One thing leads to another

 

January 3, 2019



Kudos and thanks to Jana Mathia’s editorial last week! She did an excellent job of encapsulating a complex problem and making it understandable. We live in a system of systems, all interacting to maintain life on Earth. If one system gets out of balance, it affects many others. Global warming drives changing climates, which affect things, living or non-living, as the climate changes.

In 1979, James Lovelock published “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth.” He postulated that “the only feasible explanation of the Earth’s highly improbable atmosphere was that it was being manipulated on a day-to-day basis from the surface, and that the manipulator was life itself.”

In other words, Earth’s living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings in a synergistic, self-regulating system of systems that maintains conditions for life on the planet. The idea is alive and well after 40 years. It was controversial then and it still is.

Mathia’s editorial states, “Addressing global warming needs to be the One Thing” that must be done to address “THE issue most urgent in the world.”

We might as well start at the top, as Gaia's theory might propose.

Subsequent research during the past four decades has supported a lot of Lovelock’s hypothesis. We need only look at climate research, which increasingly demonstrates how the living organisms known as humans influence the non-living elements of the atmosphere.

So as we move into a new year, that One Thing becomes ever more important. And as one thing often leads to another, I hope it leads to the awareness expressed in one of my favorite songs:

“One planet, one people: we all live together. One planet, one people, please!”

--Pete Haug, Colfax

 

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