Scientists Debate Gaia : the Next Century / Edited by Stephen H

Scientists Debate Gaia The Next Century edited by Stephen H. Schneider, James R. Miller, Eileen Crist, and Penelope J. Boston foreword by Pedro Ruiz Torres introductions by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis Scientists Debate Gaia Scientists on Gaia, edited by Stephen H. Schneider and Penelope J. Boston (MIT Press, 1991) and Scientists Debate Gaia: The Next Century, edited by Stephen H. Schneider, James R. Miller, Eileen Crist, and Penelope J. Boston (MIT Press, 2004) originated respectively with the First Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis (San Diego, California), sponsored by the American Geophysical Union, and the Second Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis (Valencia, Spain), sponsored by the American Geophysical Union and the University of Valencia. Scientists Debate Gaia The Next Century edited by Stephen H. Schneider, James R. Miller, Eileen Crist, and Penelope J. Boston The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England 6 2004 Massachusetts Institute of Technology All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was set in Times New Roman on 3B2 by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Scientists debate gaia : the next century / edited by Stephen H. Schneider . [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ). ISBN 0-262-19498-8 (alk. paper) 1. Gaia hypothesis. I. Schneider, Stephen Henry. QH331.S324 2004 577—dc22 2003061532 10 987654321 Contents Foreword by Pedro Ruiz Torres xi Preface xiii Reflections on Gaia 1 James Lovelock Gaia by Any Other Name 7 Lynn Margulis I PRINCIPLES AND PROCESSES 1 Clarifying Gaia: Regulation with or without Natural Selection 15 Timothy M. Lenton 2 Gaia Is Life in a Wasteworld of By-products 27 Tyler Volk 3 Models and Geophysiological Hypotheses 37 Arthur C. Petersen 4 Gaia: Toward a Thermodynamics of Life 45 Eric D. Schneider 5 Gaia, Extended Organisms, and Emergent Homeostasis 57 J. Scott Turner vi Contents 6 Homeostatic Gaia: An Ecologist’s Perspective on the Possibility of Regulation 71 David Wilkinson II EARTH HISTORY AND CYCLES 7 Phosphorus, a Servant Faithful to Gaia? Biosphere Remediation Rather Than Regulation 79 Karl B. Fo¨llmi, Federica Tamburini, Rachel Hosein, Bas van de Schootbrugge, Kaspar Arn, and Claire Rambeau 8 Self-Regulation of Ocean Composition by the Biosphere 93 Lee R. Kump 9 A New Biogeochemical Earth System Model for the Phanerozoic Eon 101 Noam M. Bergman, Timothy M. Lenton, and Andrew J. Watson 10 Gaia and Glaciation: Lipalian (Vendian) Environmental Crisis 115 Mark A. S. McMenamin 11 Does Life Drive Disequilibrium in the Biosphere? 129 David Schwartzman and Tyler Volk 12 Biotic Plunder: Control of the Environment by Biological Exhaustion of Resources 137 Toby Tyrrell vii Contents III PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, AND HUMAN DIMENSIONS OF GAIA 13 Gaia: The Living Earth—2,500 Years of Precedents in Natural Science and Philosophy 151 Bruce Scofield 14 Concerned with Trifles? A Geophysiological Reading of Charles Darwin’s Last Book 161 Eileen Crist 15 Gradient Reduction Theory: Thermodynamics and the Purpose of Life 173 Dorion Sagan and Jessica Hope Whiteside 16 Gaia and Complexity 187 Lee F. Klinger 17 Gaia and Observer Self-selection 201 Andrew J. Watson 18 Taming Gaia: The History of the Dutch Lowlands as an Analogy to Global Change 211 Peter Westbroek 19 Gaia and the Human Species 223 Crispin Tickell viii Contents IV QUANTIFYING GAIA 20 Daisyworld Homeostasis and the Earth System 231 S. L. Weber and J. M. Robinson 21 Salvaging the Daisyworld Parable under the Dynamic Area Fraction Framework 241 K. M. Nordstrom, V. K. Gupta, and T. N. Chase 22 Food Web Complexity Enhances Ecological and Climatic Stability in a Gaian Ecosystem Model 255 Stephan P. Harding 23 Gaia in the Machine: The Artificial Life Approach 267 Keith Downing 24 On Causality and Ice Age Deglaciations 281 Alexandre Casanovas and Vicent Go´mez 25 Amazonian Biogeography as a Test for Gaia 291 Axel Kleidon 26 Modeling Feedbacks between Water and Vegetation in the North African Climate System 297 James R. Miller and Gary L. Russell ix Contents V LIFE FORMS AND GAIA: MICROBES TO EXTRATERRESTRIALS 27 Extraterrestrial Gaias 309 S. Franck, W. von Bloh, C. Bounama, and H.-J. Schellnhuber 28 The Tinto River, an Extreme Gaian Environment 321 Felipe Go´mez, David Fernańdez-Remolar, Elena Gonza´lez-Toril, and Ricardo Amils 29 Climate and the Amazon—a Gaian System? 