Global Warming? James McElroy Recommends "The Revenge of Gaia"

James McElroy writes:

Have you read James Lovelock's recently published (in the US) book titled, "The Revenge of GAIA"? If not, I recommend that you contact your local library and put a hold on the first copy available. I was able to get a copy fairly fast and I have not seen any prominent reviews. It is a small book, 177 pages with appendices, but has enough sharp words to offend almost everyone. It is refreshing to read analysis, written in plain language, that clearly elucidate events and processes that no one wants to hear about.

I have not read the book, but I am familiar with James Lovelock. When I was a graduate student at the University of Arizona in the 80's, my advising professor, George Dawson, was something of an acolyte of Lovelock, and would occasionally travel on pilgrimage to Lovelock's cottage in remote, rural England, where Lovelock would hand craft the most sensitive gas chromatographs in the world for NASA space probes, and innumerable other purposes, like intelligence work. Dawson would return raving about Lovelock, and I think it was clear that he yearned to be the kind of scientist that Lovelock was: genuinely independent, free from petty university details, and at the cutting edge of research, all at the same time.

Dawson was skeptical of the more spiritual applications of the Gaian concept, meaning that while the Earth might be acting as an organism, it did not have a 'soul'. Actually, I don't think Lovelock went that far either, but some of Lovelock's followers did.

We also once saw a talk by Lovelock's colleague Lynn Margulis. I had hoped for more details, but I was disappointed: it was a mixed audience and Margulis spent too much time on general aspects of Gaia.

Lovelock's sharp words have the disagreeable aspect of likely being true. Unfortunate, that.