"The Gaia Theory
posits that the organic and inorganic components of Planet Earth
have evolved together as a single living, self-regulating
system. It suggests that this living system has automatically
controlled global temperature, atmospheric content,
ocean salinity, and other factors, that maintains its own
habitability. In a phrase, 'Life maintains conditions suitable
for its own survival.'
"In this respect, the living system
of Earth can be thought of as analogous to the workings of
any individual organism that regulates body temperature, blood
salinity,
etc.
So,
for instance, even though the luminosity of the sun—the
Earth’s
heat source—has increased by about 30 percent since
life began almost four billion years ago, the living system
has reacted as a
whole to maintain temperatures at levels suitable for life."
"The Gaia theory was developed
in the late 1960’s by James
Lovelock,
a British Scientist and inventor, shortly after his work
with NASA in determining that there was probably no life
on Mars. His research
led to profound new insights about life on Earth. The theory
gained an early supporter in Lynn
Margulis, a microbiologist
at the University of Massachusetts.
In the past 15-20 years, many
of the mechanisms by which Earth self-regulates have been identified.
As one example, it has been shown that cloud formation over the
open
ocean is almost entirely a function of the metabolism of oceanic
algae that emit a large sulfur molecule (as a waste gas) that
becomes the
condensation nuclei for raindrops. Previously, it was thought
that cloud formation over the ocean was a purely chemical/physical
phenomenon.
The cloud formation not only helps regulate Earth’s temperature,
it is an important mechanism by which sulfur is returned to terrestrial
ecosystems." Source: Gaia
theory
