The Revenge of Gaia - by James Lovelock (Paperback)

About the Book

A call to address a major threat to our collective future

Book Synopsis

In The Revenge of Gaia, bestselling author James Lovelock- father of climate studies and originator of the influential Gaia theory which views the entire earth as a living meta-organism-provides a definitive look at our imminent global crisis. In this disturbing new book, Lovelock guides us toward a hard reality: soon, we may not be able to alter the oncoming climate crisis. Lovelock's influential Gaia theory, one of the building blocks of modern climate science, conceives of the Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, as a single living super-organism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born of the combination of a sun whose intensity is slowly growing over millions of years, and an atmosphere whose greenhouse gases have recently spiked due to human activity. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but on time scales measured in the hundreds of millennia. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from "flipping" into an entirely new equilibrium state that will leave the tropics uninhabitable, and force migration to the poles. The Revenge of Gaia explains the stress the planetary system is under and how humans are contributing to it, what the consequences will be, and what humanity must do to rescue itself.

Review Quotes

"His final testament about the catastrophe of global warming is probably the most important book for decades."

"Lovelock will go down in history as the scientist who changed our view of the Earth.... ÝThe Revenge of Gaia¨ is the most important book ever to be published on the environmental crisis." -- John Gray

"Luminous.... Because it so full of vital and interesting facts, Revenge is essential reading for anyone interested in climate change."

About the Author

James Lovelock is the author of more than two hundred scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory). In September 2005, Prospect magazine named him as one of the world's top 100 global public intellectuals. He lives in Louceston, England.