Book review: James Lovelock's 'Revenge of Gaia' 26 February 06

Mark, first let me say congratulations on the award. When is “Six Degrees” due?

Now, in reacting to your NS review “vigorously” I run a risk as I have not read JL’s latest but I have a pile of other stuff to read which I think, quite frankly, will be more useful. I thought I’d just say that in the interests of transparency. But here goes.

Your NS piece reads more like a summary of the book rather than a rigorous, critical review of Lovelock’s ideas. There are points where I’m not sure whether you are more or less quoting JL, giving us your interpretation or, in fact, indicating your agreement. This does not help when JL mixes some useful observations with other frankly eccentric positions. Pinning this Gaia stuff down is like trying to nail jelly to a wall. Whether his words or yours the phrase “almost as if it were itself an organism” illustrates the point. A kind comment here would be to refer to the use of the word “almost” as creating wriggle room but it reads more like a weasel word to me. Here are some other extracts which cause me concern. “[A]ssuage Gaia’s wrath” indicates anthropomorphism to me. “We are entering a new hot age, one that human civilisation will almost certainly not survive.” This sort of alarmism can lead to fatalism or despair. “[R]adioactive waste in his back garden”. I know he’s not serious but this is plain barking and really quite irresponsible. “[S]tartling is … uummm … an understatement! I could continue.

Why does JL continue to command such respect and deference? It’s not just you and those I’ve mention in previous posts below. Andrew Marr on Radio 4 the other week was, I thought, ill-informed and little short of sycophantic when interviewing JL.

Warnings about AGW abound. They are necessary but simply repeating these and adding to them is not enough. I think we need to move to the next stage. “Saving the planet” necessitates getting to grips with the science, the politics, the psychology and the marketing. It is to the marketing we need to turn for ideas and inspiration which will help us overcome the head in the sand inertia that is all around us. Ask the NS to get you to review Chris Rose’s “How to Win Campaigns” and Stephen Hounsham of Transport 2000’s “Painting the Town Green”.

BTW Ferries run between Britain and Scandinavia!

Douglas Coker

Douglas, you’re a harsh critic – I hope Six Degrees isn’t judged in the same way! (BTW, I’m on Ch4 – the four degrees world – two more to go! – publication is slated for spring 2007).

Sounds like you’re no fan of the Gaia hypothesis. Fine. It’s really only a metaphor though – even Lovelock isn’t saying that the planet is really alive. For more on how real scientists view the theory, check out RealClimate’s book review.

Sorry about summarising so much of the book. I was trying to give potential readers a sense of it. All words are mine unless in direct “quotes”.

And I know that ferries run between the UK and Sweden – I was booked on one for my Sweden tour, but the damn ferry company cancelled the sailings both ways! I do try, you know…

Douglas – have you read the review on RealClimate, written by David Archer? This was the most interesting review I have read in that it was written by a climate scientist who has studied a lot of the issues discussed by Lovelock.

There are some areas where David Archer questions with Lovelock – for example, he writes about the ‘weak Gaia hypothesis’ which he states is now pretty much scientific consensus, and the ‘strong Gaia hypothesis’ which is not, and he says that it is sometimes not clear where Lovelock himself stands. He also questions whether the glacials were better for the biosphere than the interglacials, and of course Lovelock suggests a very high sulphour-aerosol cooling effect even though there is no scientific certainty as to how high exactly that effect is.

However, as a reader thinking about the future of life on earth, the differences between the two authors seem pretty slim. Perhaps the interglacials have been ideal – it’s just that we are leaving them behind us pretty much for good. If Lovelock puts the cooling effect of aerosols, and thus climate sensitivity higher than others then we are still left with the fact that as some stage we will reach all the tipping points he describes – nobody knows exactly when, but we all know we are heading in that direction. I did not get the impression that David Archer or indeed many (with two exceptions) of the authors on RealClimate have a much less gloomy vision for a ‘business as usual’ scenario.

