Miscellaneous information and links 

This page is a catch-all of other reference information and links

• Gaia Hypothesis (original, not New Age)
• NOAA : National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
• NASA
• Quantum Physics (Polytechnic English and French versions)
• Australian Fisheries and Forestry
• The Junk Science of George W. Bush Article by Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The Nation, March 08 2004
• Pentagon report: 'Abrupt Climate Change and Its Implications for Unites States National Security' (PDF)
• Photo of erupting Kamchatka volcano
• Photos of erupting volcanoes by Sonny Whitelaw

The Gaia Hypothesis, first presented by British scientist James Lovelock, holds that living organisms have in some way taken charge of the atmosphere, stabilising its chemical make-up to favour life on Earth. The planet's thermostat is in biological rather than geological hands and the atmosphere, has become a "cybernetic extension of life".

Although New Age groups have latched onto the hypothesis, claiming Gaia as some sort of earth mother, the hypothesis does not consider the planet to be a metaphysical, self-aware entity. It views earth's living systems as synergistic, interactive and self-regulatory, rather than discrete and independent systems.

To a large extent, it's common sense. Humans are dependent on both living systems, from the microbial world inhabiting our gut, to the food we eat, and non-'living' systems: the air we breath, the water we drink and the chemical composition of the soil in which the living things that we eat grow.The Linnean classification system groups living things into separate categories in order to better understand the relationships between them. Whilst it is a brilliant system, by its nature it promotes pigeon-hole thinking. Darwinian evolution also promotes linear thinking. Humans chose to classify things in neat little boxes, be they progressive, like Darwinian evolution, or lateral, like Linnaeus' classification system, in order to understand our world. But outside the science classroom, the real world functions in a considerably more complex fashion.

At its simplest level, animals need 02 to function, and exhale C02. Plants 'inhale' C02 and produce 02. Plants and animals therefore depend on one another for survival, using a non-living medium to exchange necessary elements: the air. Therefore the atmosphere is necessary to the relationship between living entities. Now, extrapolate that simple concept across all systems on the planet, from the shape of the land, which influences the weather, the geology, which provides a chemical component to the soils, and so on, and it becomes immediately obvious that the entire planetary system is interactive and dependent, it cannot possibly be understood by examining the constituent parts in isolation from one another. That is reductionist thinking and it simply does not work in the real world, or indeed, the world of science (as quantum physics so aptly demonstrates). The Gaia hypothesis was the first attempt to view the biosphere as a whole. It is both good science and a good metaphor.

Gaia Life on Earth: James E. Lovelock Oxford University Press 1986

Gaia : James E. Lovelock Oxford University Press 1990

Gaia: A New look at Life on Earth :James E. Lovelock Oxford University Press 1990