Ignorer la navigation
Gaia
Book

Gaia

A New Look at Life on Earth

Oxford UP, 2000
First Edition: 1979 plus...

résumé audio créé automatiquement
résumé audio créé automatiquement

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

James Lovelock’s theories have become indispensable to anyone responsible for a firm’s environmental impact. His “Gaia hypothesis” has gained a tremendous following, though debate about it continues in the scientific and lay communities. Lovelock tries to break his science down into terms an average reader can grasp, but the mechanics of the Earth can prove hard to follow. People have discussed, reviewed and debated his text since its debut in 1979. The text in the new version is mostly from 1979, but the preface is an intriguing update that corrects statements which science has since proven wrong, like the idea that oceans dump CO2 into the atmosphere to keep levels constant. getAbstract recommends this classic because of its importance on the road to modern scientific theory, and for its power in shaping public perception of the environment.

Take-Aways

  • View the planet’s ecosystem as a single, complex organism: Gaia.
  • The origins of life on the planet are hard to decipher; early life left little evidence.
  • The current physical state of the Earth and evolution of life on Earth affect each other.

About the Author

James Lovelock, a celebrated and often controversial scientist, author and lecturer, received a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) from the Queen of England in 1990 and contributed to NASA’s planetary exploration program.


More on this topic

By the same author

Related Channels