Personally, I find the Lovelock book optimistic in that he believes that the living earth will almost certainly survive and regenerate itself – he does not explain exactly how that will happen or how the climate will stabilise, but he obviously has studied the paleoclimate and extincion events quite closely.

Almuth Ernsting

Almuth and Mark – I detect a pattern.

David Archer, the RC reviewer, is both familiar with and sympathetic to JL and Gaia. But even DA stops short of being emphatic that Gaia really stands up. The article is quite technical in parts and I’m not a natural science graduate but I note DA says “I personally don’t understand how a Gaian biota would be stable, …. ” and “Argument by analogy is a powerful rhetorical tool, at which Lovelock is a master. Reasoning by analogy however is not a reliable divining rod for scientific discovery.”

In the comments there is the seemingly inevitable debate about what JL actually said. See 13. This in comment 16 “The real problem seems to be that the strong Gaia hypothesis is not a scientific theory, since no specific mechanism for these processes is suggested. Until a mechanism is identified it’s all just a nice “vision,” as you put it.” See also 40, 47 and 48.

And DA in response to 44 says “It’s all very slippery.” I rest my case.

The pattern? Sympathetic, maybe deferential commentators pay attention to JL and Gaia. Much head scratching and debate follows. We end up no clearer or any further forward. Meantime unnecessarily alarmist ideas get an airing, nuclear is promoted and wind energy dismissed. And this is going to help us save the planet?

Mark, JL needed taking to task and I think you missed an opportunity. I may sound harsh but I will praise where appropriate and criticise when necessary. Meanwhile I’m disappointed.

We should be dealing with hard science. Slippery metaphors don’t do it for me.

Douglas Coker

Douglas – I still don’t quite agree with you, I’m afraid. Archer is quite correct in saying that analogies and metaphors are no substitute for logic and reasoning. But Lovelock’s forte is that he’s seeing the whole picture, of the Earth as an entire system – something which particular models or investigations into particular bits of the system (ENSO, carbon cycle etc) will miss, whatever their other insights. So I think we should take Lovelock’s gut feeling seriously, because he’s had the insight in the past to see beyond the nitty-gritty. It also chimes somewhat with my own gut feeling that we’re in big trouble, though in Six Degrees I’m being much more precise – I’m avoiding anything which isn’t supported by hard scientific evidence, whether from paleo studies or modelling. I don’t have the experience or the inclination to make Lovelockian sweeping assertions. And I don’t see just a “few breeding pairs” left in the Arctic or something like he says – like Archer I can’t see any mechanism which would extinguish humanity wholesale.

Douglas, I am fascinated by the way Lovelock’s writings antagonise many people, including yourself – people who (I presume) would fully agree with the chair of the IPCC, Sir David King or James Hansen making predictions at least as dire and alarming as Lovlock does.

True, Lovelock got some things wrong in the past (eg with regard to ozone depletion). James Hansen recently said that all the models about sea level rises that he and NASA GISS had developed over many years and which fed into the IPCC Third Assessment Report are ‘worthless’ and got the basic physics wrong. That’s something pretty major to have got wrong indeed (and it seems to be in the nature of science to not be able to predict absolutely exactly where out big experiment with the planet will go). Yet you will probably share most people’s great respect for Hansen and for his honesty.

I suggested before it might be his language, but you said no. Could it be his faith in nuclear power (I’ve never heard even of the nuclear energy making such big claims for its potential as he does, at least not in the past few years)? Or his concerns over renewable energies? But then you have great scientists like Wally Broeckner making quite, well, remarkable, claims about carbon sequestrtion solving it all, yet even if he is wrong there it does not diminish his standing as a climate scientists.

Or is it the fact that Lovelock’s Quaker upbringing and interest in deep ecology and the spiritual side of Christianity feeds into his writings? Strangely enough, reading Dawkins evokes similar negative feelings in me as reading Lovelock does in you – which makes me wonder whether the religious background and the language which might stem from it may be the real issue.

