Living beings have shaped their environment for centuries. Ferris Jabr illuminates the interaction of the various players of our planet, from the rock to the vertebrates, from air to the forests.
At the beginning of the 1970s, the biophysicist James Lovelock and microbiologist Lynn Margulis formulated the so-called Gaia hypothesis. After that, the entire earth behaves like a living being. Just like a pool is considered an ecosystem in which the different types depend on each other and find a balance again and again, you can also consider the entire earth as such a system. There are numerous feedback that ensures that the most even environmental conditions are as possible. For example, the salt content in the ocean has been constant for years, although the rivers constantly supply new minerals. But in lagoons in which reef -forming organisms are involved, there are mighty salt deposits that ensure compensation.
To date, the Gaia hypothesis has not lost attractiveness, on the contrary. In connection with climate change, it is becoming increasingly important. Because man more and more pretends the finely balanced natural mechanisms. The American science journalist Ferris Jabr has compiled the most important gaia knowledge in a book. He is primarily concerned with how the living organisms have shaped their environment for centuries so that they can be optimally able to cope in it. For example, tiny organic substances that remove trees in the Amazon rainforest ensure that it rains. The particles serve as condensation germs without which no drops can arise.
Jabr has divided his book into three sections: rock, water and air. Each of them is in turn divided. First of all, it is about how microbes have changed and change the planet, then it is about the greater forms of life, and in the third part of the influence of humans. Reports keep loosening the text. However, there is room for improvement when translating from English. For example, if it is called carbon drain instead of carbon doffs or Jonen instead of ions, that’s annoying. Klaus Jacob
Ferris Jabr
The awakening of the earth
Kunstmann Verlag, 344 pages, € 28, –
ISBN 978-3-95614-627-5
