If Lovelock's Too Upbeat For You, Check This Out - The Medea Hypothesis, From Peter (Green Sky) Ward

[hatrack]

EDIT

But actually it is the Gaia view that is out of kilter, says Peter Ward, a University of Washington paleontologist who has looked closely at conditions that existed during numerous mass extinction events in Earth's history. In a new book, he suggests the planet ultimately is inhospitable to life, and that life itself might be the primary reason. Rather than Gaia, he invokes the darker Medea from Greek mythology.

"The Medea hypothesis says life is already shutting down Earth as a habitable planet. Not just the diversity of life, but the actual biomass," Ward said. "Life keeps evolving, and there are unintended, often negative, consequences."

"The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?" was published in April by Princeton University Press. In the 208-page book, Ward argues that humans have to use engineering to manage their environment or face potential extinction if the Earth is left to manage itself. "The engineering I'm talking about is not girders and sky shields. It's engineering microbes to take over food production and energy production," he said.

Microbes have undergone evolution, a sort of natural engineering, throughout Earth's history, he said, and humans have the ability to guide such changes to clean the environment, for example, or regulate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Like Gaia, Medea is a mythological character, though she is decidedly much darker in nature. Medea was married to Jason at the time he pursued the Golden Fleece but, according to legend, he left her and in revenge she killed their two children.

EDIT

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Earth_Perhaps_Not_Such_A_Benevolent_Mother_After_All_999.html

[GliderGuider]

1. I knew that if anyone could out-doom Lovelock it would be Ward.

The end is in sight...

[Tace]

2. Lovelock Has Been Very Pessimistic Lately

"It's going too fast," he says softly. "We will burn."

Why is that?

"Our global furnace is out of control. By 2020, 2025, you will be able to sail a sailboat to the North Pole. The Amazon will become a desert, and the forests of Siberia will burn and release more methane and plagues will return."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090101800.html?nav=rss_nation/science

[Dead_Parrot]

3. Ah, now there's a man who takes his doom seriously.

50 year-old single malt doom from the Island of Certain Death, for the doom connoisseur.

[XemaSab]

4. Even though I am not one of the brighter rays of sunshine on this board

this analogy is a bit silly.

First of all, life on earth is not going to shut down. We might shut down, sure, but life on earth? Unlikely.

Secondly, this planet is very hospitable to life. Name another planet more hospitable. Yeah, you can't. If there's an ecosystem niche that can be exploited, something will evolve to exploit it. Epiphitic cacti, fairy shrimp, giant whales, extremophilic bacteria... they're all out there, and they're all happy with their respective niches. Two of these examples, shrimp and whales, open up niches for other species, and so forth.

I'm not too worried about all life on earth going extinct, for the present.