In The Christian Science Monitor,
Moises Velasquez-Manoff reviews the new book ‘The Medea Hypothesis’
that ‘looks at the opposite of the Gaia hypothesis and suggests that
life on Earth is self-destructive.’
The Gaia hypothesis, first formulated in the 1960s by the British
scientist James Lovelock as the “earth feedback hypothesis,” suggests
that ‘every living thing on Earth worked in concert to keep conditions
at a certain equilibrium, or homeostasis, that was optimum for life.’
The “ecological hypothesis
proposes that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth
(atmosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere and lithosphere) are closely
integrated to form a complex interacting system that maintains the climatic and biogeochemical conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis.” It views the Earth as a single organism.
Velasquez-Manoff describes what is now a theory, or one step above
hypothesis, as organic life being some sort of unconscious
geoengineering.
A counter-hypothesis has now sprung to debunk the Gaia theory. Peter
Ward, a noted paleontologist at the University of Washington, Seattle,
calls it the Medea hypothesis in his new book entitled Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?
Ward believes that ‘by its very nature, life on Earth will
ultimately lead to a premature end to conditions favorable to life on
Earth.’ Directly antithetical with the former thinking that influenced
earth sciences
and ecology much, Ward proposes that ‘life will cause its own end long
before our sun, which will start expanding into a red giant in about 1
billion years, begins baking the biosphere away.’
For Ward, ‘the major long-term problem facing life on Earth is not global warming,
but the gradual drawdown of carbon from the atmosphere by
photosynthetic organisms.’ He paints a grimmer picture by saying that
‘in the future, life’s hunger for carbon will inevitably lead to a
paucity of what’s a fundamental building block of life, adding that this is the single greatest challenge facing life on this planet.’
There is hope, of course, in stalling the inevitable. Foresight and
planning, two things human beings can do, can extend their survival in
the universe. The future is in their hands. The choice is theirs.
Photo: Wikipedia