335 Peter Bunyard 30 On the Co-evolution of Life and Its Environment 343 S. A. L. M. Kooijman 31 Stability and Instability in Ecological Systems: Gaia Theory and Evolutionary Biology 353 Francesco Santini and Lodovico Galleni Appendix: Studying Gaia: The NASA Planetary Biology Internship (PBI) Program 363 List of Contributors 365 Index 369 Foreword The University of Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, was founded in 1499 by the Council of the City. After five centuries of development that included periods of intellectual glory and of scholastic obscurity, our university has become a modern European institution. We now celebrate our clear interests in higher educa- tion and cultural activism. We enjoy active scholarly, scientific, and other research. During the period 1999–2002, we organized artistic and other programs to com- memorate our five centuries. We published this program, Cinc Segles (Five Cen- turies) in our own language, Valencian (valenciano), our way to speak Catalań. This publication, a beautifully produced volume that dealt with history, sports, art, music, and other aspects of the university’s heritage, was the main focus of our attention at the festival celebrating our five-hundredth year. One of the most compelling events that occurred after the book was printed was the Second Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis, Gaia—2000. We held this international meeting at our world famous botanical garden on the summer solstice of 2000. As a secular scientific institution, our university provided a perfect backdrop to this important scientific congress. The call for papers sponsored by the American Geophysical Union (AGU) led to participation that filled the botanical garden’s spanking new auditorium and its state-of-the-art audiovisual facilities with world- class science. The coincidence of our five-hundredth anniversary with this meeting, twelve years after the first Chapman Conference, held in 1988 at San Diego, Cali- fornia, provided excellent opportunity for collaboration between AGU and our university. It led to this book, a forum for discussion of the frontier science of Gaia theory and practice. In retrospect, the Gaia—2000 conference was not only a remark- able local scientific success but also extended far beyond Spain, Europe, and the United States. The lively debate attracted coverage in the Spanish press. The presence in Valencia of scientists such as Dr. James E. Lovelock from the United Kingdom and Dr. Andrei Lapo of the Geological Institute of St. Petersburg, as spokesman for Vladimir Vernadsky’s (1863–1945) work, was a privilege for our city and university. This book, as the most tangible result of the meeting, presents outstanding docu- mentation of current international scientific views on Gaia theory. Finally, I wish to recognize the e¤orts of institutions and persons, among the many that made Gaia—2000 possible in Valencia. The AGU, the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterrańeo, the Generalitat Valenciana, the Ajuntament de Vale`ncia, and the Comisioń Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnologıá were the main sponsors. I also acknowledge the contributions of the former Vice Rector of Culture, the biochemist Dr. Juli Pereto´;the former Vice Rector of Re- search, the theoretical chemist Dr. Francisco Toma´s; the former Botanical Garden Director, Dr. Manuel Costa; and the indefatigable organizer, the botanist (lichen- ologist) and the President of the local organizing committee, Professor Eva Barreno. Last but not least, Professor Lynn Margulis’s enthusiastic support made it possible for us to host this seminal scientific meeting here in Valencia. Dr. Pedro Ruiz Torres, Rector University of Valencia, 1994–2002 Preface A scientific and intellectual question of fundamental importance to the Earth sciences is the formative role of life in the biosphere’s biogeochemical cycles and climate. The Gaia hypothesis, introduced in the early 1970s by English atmospheric chemist Jim Lovelock and American biologist Lynn Margulis, proposes that the interaction between the biota and the physical-chemical environment is large enough in scope to serve as an active feedback mechanism for biogeoclimatologic control. The core of Gaian theory is that life has a substantial, even regulating, impact on the Earth’s geochemical cycles and climate—an impact that tends to favor organisms and living processes. This view has met with vocal criticism from both the Earth sciences and the life sciences. Geochemical arguments have been proposed to explain many environmental changes over time without recourse to the role of life. And biologists, especially neo-Darwinians, have argued that the Earth understood as a global ecosystem actively ‘‘managing’’ environmental parameters for the benefit of life as a whole is incompatible with the view of living organisms as competitively and selfishly inclined toward narrowly definable survival and reproductive success. The possibility of active climatic regulation systems, and the relative importance of feedback processes between organic and inorganic components, clearly needed to be examined in a frank, scientifically rigorous, and richly interdisciplinary setting. To that end the first American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference on the Gaia hypothesis was held in San Diego, California, in 1988. Many of the papers pre- sented at that conference appeared in the book Scientists on Gaia, edited by Stephen Schneider and Penelope Boston.

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