The Gaia Hypothesis (1974) is James Lovelock‘s reconception of this biosphere, that biologic, spherical skein of life one hundred million kilometers squared across1, one thousand meters deep2 and high3, and fathomless in deep-sea vents, sea-venting river beds, calderic lava-beds, unbloodied, stratospheric thermal streams, and all the seamless other cosmos of Earth-strewn and -stewarded environs that, though hostile, hospitably sanction life — that’s crusted under this atmosphere, that sum of all the gaseous air on Earth, and on this hydrosphere, that sum of all Earth’s seas, cryosphere, that sum of all Earth’s frosted seas, and lithosphere, that abiotic, musty core of heat, compressed ore, and stored, tectonic mass that builds the bulk of Earth — as, itself, a living organism —
So-named Gaia, the Grecian Mother Goddess of this Earth.
2000—2009.1999—1999.2000—2009.1990—1999.2000—2009.Unknown.Like all living organisms, Gaia is subject to death.
Like all living organisms, Gaia is subject to life.
And in the vital end: we, who are the nervous system of Gaia, are subject to Gaia. Its death is ours. Its life is ours. We choose which.
The Gaia Hypothesis posits that, since Gaia — that gilded totality of atmosphere, biosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, and lithosphere engorging us in greenery — exhibits every aspect of a living organism, that Gaia is a living organism; that, by extrapolation of what we see about the Earth from what we know about ourselves, we know the Earth; and that, specifically, we glean this knowledge by:
Or, inspecifically, that Gaia is a living organism because it demonstrates the fruits, effects, and intelligible behaviours of a living organism — that
Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
— Matthew, 7:16-20.
Which tree is Gaia, and what the nature of its fruit? Inprecisely, in no precise order, these are:
Gaia exhibits negative feedback cycles.
These cycles proactively suppresses disturbance, turbulence, and turbines of problematic change on Earth, on behalf of life on Earth. The suppression is typically “gentle,” consisting of coevolved, interlocked chains of gradual threat response; and is, therefore, Gaia’s ideal means of preventing incipient problems from proceeding.
Terrestrial examples include carbon sequestration, heat absorption, and acid rain extraction and amelioration by forests, oceans, and oceanic tides of ice.
Small-scale examples include homeopathy, herbalism, Ayuverda, and Five Elements theory.
Gaia also exhibits positive feedback cycles.
These cycles proactively corrects disturbance, turbulance, and turbines of problematic change on Earth, on behalf of life on Earth, when negative feedback cycles of homeostatic suppresion, above, fail to allay these problems. These corrections are typefied, unpleasantly, by phase change {a} from the pre-problematic start-state {b} to transient, tumultuous mid-states of death and reification {c} into the post-problematic, end-state of stability and sustainable ease; and, being unpleasant, are best avoided by earnest self-correction of that problem prior to Gaia’s end-game intervention.
Terrestrial examples include climate change (via which Gaia converts agriculture- and culture-accommodating, predictable admixtures of wet- and dryness into agriculture- and culture-unaccommodating, unpredictable messes of atmospheric catastrophe), infectious diseases (via which Gaia “restabilizes” excess masses of extremely invasive species; see the Human immunodeficiency virus), vegetative expansion of poison ivy and oak through “edge areas” (via which Gaia insinuates herself from undeveloped, sprawling forests into formerly forested, suburban developments through dusty-edged, weed-fringed lanes between the two), and chittering, skin-chiding expansion of deer and horse flies and mosquitoes through “edge areas” on wetlands and ticks and fleas through “edge areas” on drylands (via which Gaia insinuates the same, obstructs the industrialization of those areas, and, in general, accomplishes her green purpose).
Small-scale examples include (of course) that mewling chorus of microbacteria, retroviruses, and spastic larvae that, even as we discourse, are endeavouring, slowly, to sow and stow themselves into the corded leaves of your life.
Gaia also exhibits stable, solar-driven cycles — behaving neither negatively or positively, but only seasonally — distributing the stuff and foodstuffs of life on Earth across the Earth .
Terrestrial examples include wind, water, nutrient, and seed corridors and currents, caused by green causeways of meal- and moisture-networking forests and oceans, and wayward lunges of megafaunal and -floral emigration and migration, caused by the same.
Small-scale examples include your central and circulatory nervous systems that, in coursing blood, viscera, and nervous spikes of thoughtful impulse through pulsating, pus-elongating tubes, are central to your life.
Gaia, lastly, could (hypothetically) participate in cosmic-wide, positive feedback cycles of reproduction via which life-abetting planets re-beget their life to formerly life-adverse, neighboring planets, then life-abetting galaxies beget their life to formerly life-adverse, neighboring galaxies, and so on — in astro-utopian chain of Carl Sagan-ish extrusion of life throughout not only this univense, but the multiversual collection of all universes. Though, this is only posited:
Conceivably, the Earth could reconceive itself via anthropogenic, human-fueled establishment of Earth-endemic life onto “extraterrestrial,” other planets.
Extraterrestrial examples include NASA’s recent interest in psuedo-permanent lunar “bases,” ongoing intrigues of Martian discovery (and discoveries of life-abiding, abundant water, there), and the Selfish Biocosm Hypothesis.
Small-scale examples include, but are hardly limited to, you.
The Gaia Hypothesis suggests a suite of psuedonyms for Gaia, Greecian Mother Goddess of the Earth — Rhea, Hepa, Tellus, Wikipedia:Cybele, Wikipedia:Potnia Theron, Wikipedia:Magna Mater, Terra Mater, Jörð, Papatuanuku, Wikipedia:Mama Pacha, and, in the languished end, simply Wikipedia:Earth — and sister name of unborn progeny — Luna, Wikipedia:Earth‘s life extended to the Moon.