Evolving Theory Views Earth as a Living Organism
The Earth proper - its crustal rocks, oceans and atmosphere - and the life on it have evolved together as a single, tightly coupled system. The system compensates for changes in the global climate by adjusting the rates at which such gases as oxygen, methane and carbon dioxide are produced and removed from the atmosphere. This effectively holds the climate within bounds favorable to life as a whole.
But there are limits to this capacity for regulation. The environment can be changed too much by cataclysms like meteor or asteroid impacts or, increasingly, by human activity. If that happens, the environmental changes can overwhelm the efforts of the system to regulate itself and can force the climate to a new and different stable state: either a sharply higher or lower global temperature, for instance. As a result, some species will be extinguished and others will flourish. This, Dr. Lovelock believes, is likely responsible for the mass extinctions of Earth's remote past.
Evolving Theory Views Earth as a Living Organism - NYTimes.com
The Earth proper - its crustal rocks, oceans and atmosphere - and the life on it have evolved together as a single, tightly coupled system. The system compensates for changes in the global climate by adjusting the rates at which such gases as oxygen, methane and carbon dioxide are produced and removed from the atmosphere. This effectively holds the climate within bounds favorable to life as a whole.
But there are limits to this capacity for regulation. The environment can be changed too much by cataclysms like meteor or asteroid impacts or, increasingly, by human activity. If that happens, the environmental changes can overwhelm the efforts of the system to regulate itself and can force the climate to a new and different stable state: either a sharply higher or lower global temperature, for instance. As a result, some species will be extinguished and others will flourish. This, Dr. Lovelock believes, is likely responsible for the mass extinctions of Earth's remote past.
Evolving Theory Views Earth as a Living Organism - NYTimes.com