The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

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.

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.

Since the 1970's Lovelock has written extensively on the Gaia Theory; the incredibly simple but contentious idea that the planet Earth is a self-organizing system. More than a rock floating in space inhabited by carbon based life-forms, the Earth is a 4.5 billion year old dynamic system whose components, rocks, soil, bacteria, fungi, plants, animals, waters, and atmosphere, interact to maintain a fit environment within which life survives and evolves along with the evolving environment. The core elements of this idea are not new to earth science. James Hutton (1787), the father of Earth sciences, considered the planet to be a macro-organism. Vladimir Vernadsky (1926), the pioneer of biogeochemistry considered the Earth's crust so entwined with biology that it's study through traditional mineralogy a mistake. The biophysiologist, Lawrence Henderson (1913), understood that Darwinian Evolution, the survival of the fittest, could only take place in an environment that was itself fit for habitation. Still the cloistered disciplines within the academy balk at the interdisciplinary requirements of Gaia theory and the teleological nature of many of its hypotheses.

The Vanishing Face of Gaia is in many ways a review of Lovelock's earlier works updated and focused on the question of how we (globally) as a people need to think about how we will adapt to climate change - not how do we think we might avoid climate change. He argues that many of the spokes-people for the present Green movement are advancing a self-serving political and economic agenda, and like the Sirens, threaten to lead humanity onto rocky shoals. Here, he clearly articulates the fallacies supporting of our cultural sacred cows - renewable energy, and the demonized - nuclear energy; reiterating many of the themes from The Revenge of Gaia (2007). Biographical sketches from Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist (2001), The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth (1995), and Gaia: Medicine for an Ailing Planet (1991), flesh out these arguments and provide them with historic context within the evolving Gaia theory. This integration of Lovelock's earlier works makes this an ideal introduction for those new to Gaia. This book is a pleasant reminiscence for those who have followed the debates and growth of Gaia theory, with the last chapter a special bonus. I imagined while reading this last chapter, sitting around the kitchen table listening to one last lecture connecting the many diverse threads that make up, not the author's life, but all of humanity.

Page one of the book seems to explain the formal appositive clause in the title. James Lovelock, scientist, inventor, naturalist, and Gaian Physiologist, now at the age of 90 years does not plan to write any more books. Instead he wants to go into space and look down upon the face of Gaia. I want to just say thank you to the author who has inspired and challenged much of my own thinking as an earth scientist. Enjoy the trip.