Gaia's Body: Toward a Physiology of Earth (Paperback)
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Description
The concept of Gaia resonates with a wide range of people -- from naturelovers, theologians, and philosophers to environmental and earth systems scientists.The term, which scientist James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hyposthesis, borrowed from Greek mythology, refers to the interacting system of life, soil, atmosphere, and ocean. Like the interiors of organisms, Gaia contains complex cyclesand material transformations driven by biological energy. Gaia's inclusion of lifemeans that from some perspectives it resembles life. But Gaia also differs fromorganisms in significant ways. Although it has changed through time, it does notevolve in a Darwinian sense. Whereas organisms are open, flow-through systems, Gaiais relatively closed to material transfer across its borders. It exists according toits own level of operating rules, a level as complex as that of organisms and thesubject of the emerging field known as Earth physiology, or geophysiology.Blendingscience and evocative imagery, Gaia's Body offers an engaging introduction to thisnew field. It explains how every important chemical in the atmosphere is regulatedby living processes -- why, for example, strange, spaghetti-like bacteria off thecoast of Chile have an intimate connection with the plants in Long Island backyards;why "biochemical guilds" may be Earth's most important unit of life; and howscientists have detected the biosphere's "breathing." The book includes a Prefacewritten for the paperback edition.
