Variation 7 from Gaian Variations by Nathan Currier

7. Lovelock: What is Gaia?

The name Gaia is not a synonym for the biosphere. Still less is Gaia the same as the biota, which is just the collection of all living things. The biota and the biosphere taken together form part but not all of Gaia. Just as the shell is part of a snail, so the rocks, the air and the oceans are part of Gaia. There is no clear distinction anywhere on the Earth’s surface between living and nonliving matter. There is merely a hierarchy of intensity going from the ‘material’ environment of the rocks and the atmosphere to the living cells. At some time early in the Earth’s history before life existed, the solid earth, the atmosphere, and the oceans were still evolving by the laws of chemistry alone. It was careering, downhill, to the lifeless steady state of a planet almost at equilibrium. Briefly, in its headlong flight through the ranges of chemical and physical states, it entered a stage favorable for life. At some special time in that stage, the newly formed living cells grew until their presence so affected the Earth’s environment as to halt the headlong dive towards equilibrium. At that instant, the living things and the rocks, the air and the oceans, merged to form the new entity, Gaia. Just as when the sperm merges with the egg, new life was conceived. Life is a planetary-scale phenomenon. On this scale it is near immortal and has no need to reproduce. There can be no partial occupation of a planet by living organisms. It would be as impermanent as half an animal. The presence of sufficient living organisms on a planet is needed for the regulation of the environment. Where there is incomplete occupation, the ineluctable forces of physical and chemical evolution would soon render it uninhabitable.

• Classical
• best new music
• contemporary
• contemporary classical
• new music
• New York