A Rough Ride to the Future - Tapa dura

We are seeing an extraordinarily powerful intersection of accelerating changes to our planet and its inhabitants, all traceable, James Lovelock says, to the steam engine's invention 300 years ago. But Lovelock does not believe we are necessarily guilty of catastrophic wrongs to the Earth. The challenges faced are diverse: our understanding must begin from a broader viewpoint than that of climate science alone. In an interconnected Earth-system, humanity is a holy fool of a species, often blundering in the pursuit of its instinct for invention. This book argues that it may, by the same token, emerge as the Earth's saviour.

James Lovelock is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory). His many books on the subject include Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, The Revenge of Gaia, and The Vanishing Face of Gaia. In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen, and in 2005 Prospect magazine named him one of the world's top 100 public intellectuals.