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PLANET TERRESTRIAL

Diagram of Gaia: The Earth system and feedback loop

  • by James LOVELOCK

In the 1970s, chemist and engineer James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis started to work together. Their major achievement was the discovery of the Gaia Hypothesis (1979), which could also be called the Earth system. According to them, Gaia designates “the biosphere and all of those parts of the Earth with which it actively interacts.”

As you can see in this diagram, Lovelock compared Gaia to a cybernetic system: feedback loops make it possible to keep the planet within a set of boundaries favorable to life, just like a thermostat would keep the temperature within a certain range. This system regulates itself on its own through interactions between living organisms and their inorganic environment. For example, the stability of temperature and other environmental variables such as chemical composition of the atmosphere and oceans are all affected by the activity of the biosphere.

Credit © James Lovelock/Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library– All rights reserved.

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