Perseus Academic: The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock

Celebrities drive hybrids, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, and supermarkets carry no end of so-called “green” products. And yet the environmental crisis is only getting worse. In The Vanishing Face of Gaia, eminent scientist James Lovelock argues that the earth is lurching ever closer to a permanent “hot state” much more quickly than most specialists think. There is nothing humans can do to reverse the process; the planet is simply too overpopulated to halt its own destruction by greenhouse gases.

In order to survive, mankind must start preparing now for life on a radically changed planet. The meliorist approach outlined in the Kyoto Treaty must be abandoned in favor of nuclear energy and aggressive agricultural development on the small areas of earth that will remain arable. The Vanishing Face of Gaia offers an essential wake-up call for the human race.

James Lovelock is the author of more than two hundred scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory) on which he has written several books. Since 1994, he has been an honorary visiting fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. In September 2005, Prospect magazine named him as one of the world's top 100 global public intellectuals.

James Lovelock is the author of more than two hundred scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory) on which he has written several books. Since 1994 he has been an honorary visiting fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. In September 2005, Prospect magazine named him as one of the world's top 100 global public intellectuals. He lives in Louceston, England.