Real Climate review of ‘Revenge of Gaia’ February 13, 2006
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Environment, Reviews , trackbackFor a far more scientific take on James Lovelock’s Revenge of Gaia than my own reviews, pop over to Real Climate and take a look. This site is excellent for explanations of climate science which are understandable by the lay reader with an interest in science, a GCSE level background and a willingness to concentrate for a few minutes.
The writer’s interest is in the climate science arguements made by Lovelock, rather than the political ones, and he makes some interesting points. His criticism that Lovelock has a tendency to argue by analogy is a very true, because it proves nothing although it provides a way to understand something which is proven by some other method. The book is not an academic treatise though, and Lovelock is trying to explain difficult concepts to a lay audience.
I’m not convinced by all of his points, but then I’m not a scientist and its very difficult to really assess the scientific content of the book or any rebuttal of it from a lay point of view. I don’t see what CO2 absorbtion by rock weathering has to do with the ability of the planet to absorb excess CO2 generated by humans though. Rock weather takes of the order of thousands of years, and anthropogenic CO2 has mostly appeared in the last 200 with a small contribution before that from agriculture etc.
And he quotes Lynn Marguilis ‘Gaia is simply symbiosis as seen from space’ - I rather like that.
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