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Gaia: The living Earth

Nature volume 426, pages 769–770 (2003)Cite this article

Imagine a science-based civilization far distant in the Galaxy that had built an interferometer of such resolving power that it could analyse the chemical composition of our atmosphere. Simply from this analysis, they could confidently conclude that Earth, alone among the planets of the Solar System, had a carbon-based life and an industrial civilization. They would have seen methane and oxygen coexisting in the upper atmosphere, and their chemists would have known that these gases are continually consumed and replaced. The odds of this happening by chance inorganic chemistry are very long indeed. Such persistent deep atmospheric disequilibrium reveals the low entropy characteristic of life. They would conclude that ours was a live planet — and the presence of CFCs in the atmosphere would suggest an industry unwise enough to have allowed their escape.

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  1. Green College, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6HG, UK

    James Lovelock

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  1. James Lovelock
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Lovelock, J. Gaia: The living Earth. Nature 426, 769–770 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/426769a

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