Co-evolving with the Present Biosphere

Abstract

Lovelock (2009) hopes that few million Homo sapiens will survive the climate changes and will find some "ecological lifeboats" to preserve civilization: "As part of Gaia, our presence begins to make the planet sentient. We should be proud that we could be part of this huge step, one that may help Gaia survive as as the sun continues its slow but ineluctable increase of heat output, making the solar system an increasingly hostile future environment." Lovelock (2009) is clearly aware of the difficulties of developing a mutualistic relationship between humans and Gaia: "There is no set of rules or prescription for living with Gaia, there are only consequences." Gaia is a unifying concept in a sea of highly specialized information. Specialized information is essential, but is most effectively integrated withn a particular context.