The Revenge of Gaia
The Revenge of Gaia – Review
What sets this book apart from the other climate crises books is that Lovelock’s view is extremely complicated by dual aspects. Not only is global warming eventually causing its problems, but also overpopulation is eventually causing disturbance of Gaia’s self-regenerating processes. Even if we were fortunate enough to solve special carbon accumulation we would still face a lack of land. Lovelock points to land dropped to agribusiness to feed the billions. Disturbance of soil microorganisms as well as the loss of the rainforest is to blame. Lovelock stresses alternatives to fossil fuels favoring direct increase of nuclear fission. He notes “one of the striking things about places polluted by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife.” Lovelock also distances himself from environmentalists in his defense of DDT. “These insecticides desperately needed controlling, but the indiscriminate banning of DDT and other chlorinated insectides was a selfish, ill-informed act driven by affluent radicals in the first world. The citizens of hot countries have highly paid a great price in death and illness as a consequence of their inability to use DDT as an actual director of malaria.” The tone in this book is decidedly grim – much more so than Lovelock’s basic books. He does stay on-point here.