Gaia鈥檚 Body by Tyler Volk, Copernicus, 拢19/$27, ISBN
0387982701
THIS is probably the best book on the Gaia hypothesis by anyone other than
its inventor, James Lovelock. Tyler Volk, a New York biologist and longtime
enthusiast about the Gaia concept, has tried to strip the mumbo jumbo from
Lovelock鈥檚 central idea, that planet Earth鈥檚 living organisms and life-support
systems form a single self-sustaining superorganism鈥擥aia.
To do that, to concentrate on the science, he is forced to jettison a lot of
Lovelock鈥檚 language about the Earth being 鈥渁live鈥�. This is language that, he
says, 鈥渄epends on a slew of ambiguous words that, however carefully defined,
either readies readers for an Earth hug or raises their hackles鈥�. And yet,
seduced all the same, Volk has ended up calling his book Gaia鈥檚 Body.
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Volk sees Gaia as a 鈥済lobal metabolism, not a global organism鈥�. (His own work
on advanced life support systems is used by NASA.) His book is a fine scientific
exposition of how that metabolism functions. For Volk, Gaia is a 鈥渟ymphony of
material flows and cycles鈥�.
His focus is on the molecular transformations between life and the global
environment, how the 鈥渂reathing of the biosphere鈥� (oops, that metaphor again)
operates feedback loops that control the cycling of vital components for life,
such as carbon and sulphur, nitrogen and phosphorus.
The virtuoso performers of this symphony are familiar enough: denitrifying
and nitrogen-fixing bacteria, chlorophyll and enzymes that capture carbon
dioxide from the air. But the assembly we find in Gaia鈥檚 Body, what
Volk calls the 鈥済lobal holarchy鈥�, is much greater than the sum of its parts.
Volk writes splendidly and passionately, but avoids the trap of letting his
command of language stand in for scientific clarity.
If Lovelock is looking for a successor to carry on his work, Tyler Volk looks
like the ideal candidate.