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Professor Ian Enting: "In discussing the concept of Gaia, Lovelock now distinguishes: Gaia hypothesis: the original version — the Earth’s organisms regulate the physical and chemical components of the earth system so as to maintain the planet as an optimal habitat for life; Gaia theory: the revision in response to critics — the combined physical, chemical and biological components of the earth system regulate the planet so as to maintain it as a habitat for life."
Oz professor - Gaia theory of Dr James Lovelock FRS: is it science yet?
Seeded on Sun Feb 12, 2012 6:02 PM EST
Article Source: The Conversation
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Setting aside the controversial "strong Gaia" notion of the animate and inanimate worlds generating a steady-state through through feedbacks (e..g the "Daisy World" example) , it is quite clear that ecosystems can influence climate (e.g. albedo shifts due to deforestation; the huge impact on South American climate of the Amazonian rain forest) and that climate change can impact ecosystems (e.g. global warming linked to polar migration of ecosystems, loss of Arctic ecosystems, mass species extinction at a rate currently 100-1000 times greater than normal, loss of coral and associated ecosystems) (Google "Climate Change Course").
Apart from his contributions to instrumentation for atmospheric analysis, Dr James Lovelock's major contributions have been in stimulating our understanding and appreciation of such impacts at a time of worsening man-made climate change coupled with cowardice- and greed-driven political inaction that threatens humanity with a climate genocide catastrophe from which, according to Dr Lovelock, maybe only 0.5 billion humans will survive this century (Google "Climate Genocide" ).
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