Earth's Climate Crisis and the Fate of Humanity
by James Lovelock
Gaia Theory tells us that the entire Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, functions as a single living superorganism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says the theory's founder, James Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born 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 - and in the meantime, humanity faces a severe test. 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, force much of humanity to flee to the poles, and threaten civilization along the way. In the tradition of Silent Spring and The Diversity of Life, this is a call to action to address a major threat to our collective future.
"Starred review. Lovelock's pro-nuke enthusiasm, unexpected from one of the mid-20th century's most ardent environmental thinkers, is the well-reasoned core of this urgent call for braking at the brink of global catastrophe." - PW
"His final testament about the catastrophe of global warming is probably the most important book for decades." - Daily Telegraph
This information about The Revenge of Gaia was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
For the other point of view see Nuclear Power is Not The Answer by Helen Caldecott, publishing in September.
Choose an author as you would a friend
Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.