Almuth

Perhaps what the data from these great scientists indicate is this: Homo sapiens is a species, a creature of Earth, a humanimal and an integral part of the natural order of living things. No more, no less.

Thanks yet again.

Mark and Almuth

Prior to the recent debate prompted by “The Revenge … ” I’ve paid little attention to JL and Gaia. While I’ve been vaguely aware of the Gaia idea for years, if not decades, I’ve not read any of JL’s books and so my impressions have been formed on the basis of casual social conversations. I’d concluded that Gaia was not worth considering seriously. A couple of those advocating Gaia were not known for their “intellectual rigour” and/or had fried their brains with too many hallucinogens.

More recently, maybe a year ago, something prompted me to check out JL and Gaia. I bought and read “Lovelock & Gaia” by Jon Turney. Some of my comments below, in previous posts, are informed by this book. I ended up better informed but still less than impressed and concur with Turney’s conclusion that Gaia is a “ramshackle” theory. If someone cares to read this book for confirmation or otherwise I’d be happy to read their (brief) comments.

Another concern comes from my studying sociology as an undergraduate in the 70s. (The 1970s!) Talcott Parsons, he of structural functionalism fame, argued that human society was analogous to an organism. From this he read off right-wing conservative conclusions as to the “proper” form our societies should take. See his “Essays in Sociological Theory”. Now without homeostasis individual human beings bodies would not be able to self-regulate and we would die of cold or heat or something.

But human societies do not need to be like Parsons preferred USA, despite what Bush and his neo-con minders say. Neither has this planet existed in exactly the same state for 4.5 billion years. It happens to be hospitable and able to sustain life as we know it for the moment but it hasn’t always been like this and won’t be like this in the (hopefully far distant) future. You can maybe see why any writer making an analogy between the self-regulating human organism and society or the planet gets my BS detector twitching like mad.

I’ve also take the trouble to check if any of the many authors on AGW/CC and related issues I’ve read recently, or am about to read, refer to JL and/or Gaia. Many including Porritt, Gelbspan, Weart, Simms and Mark in “High Tide”, make absolutely no reference. Some, for instance, Sir Martin Rees in “Our Final Century” make a passing reference to the Gaia concept of a “self-regulating organism”. p24. Others, such as Bill McKibben in “The End of Nature”, see JL as saying “ … planet earth is … in fact a living organism” p166. Later p168-9 he explains that Gaia can exist is more than one steady state not all of which will sustain life as we know it. Jeremy Rifkin drops in a few rather uncritical pages on Gaia at the end of “The Hydrogen Economy”.

In addition nowhere do I get any indication that JL has been involved in the work of the IPCC, or the Tyndall Centre or the Hadley Centre. Let me know if I’ve missed something but as far as I can see mainstream climate scientist, cutting edge, he is not.

All of which brings me to the current debate.

Mark, stepping back and taking in the big picture is absolutely necessary. Seeing the interconnectedness of the parts is also necessary. In the fields of politics and development economics look no further than Karl Marx and, for instance, Andre Gunder Frank for prime examples of thinking which has led to a much clearer understanding of political power and processes.

So I’ve been informed and inspired in the process of my intellectual development. Maybe JL is the inspiration for others and as a result he is accorded high status. Fair enough. But none of that should lead us to uncritically accept all that these thinkers present to us. And Mark, to your credit, you indicate that you see problems with JL’s assertions and, as I characterise them, his unnecessarily alarmist statements. The “few breeding pairs”.

Now Almuth that’s where I see a difference between JL and others issuing warnings. While the warnings are obviously necessary, pitched in the wrong way and OTT, the effect is likely to be counterproductive.

