The Gaia Hypothesis Is Still Giving Us Feedback - Issue 12: Feedback
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I first met James Lovelock in 1988 at a conference on his controversial Gaia Hypothesis that was sponsored by the American Geophysical Union. Gaia, to remind you, was the mythical Greek goddess who embodied Mother Earth. The Gaia Hypothesis is the idea that life, or Gaia, plays a critical role in maintaining Earth’s habitability, including its oxygen-rich atmosphere, the salinity of its oceans, and its relatively stable climate. In the late 1960s, Lovelock had postulated that particular control mechanisms require feedback loops to ensure stability. Indeed, Lovelock initially called his theory the “Earth feedback hypothesis,” but changed it to the more mythical title following a suggestion from the novelist William Golding, who happened to live in the same English town. I was a young (...)