GAIA: The hypothesis proposed by James Lovelock that the earth functions like a living organism, in maintaining the conditions for life through self-regulation. It is an organic world picture as opposed to the mechanized world picture of the scientific revolution. (see machine) The name Gaia means Earth Goddess and was suggested to Lovelock by William Golding, author of Lord of the Flies. Gaia, Ge, Earth, is not a goddess properly speaking, but a force from the time before the gods. Prolific, dangerous, savvy, the ancient Gaia emerges in great outpourings of blood, steam, and terror, in the company of Chaos and Eros.
This personification of Earth and its mythological dimensions have raised questions as to whether the hypothesis is a scientific or religious one. But aside from any mythological associations, the central element of Gaia theory is that the earth is a self-regulating system in which biological life does not simply adapt to conditions which happen to sustain life but in fact ensures the stability (homeostasis) of those conditions. It is a form of coevolution between organism and environment. and the beginnings of the idea that the different components of the earth function as an integrated system
According to Bruno Latour, the name of a proteiform, monstrous, shameless, primitive goddess has been given to what is probably the least religious entity produced by Western science. For Latour, Gaia is not a higher system than the life forms it manipulates. “Lovelock’s innovation consists precisely in not letting himself get caught in the trap of that habitual trope concerning the Whole and its parts.”
In 1963, James Lovelock was employed by NASA to design a means of detecting life on Venus or Mars. He reasoned that the gaseous atmosphere of any planet would indicate whether it was a source of materials for organisms and a dumping ground for their waste products, as all organisms must consume materials, transform them chemically, and excrete the wast products. Based on instrumental observations, it was evident that the atmospheres of Mars and Venus were dominated by Carbon Dioxide, whereas Earth’s atmosphere contains “a chemical cocktail of highly reactive gases.” (Tim Lenton, Earth System Science, p. 2) Lovelock’s dramatic hypothesis was that the stability of the earth’s atmosphere under changing conditions over geological time was an indication that life had been regulating the composition of the atmosphere, and that life and its non-living environment form a self-regulating system.
Systems theory and cybernetics had developed the concepts of positive and negative feedback for understanding regulatory systems through chains of cause-and-effect in the form of closed loops. Lovelock and the microbiologist Lynn Margulis postulated that the combination of negative and positive feedback loops in the Earth System produces and overall property of self-regulation, although they had no idea what these mechanisms might be. It would be for the new Earth System Science to identify specific systems . A first such loop was identified in silicate rock weathering, which transfers carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the earth’s crust, has a cooling effect, but occurs faster under warm conditions — hence providing a “brake” or negative feedback mechanism (which includes an organic component: plants and their associated soil comunities, that respond to temperature and carbon dioxide levels and create an acidic weathering environment.)
Below: “Blue Marble” image. December 7, 1972
EARTHRISE “Ancient belief and modern knowledge have fused emotionally in the awe with which astronauts have seen…the Earth revealed in all its shining glory against the deep darkness of space.” (Lovelock) “The view of Earth from a spaceship, a blue-green sphere floating in blackness, triggers emotional feelings of a home teeming with life set in a life-less void, as well as more analytical perceptions of a materially limited and self-contained entity” (Steffen et al.)
Yet this feeling, like a religious belief, is scientifically untestable. “The nearest I can reach is to say that Gaia is an evolving system, a system made up from all living things and their surface environment, the oceans, the atmosphere, and crustal rocks, the two parts tightly coupled and indivisible. It is an “emergent domain” – a system that has emerged from the reciprocal evolution of organisms and their environment over the eons of life on Earth. In this system, the self-regulation of climate and chemical composition are entirely automatic. Self-regulation emerges as the system evolves. No foresight, planning or teleology . . . are involved.
“Not that the Earth lacked perfection, quite the contrary; but because it held – alone? – the privilege of being in disequilibium, which also meant that it possessed a certain way of being corruptible – of being, in one form or another, animated. In any case, it seems capable of actively maintaining a difference between its inside and its outside. It has something like a skin, an envelope. More oddly still, the blue planet suddenly looks like a long string of historical events, random, specific, and contingent events, as though it were the temporary, fragile result of a geohistory.” (Latour)
Were the earth not alive in this sense, it would resemble its dead neighbors, Mars and Venus. Lovelock cites the long - term stability of the Earth's atmosphere despite a 30% increase in the sun's radiation as a crucial indication of the earth's self-regulation. He describes himself as a Geophysiologist. The crucial difference for his approach is that geological and environmental change must be studied in conjunction with biological change, and that a concept of "Life" as self-organization informs that study. The policy implications of Gaia for conservation are somewhat ambiguous, since Lovelock believes that the power of the earth is much greater than that of homo sapiens . He downplays the catastrophic consequences of nuclear war, for example, suggesting that it might simply be a way for Gaia to purge herself of humans. The Gaia hypothesis is a curious mixture of anthropocentrism and of its opposite. While Lovelock describes Gaia as a goddess, a projection of human agency, he simultaneously downplayed the importance of humans for the life of the planet.
The Gaia hypothesis received considerable support from the studies of Lynn Margulies on the dynamics of microbial ecosystems and for her theories about the rise of Eukaryote cells as symbiotic unions of Prokaryotes.
Lovelock has given an extremely simplified model of this homeostatic process in "Daisyworld", a planet-like earth revolving around a sun whose output is increasing, and in whose simplest version two types of daisies grow: dark and light. The change in Daisyworld's albedo (reflectance) is the only variable affecting the viablity of the planet for the growth of daisies. As the planet warms enough to support life, the dark daisies begin to proliferate. They warm themselves more than the light ones and also warm the planet. As they warm the planet, the light daisies also bloom (they do better in the warmer climate as they cool themselves) The climate for life is thus maintained by the relative populations of light and dark daisies. As the sun gets hotter, more and more light daisies appear and continue to regulate the environment until the sun gets too hot and all life dies out. Lovelock claims that the addition of other species (for instance grey daisies) increase the possibilities of self-regulation especially during unstressed periods. In his second book, The Ages of Gaia, Lovelock expresses interest in Prigogine's work and rejects the "numerous modern mathematical scientists whose contemplations ot the demons of hyperspace - the "strange attractors" of chaos - are much more beguiling than the dull old real world of nature" (p.62)
There can be a Gaia science, a Gaia cult, but can there be a Gaia politics? If we reach the point ofdefending Mother Earth, is that a politics? (Latour)
Gaia spacecraft: GlobalAstrometricInterferometerforAstrophysics, European Space Agency, launched Dec 19, 2013. Gaia is attempting to create the largest, most-precise 3-D map of our galaxy, the Milky Way. It will observe a billion stars an average of 70 times each over five years. I
Gaia 2.0
Humans are beginning to become aware of the global consequences of their actions. As a result, deliberate self-regulation—from personal action to global geoengineering schemes—is either happening or imminently possible. Conscious decisions by humans can join the biogeochemical feedback loops already in place in the regulation of the planet. By emphasizing the agency of life-forms and their ability to set goals, Gaia 2.0 may be an effective framework for fostering global sustainability. We cannot expect to know the best solution in advance, but we can improve the quality of the sensors—both instruments and people—that detect shortcomings and the speed with which we rectify the course. This is where the scientific establishment will play a crucial role in multiplying the sensors, improving their qualities, speeding the dissemination of their results, improving models, and proposing alternative explanations to phenomena. Such an infrastructure cannot, however, be limited to scientists: They must collaborate with citizens, activists, and politicians to quickly realize where things are going wrong.