Umfang:
XIII, 148 S.
Ausgabe:
reissued, with a new preface and corr.
ISBN:
0-19-286218-9
Inhalt:
Gaia: A New Look At Life on Earth may continue to divide opinion, but nobody can deny that the book offers a powerful insight into the creative thinking of its author, James E. Lovelock. Published in 1979, Gaia offered a radically new hypothesis: the Earth, Lovelock argued, is a living entity. Together, the planet and all its separate living organisms form a single self-regulating body, sustaining life and helping it evolve through time. Lovelock sees humans as no more special than other elements of the planet, railing against the once widely-held belief that the good of mankind is the only thing that matters. Despite being seen as radical, and even idiotic on its publication, a version of Lovelock s viewpoint has found resonance in contemporary debates about the environment and climate, and has now broadly come to be accepted by modern thinkers. As man s effects on the climate become increasingly extreme, more and more elements of the Earth s self-regulation seem to be unveiled forcing scientists to ask how far the planet might be able to go in order self-regulate effectively. Indeed, despite its far-fetched elements, Lovelock s Gaia thesis seems to ring more convincingly today than ever before; that it does is largely a result of the critical thinking skills that allowed Lovelock to produce novel explanations for existing evidence and, above all, to connect existing fragments of evidence together in new ways.
Sprache:
Englisch
Fachgebiete:
Allgemeines
Schlagwort(e):
Gaia-Hypothese
;
Ökologie
;
Kosmologie
;
Evolution
;
Biosphäre
;
Ökologie
;
Kosmologie
;
Evolution
;
Biosphäre
;
Entwicklung
Mehr zum Autor:
Lovelock, James E. 1919-2022
