MetaFilter posts tagged with Gaia

This one brief day forget thy children dear...

thatwhichfalls — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:35:50 -0800

The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive? In the view of paleontologist Peter Ward life on Earth is intrinsically poisonous. His Medea hypothesis (TED lecture video) argues, "the natural world is a doomsday device careening from one cataclysm to another. Long before humans came onto the scene, primitive life forms were busily trashing the planet, and on multiple occasions, Ward argues, they came close to rendering it lifeless. Around 3.7 billion years ago, they created a planet-girdling methane smog that threatened to extinguish every living thing; a little over a billion years later they pumped the atmosphere full of poison gas. (That gas, ironically, was oxygen, which later life forms adapted to use as fuel.)" (From Peak Energy) and as such is the anti-Gaia hypothesis. via

Lovelock to planet: Enjoy it, suckers!

monospace — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 10:39:07 -0800

Enjoy life while you can. Because we're doomed. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable. James Lovelock is still at it. (Previously.)

Planetary Maintenance Engineer

Chuckles — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:46:02 -0800

Planetary Maintenance Engineer

What do I want to do when I grow up

infini — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 11:52:54 -0800

When I grow up I want to be an environmental engineer. I want to work on projects that can provide potable water for people. I want to clean the polluted Mother Ganga [Ganges] who provides life giving water from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal. Or the Nile, both blue and white, spilling fertility from her bunds on a regular cycle. I want to design products that use the least amount of energy and fuel, from recycled materials and are biodegradable. I want to seek alternative sources of energy, such as using biofuel to power cellphones. I want to design with maximum constraints. Call her mother earth, gaia, demeter, ceres or inanna, our planet is on the brink of no return. Or is it all just a matter of perspective?

History of a meme

Skeptic — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 12:24:17 -0800

At the beginning was the noosphere. The existence of a "sphere of ideas", beyond the "sphere of life" (biosphere) and the "sphere of matter" (geosphere) was apparently first postulated by the pioneering Russian-Ukrainian geochemist V.I. Vernadsky. Vernadsky thought not only that the biosphere had entirely reshaped the geosphere, but that the burgeoning noosphere of interconnected thought would ultimately change the biosphere just as much. French jesuit and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin took the concept and ran with it...(more inside)

Plankton may form clouds.

rudyfink — Sat, 17 Jul 2004 01:35:03 -0800

Clouds formed at sea may be created by plankton to protect themselves from harsh UV rays by inducing more dimethyl sulfide to the atmosphere.

Nuclear power or global warming

homunculus — Wed, 26 May 2004 16:08:14 -0800

James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia theory, says that only a massive expansion of nuclear power as the world's main energy source can alleviate the effects of global warming. [Via WorldChanging.]

Fabulon7 — Thu, 15 Aug 2002 07:10:56 -0800

From theories of dissipative structures and autopoesis, Dr. James Lovelock and Dr. Lynn Margulis have concluded that the Earth is alive (sort of). They call this Gaia Theory. (another summary w/lots of good links)

norm — Tue, 19 Sep 2000 08:15:38 -0800

We're overdue for a big disaster. "Two years without a harvest? It would probably bust civilisation. People would survive all right. It really would cut us back, and that is the sort of thing nobody really prepares for. It's not some ecological poison or GM foods or nuclear that is going to get us, it is going to be some perfectly ordinary natural event." Almost enough to make me stock canned goods again.