Just Finished Reading: The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock
This book was just SO disappointing. I read two of his previous books outlining Gaia theory (basically that the Earth reacts to change as if it were a living organism) and thought that the idea was well thought out and had great merit.
Then he goes and ruins it all by writing this…… polemic. What a waste.
In the book Professor Lovelock came across as a bitter old man who has foreseen the end of human civilisation and wants to tell the world about it. Typically these people wander the streets of London holding placards with quotes from the Bible on them, but in this case the author acquired a book deal on the back of his reputation.
The book is pro-nuclear, anti sustainable development and dismissive of environmentalism – except rather strangely the ‘Deep Greens’ who value the natural world far above mere humanity. It also put forward what I thought was the absurd idea that we are already doomed and, as in the disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, we should try and save as many people and as much of our hard won knowledge as we can.
In my opinion Professor Lovelock is being far too pessimistic. Sure, Global Warming is very real and is a ‘real and present’ danger but he takes the implications too far. Whilst true that many will die before everyone recognises the level of the threat we face I don’t think that we are anywhere need the end of civilisation scenario that Lovelock paints. Humanity is pretty stupid I agree. But we’re not that stupid. Even I have more faith in us that that. When pushed into a corner we have a great ability to move Heaven and Earth to fix things. Obviously the longer we wait the worse things will get but I have confidence in our ability as survivors. All is definitely not lost – unless maybe you believe this book.
4 comments:
I've never read his stuff ... and based on your review, I might have to pass.
The pessimism that you describe is in stark contrast to Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth. Sure, he describes the destruction that we are causing to our planet but he comes across as very optimistic. We have the tools and the time to change. We just need the will.
dbackdad said: We have the tools and the time to change. We just need the will.
Indeed we do. We just need a bit more motivation to get off our asses and do something!
I certainly can't recommend this book but his two others: "Gaia - A new look at life on Earth" and "The Ages of Gaia" are well worth a read. The Gaia Hypothosis is an interesting one... I just think he might have gone a bit funny in his old age....
I never liked the whole Gaia theory - apart from seeming pretty stupid, it also seemed rather, well, theistic i guess.
I never forgave Asimov for sending humanity down that route when I read (& loved) his foundation books as a teenager, and any sci-fi that I've read that tries to flesh out the theory either gets particularly tied up in knots trying to explain itself, or becomes distastefully morbid.
I'll keep my planet inert & scientific thanks very much:-)
I think Gaia Theory got a bad name when it was taken on board by the Greens and adopted as some sort of mystical Earth Mother thing (as the original Gaia was, of course)
But the Lovelock idea is actually rather scientific... [grin].
I haven't gone all 'theistic' on you at all.... [chuckle].
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