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An ancestral theory about why conditions on Earth have remained stable enough for life to evolve over billions of years has received an innovative new twist.
For about half a century, the "Gaia" hypothesis has provided a unique way to understand how life has persisted on Earth.
It defends the idea that living organisms and their inorganic environment have evolved together into a single, self-regulating system that has kept the planet habitable for life, despite threats such as a bright sun, volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts.
However, Professor Tim Lenton of Exeter University and the famous French sociologist of science, Professor Bruno Latour, now argue that humans have the potential to "upgrade" this system. planetary exploitation to create "Gaia 2.0".
They believe that the evolution of humans and their technology could add a new level of "self-awareness" to the self-regulation of the Earth, which is at the heart of Gaia's original theory.
As humans become aware of the global consequences of their actions, including climate change, deliberate new self-regulation becomes possible where we limit our impacts on the planet.
Professors Lenton and Latour suggest that this "conscious choice" of self-regulation introduces a "new fundamental state of Gaia – that could help us achieve greater global sustainability in the future.
However, this conscious self-regulation depends on our ability to continually monitor and model the state of the planet and its effects.
Professor Lenton, director of Exeter's new Global Systems Institute, said, "If we want to create a better world for the growing human population of this century, we need to regulate our impacts on our support system and deliberately create a more circular economy that supports, like the biosphere, on the recycling of materials powered by sustainable energy. "
Gaia's original theory was developed in the late 1960s by James Lovelock, a British scientist and inventor. He suggested that the organic and inorganic components of the Earth evolved together to form a unique self-regulating system capable of controlling the temperature and composition of the atmosphere in order to maintain its own habitability.
The new perspective article is published in the leading journal Science September 14, 2018.
It follows recent research, led by Professor Lenton, that brought a new solution to the real workings of Gaia's hypothesis: stability stems from the "sequential selection" in which life destabilizes the environment change up to the point where it can be changed. a stable situation emerges, which then tends to persist.
Once this happens, the system has more time to acquire other properties that help stabilize and maintain it – a process known as "survival only selection".
The creation of transformative solutions to global changes brought about by human beings is a key element of the new Global Systems Institute of Exeter University.
Explore more:
Scientists propose a solution to the "Gaia puzzle"
More information:
T.M. Lenton el al., "Gaia 2.0", Science (2018). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi… 1126 / science.aau0427
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