The idea that biology is affecting climate, a key concept that should be more widely spread for our climate’s sake, is already considered slightly radical. The idea that biodiversity is regulating the climate to benefit life, is even more radical. If true, it has a lot of implications for the climate movement.
Another great post, Alpha. I prefer to think of Gaia as a system, and the “regulation” of conditions as states of the system. These states are always in flux, and they just “are”. No organism willfully “controls” or “regulates” climate, the whole system just moves through states with time. The cause and effect are the same. In this sense, I think your biodiversity thesis here is pretty good, since as the complexity of the system increases, it’s more likely that the system will be more stable (complexity science). What some scientists have found is that biodiversity seems spontaneous, which suggests that a more laissez-faire approach to environmental “management” might be to just leave things alone for a while.
I love your systems approach to climate which takes geochemical cycles of various substances I to account!
Why oh why have I not heard of Daisyworld before? Just minutes ago my blood pressure was probably high from reading about billionaires and their economic growth and longtermist views. Your article brought my blood pressure back down immediately. Not only being out in nature feels good for my health, just reading about the wonders of life seems to do similar.
Thanks so much for this Alpha, this is fascinating stuff.
Love it. I think life does promote life. Humans have such a potential for life and diversity restoration on earth. However, i’m not sure how to best understand what that would look like in practice beyond restoration. In a healthy world, what would be the role of the human?
Biodiversity is our planet's driving force, and we must listen to and value it. By prioritizing biodiversity and using bio-acoustics to monitor and analyze eco-restoration efforts, we can get real-time and cost-effective feedback while ensuring the success of our restoration efforts. I have talked about it in my latest post. I was also thinking of integrating bio-acoustics along with moisture sensing as feedback in our methodology to maybe introduce certain natural nutrients at appropriate stages in our regeneration methodology.
Life is creating the conditions for life all around us. If we could escape our propensity for linear thinking we would see examples of this everywhere. Thank you for another great article. One of your best so far.
Excellent blog, once again. I love Daisy World, but the cloud aspect was new for me :-)
You go deep into the history of Gaia theory. I am curious where you learned about the respective roles and contributions of Lovelock and Margulis here. My own sense is that the theoretical models (like Daisyworld) go back mostly to Lovelock, whereas the connection to biology - life - is mainly Margulis's work. But I would love to dig deeper here... because Lynn Margulis was so humble that she always understated her own contributions. Which sources can you recommend?
Did you ever come across Rene Thomes' folding catastrophe theories? They are powerful models for "Tipping point" dynamics... Waiting for next parts :-)
Another great post, Alpha. I prefer to think of Gaia as a system, and the “regulation” of conditions as states of the system. These states are always in flux, and they just “are”. No organism willfully “controls” or “regulates” climate, the whole system just moves through states with time. The cause and effect are the same. In this sense, I think your biodiversity thesis here is pretty good, since as the complexity of the system increases, it’s more likely that the system will be more stable (complexity science). What some scientists have found is that biodiversity seems spontaneous, which suggests that a more laissez-faire approach to environmental “management” might be to just leave things alone for a while.
I love your systems approach to climate which takes geochemical cycles of various substances I to account!
Why oh why have I not heard of Daisyworld before? Just minutes ago my blood pressure was probably high from reading about billionaires and their economic growth and longtermist views. Your article brought my blood pressure back down immediately. Not only being out in nature feels good for my health, just reading about the wonders of life seems to do similar.
Thanks so much for this Alpha, this is fascinating stuff.
Love it. I think life does promote life. Humans have such a potential for life and diversity restoration on earth. However, i’m not sure how to best understand what that would look like in practice beyond restoration. In a healthy world, what would be the role of the human?
Important content.
Biodiversity is our planet's driving force, and we must listen to and value it. By prioritizing biodiversity and using bio-acoustics to monitor and analyze eco-restoration efforts, we can get real-time and cost-effective feedback while ensuring the success of our restoration efforts. I have talked about it in my latest post. I was also thinking of integrating bio-acoustics along with moisture sensing as feedback in our methodology to maybe introduce certain natural nutrients at appropriate stages in our regeneration methodology.
Life is creating the conditions for life all around us. If we could escape our propensity for linear thinking we would see examples of this everywhere. Thank you for another great article. One of your best so far.
Excellent blog, once again. I love Daisy World, but the cloud aspect was new for me :-)
You go deep into the history of Gaia theory. I am curious where you learned about the respective roles and contributions of Lovelock and Margulis here. My own sense is that the theoretical models (like Daisyworld) go back mostly to Lovelock, whereas the connection to biology - life - is mainly Margulis's work. But I would love to dig deeper here... because Lynn Margulis was so humble that she always understated her own contributions. Which sources can you recommend?
Did you ever come across Rene Thomes' folding catastrophe theories? They are powerful models for "Tipping point" dynamics... Waiting for next parts :-)