Effectiveness is what we need to aim for. Being right in our predictions and warnings is no good if we fail to be effective in pursuing solutions, hence my references to Chris Rose etc. How many have looked at his ideas? Despite it going against the grain for me with my political tradition and current affiliations I do think marketing ideas should be explored. “Big advertising” could disappear overnight as far as I’m concerned but there may be some lessons in there for us.

So JL has proposed a ramshackle, slippery theory, he is not a mainstream climate science player and has the temerity to advocate more nuclear. He’s not just a cautious proponent of nuclear, he’s completely OTT. That does annoy me. Nuclear is presented as a solution by a number of commentators. It’s nothing of the sort. It is far better characterised as a mere short-term “fix” which will be very expensive, dangerous and leave us and future generations with a major long term problem.

On the issue of a religious influence in JL’s writing you are more aware of that then me. My only thought up to now is half expecting him to claim Gaia is the product of intelligent design! For the record – and maybe people of faith should stop reading this now. Religion is a social construct, that is, a set of ideas created by human beings for their own purposes including political domination over others. There is no God. Even the most mild mannered people of faith when questioned about their beliefs very quickly abandon reason and have to resort to references to faith, or maybe revealed truth or they tell you the (insert “BOOK” of choice) says …. ! Full stop, end of story no thinking allowed past this point. Religion – what’s it for and who needs it? See “The Jesus Mysteries” by Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy for more. Enough on religion – after all I’m not posting at http://www.paulkingsnorth.net/blog.html

I remain puzzled by the attention and adulation JL receives. As far as I’m concerned JL and Gaia are a distraction. Let’s move on!

Douglas Coker

PS As a footnote I offer all the above with the aim of us making collective progress on, AGW/CC, which is the most serious issue I’ve addressed in my lifetime. While I recognise that some may be upset by my forthrightness and views there is absolutely no animosity on my part to those I’ve debated with in this discussion. Vigorous debate is healthy and necessary.

You say you’d concluded Gaia was not worth taking seriously because a couple “not known for their intellectual vigour” advocated it? Suppose they had advocated “giving peace a chance”, would you have dismissed that too? [an appeal to authority fallacy]

Next you seem to conclude that because of an unrelated political argument [apples/oranges fallacy] and the fact the planet has not existed in exactly the same state for 4.5 billion years, that an analogy with human homeostatis is not valid.
The point Lovelock makes (many times) is that somehow this planet has remained able to support life for billions of years. DNA has had an environment where it has been able to keep on reproducing itself for all that time – despite the sun getting progressively hotter. How has the planet been able to do this? This is at the core of Gaia theory. Nowhere do you provide a (non-fallacious) counter-argument.

Next you quote what various other authors have said about the Gaia theory, and seem to imply that because some make no reference, this has some kind of relevence. [appeal to authority fallacy]

Then you state that because Lovelock has not been involved in three organisations you name, that he is therefore not a cutting edge, mainstream climate scientist.
So what? Galileo did not adhere to the teachings of the Catholic Church, should we therefore dismiss his beliefs concerning the solar system?

You may feel that Lovelock is alarmist and OTT, but you cannot logically conclude that he is wrong based on your feelings. He may yet be proven right; in which case we will see that he was neither “alarmist” nor “OTT”. Lovelock and many others have tried the understated approach – it hasn’t worked. Is it not a sign of intelligence to try alternatives?

You are quite right in saying that we should not uncritically accept what is presented to us, but fallacious criticisms advance nothing.

Next you appear to be outraged because he does not adhear to your beliefs concerning nuclear power. You make an unsupported statement that nuclear is “a very expensive” and “short term fix”. There is no attempt to counter Lovelock’s many arguments for nuclear power. Can you not suggest alternatives? Lovelock does, and provides reasons for his opinions on all of them. This really matters.

You say you are “puzzled by the attention and adulation JL receives.” Given the above points, perhaps you can begin to appreciate why I hold so little respect for your BS detector, and why so many people hold so much respect for James Lovelock.

Cheers.

