food production failure, energy depletion and materials shortages unfold. Also, all politicians and policy makers planetwide need to know from this book that the collapse is nearly inevitable. Lovelock contends that the continuation of advanced civilization is at stake, not to mention most of the biota on the planet. Controlled shrinkage of economies (as opposed to the mantra of "growth") should be the first order of business to lessen the number of billions who will die of war, famine, genocide and disease, and to salvage as much as possible of the human cultures over the globe.