11:20 am

I have read the first five chapters of James Lovelock's "The Revenge of Gaia", written in 2006. It is time to create a few notes.

Foreward by Sir Crispin Teckell

Gaia is the thin shell of land and water between the molten interior of the earth and the upper atmosphere. Gaia is the interaction of this shell with all of the living matter that may be found within it. Lovelock is the first person to view this entity wholistically and to use the metaphor of a living organism to describe it.

"The Earth system behaves as a single, self-regulating system, comprised of physical, chemical, biological and human components. The interactions and feedbacks between the component parts are complex and exhibit multi-scale temporal and spatial variability". [p. xiv]

"As has been well said, the first requirement is to recognize that the problems exist. The second is to understand and draw the right conclusions. The third is to do something about them. Today we are somewhere between stages one and two." [p. xv]

Chapter 1 The State of the Earth

The Problem

• "But we are sufficiently aware of the physiology of the Earth to realize the severity of its illness. We suspect the existence of a threshold, seta by the temperature or the level of carbon dioxide in the air; once this is passed nothing the nations of the world do will alter the outcome and the Earth will move irreversibly to a new hot state." [p. 7]

Our Reaction to the Problem

• "Why are we so slow, especially in the United States, to see the great peril that faces us and civilization?" [p. 4]
  • I agree that the US is painfully slow, but one should also consider China, India, Russia and Europe as the other major contributors to the problem. The record of all these groups leaves much to be desired.
    
    
• "Tribal behavior is surely written in the language of our genetic code ... Because we are tribal animals, the tribe does not act in unison until a real and present danger is perceived. This has not yet happened" [wrt a global perspective] [p. 12 - 13]

Possible Next Steps

• "... it is much too late for sustainable development; what we need is a sustainable retreat." [p. 8]
  
  
• "We must conquer our fears and accept nuclear energy as the one safe and proven energy source that has minimal global consequences." [p. 15]
  
  
• "Our goal should be the cessation of fossil-fuel consumption as quickly as possible, and there must be no more natural-habitat destruction anywhere." [p. 15]
  
  
• "We cannot turn off our energy-intensive, fossil-fuel-powered civilization without crashing; we need a soft landing of a powered descent." [p. 16]

Chapter 2 What is Gaia?

• "I call Gaia a physiological system because it appears to have the unconscious goal of regulating the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable state for life." [p. 19]
  
  
• "It has never been more than metaphor ... Metaphor is important because to deal with, understand, and even ameliorate the fix we are now in over the global change requires us to know the true nature of the Earth and imagine it as the largest living thing in the solar system, not something inanimate like that disreputable contraption 'spaceship Earth'." [p. 21]
  
  
• "We now know that such global properties as atmospheric and oceanic composition and climate set the constraints that bring stability. ... All life forms have a lower, an upper and an optimum temperature for growth, and the same is true for acidity, salinity and the abundance of oxygen in air and water. Consequently, organisms have to live within the bounds of these properties of their environment." [p. 35 - 36]
  
  
• "Above 4 C water expands as it warms, and if the top layer absorbs most of the sun's heat and expands to become lighter than the still colder waters beneath. This warmer surface layer has a depth of between 30 and 100 metres. It forms when the sunlight is sgtrong enough to raise the surface temperature above about 10 C. The warm surface layer is stable ... it stays intact and the cooler waters below do not mix with it. The formation of the surface layer exerts a powerful constraint on ocean life; primary producers that seed the newly formed warm layer in early spring soon go through a succession that uses up nearly all of the nutrients of the layer. The dead bodies of this spring bloom sink to the ocean floor, and soon the surface layer is empty of all but a limited and starving population of algae. This is why warm and tropical waters are so clear and blue; they are the deserts of the ocean, and just now they occupy 80 per cent of the world's water surface." [p. 37]
  
• The actual mechanism of self-regulation seems to be an emergent phenomenon and is difficult to comprehend, much like the mechanisms for life, consciousness, and riding a bicycle.

Chapter 3 The Life History of Gaia

• "Life on earth began between three and four billion years ago. ... At his early time the sun was probably 23 percent less luminous than it is now. We think the earth was mainly covered by ocean ad there were only small continents. ... Life would start through the presence of abundant carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, perhaps thirty times more than now." [p. 50]
• "Once Gaia came into existence (... some time after life had started) it would have changed the atmosphere from one dominated by carbon dioxide to one dominated by methane. This ancient world of bacteria would have been dynamically stable and resilient against perturbation." [p. 51]
• "The appearance of oxygen ... drove the evolution of more complex living cells, the eukaryotes and eventually the huge assemblies of living cells that make up plants and animals." [p. 52]

Chapter 4 Forecasts for the Twenty-first Century

• "Future climates are much more predictable than future weather. ... that is why many scientists are tolerably sure that a rise of carbon dioxide to 500 ppm, which is now almost inevitable, will be accompanied by profound climate change." [p. 61]
• Here are some consequent predictions of global warming:
  • a rise in sea level of up to 80 metres
  • loss of vegetation
  • opening of the Arctic ocean
  • change in ocean currents

Chapter 5 Sources of Energy

• Our cultures are heavily dependent upon electricity. This must be maintained.
• "Burning large quantities of wood or crops grown for fuel ... is potentially more destructive to the Earth system than using fossil fuels for energy." [p. 92]
• The problem with fossil fuels is that they increase the carbon dioxide in the air. Even if we have the resources to do this, the resulting increase in global warming gases means we should do everything possible to reduce this.
• Burning natural gas produces half the carbon dioxide of oil or coal, but it also leaks methane which is 24 times as potent as carbon dioxide.
• Hydrogen powered vehicles may be more feasible in the future.
• Wind power is not feasible, period.
• Solar energy remains too expensive for most uses.
• The dangers of radioactive waste have been grossly distorted by the media.