The Idea of Gaia

In Garrad’s book chapter, “Pollution,” he touches on the idea of the earth as one living organism. This hypothesis is known as Gaia, and was originally constructed by James Lovelock in Gaia: a New Look at Life on Earth. Lovelock believed that planet earth is some type of super-organism due to the complex ability of the planet to self-regulate itself through a number of systems on the planet. This theory believes that all biotic and abiotic factors on the planet all combine to make up one entire functioning and self-regulating system.

I find this hypothesis very interesting for a number of reasons. It seems like a very obscure theorem, and when I first heard about it i found it hard to believe that the Earth could be seen as a singular super-organism. However, having had a background in Ecology since I was a junior in high school this hypothesis seems realistic. If we look at one particular ecosystem, say the Amazon Rainforest of Brazil, we are able to see that everything from a particular rock to every living organism has a particular interaction within the ecosystem as a whole. A rock within the Amazon can play a part in a number of various ecosystems from land to the ocean. For example rocks may break down through weathering and eventually contribute minerals into the soil. These minerals can make their way into a river through erosion and eventually can make their way into the ocean as they are carried with the rivers flow into the South Atlantic Ocean.

Why is this analogy important to the theory of Gaia one might ask? If a rock can have interactions with more than just the location where it was originally formed, it seems likely that other biotic and abiotic factors have a greater significance to the entire earth than just the specific location where they are found. I like to look at everything on earth as being part of an ongoing cycle. Every ecosystem is like a small part of a machine that plays a part in making up the entire machine. There is no locale on earth that is separated from any other location. A bunch of small ecosystems interact to make one large ecosystem which we call Earth.

To learn more about the Gaia Hypothesis check out this link on youtube of an interview of James Lovelock himself.

This theory can be seen within the movie Avatar as well.

-Andrew Logan