Oh dear I’ve upset someone else. Not my intention. But I’ve just reviewed my stuff on JL and I stand by what I’ve said. I’m not sure you’ve read everything I’ve written carefully enough.

JL continues to baffle me. He predicts catastrophic GW events which must include dramatically rising sea levels AND he advocates more nuclear at existing sites such as Sizewell and Dungeness. Exactly how high above sea level are these sites? Just plain daft!

I think I posted briefly on the nuclear issue somewhere below. I do not rehearse the anti-nuclear arguments every time I mention the word. The ground has been covered ad nauseam in various places. Have a look at Porritt’s recent SDC papers on nuclear. Ring 020 7238 4999 for free copies. And check my nuclear references in my post above (Mark and the Tories!) Visit John Large’s site for useful stuff. http://www.largeassociates.com/

Douglas Coker

Douglas, is it your intention to be wrong about everything? I’m not offended by your position, I am merely testing it to see whether its foundations have any substance. It seems you don’t want “More vigorous debate!” despite saying that it’s “healthy and necessary”. I attack every part of your letter (of relevance) and you make no effort to defend your position. There is always the possibility you can’t. Perhaps you are really one of the “New Greens” and are posing as a target so as to further elevate Lovelock and overcome the prejudice against nuclear power?

You do put forward a single argument here; “[Lovelock] predicts catastrophic GW events which must include dramatically rising sea levels AND he advocates more nuclear at existing sites such as Sizewell and Dungeness. Exactly how high above sea level are these sites? Just plain daft!”

As you may know, Lovelock has already answered this exact question in an interview covered here: http://www.metamute.org/en/node/7382/print Also, I should remind you that sea defenses are nothing new in Britain, and that it would not be a remarkable feat of engineering to protect them from a 3m rise in sea level. What’s daft about that?

You do seem to be able to express yourself well; but that’s not enough to convince many enquiring minds.

Thanks Derek. The Lovelock interview confirms he is very eccentric and also intemperate. He really does say some daft things.

Douglas Coker

Douglas, our rather one-sided debate smacks of Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

“The Lovelock interview confirms he is very eccentric and also intemperate.”

Would one expect a self-supporting inventor, an independent scientist who has published over 200 papers, the originator of perhaps the biggest change in the way we see the functioning of the natural world since Darwin to be just like Joe Blogs down the street?

“He really does say some daft things.”

Really. The Black Knight, sans arms and legs continues to issue challenges from the ground.

Cheery-bye.

I read these posts with interest. Derek Gunn provided a reasonable and well reasoned critique of Douglas Coker’s piece, pointing out the many logical flaws and fallacies in his argument. Given the importance of the subject, the response was both depressing and disappointing. My advice to Coker is that if he wants to engage in vigorous degbate, he really needs to learn how to construct a logical argument. He needs to respond to constructive criticism by answering the points raised, and preferably without making comments of a personal nature.

I am currently reading Lovelock’s latest book, so I don’t want to make any comments on that until I have finished it. But I will say I find Coker’s dismissive attitude to Lovelock absolutely astonishing. Five minutes on the web will reveal the following facts about Lovelock: Educated at Manchester University and The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine; carried out research at Harvard and Yale; worked for NASA on extraterestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces; inventor of the Electron Capture Detector (an instrument that was used in unraveling the role of CFCs in stratospheric ozone depletion); Fellow of the Royal Society; H number of approximately 50. By any standard, this makes Lovelock an exceptionally influential scientist. The only thing Cocker’s dismissive attitude tells me is that Cocker is out of his depth when it comes to solid science.

Does Lovelock’s enimence mean he is right? Of course not! But, in my opinion, his track record earns him the right to a decent hearing and to constructive and objective criticism.

If the best you can manage, Douglas, is to say “he [Lovelock] is eccentric and intemperate, and says some daft things” without backing up these statements, I’d stick to selling second hand cars if I were you!