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Perhaps the authors could explain this novel meaning of the word "medal," which to the rest of humanity means, when used in verb form, either to win or to award a medal. What does this have to do with species preservation?

Also, perhaps they could explain by what possible logical process anyone could conceivably consider conservation as a "northern neo-colonial plot" - the environmental lobby does itself no favours when it invents arbitrary new meanings for words, or for that matter when it adopts uncritically such eccentric notions as conservation as neo-colonialism. Just because someone in the South (or any other patronisingly favoured minority-du-jour) considers something to be so does not actually make it so, and a little discrimination and thought would be appreciated.

And how does jetting off to Madagascar help the environment? Surely, by your own logic, you should not be going there but should ask some local teams to collate the information and send it to you electronically? Wouldn't that be a bit greener than unnecessary flights, aircraft being the worst polluters per tonne-kilometre and all?

It also occurs that interference in the natural order by artificially preserving species otherwise headed for extinction is gross meddling (note the distinction from medalling) of precisely the kind the environmentalists decry.

Why, therefore, is such gross and ultimately pointless interference justified, even lauded?

Everything is not at stake, Ed. Only the millenarian and the zealot think it is - and given the quasi-religious nature of much environmentalism there's enough people like that, perhaps as witnessed by the "go with God" style of your own "go with Gaia" signature. Gaia is the new God, environmentalists the new priests. One awaits the new Inquisition, of course.

More realistic people probably do on the whole appreciate that things may change, and thus that we may have to change in turn. This does not mean it's all our fault (it plainly isn't), nor does it mean there is only one way to change.

In reponse to Ed, it is first important to recognise that the Earth or "Gaia" is not a conscious thing or a single entity. It is rather a haphazard collection of subsystems, of which we are one, which has evolved over the aeons and which is still evolving and which will keep evolving. Talk of going "with the Earth" or "with Gaia" is meaningless because there is no single coherent entity with which to go, nor does that collection of subsystems have any plan, aim or objective towards which, or indeed away from which, one could go. It will work without some of these subsystems, or with other new ones, whatever we do.

Like all species, we are principally concerned with our own fate. Unlike any other species, we are capable of consciously deciding the fate of others. We should exercise this capability responsibly, but if we are forced to choose between ourselves and another species it is inevitable that we will as a species favour ourselves. Although we can destroy species, we cannot permanently destroy life on the planet - Gabrielle noted elsewhere the remarkable persistence of life.

To say some things are "at stake" is somewhat emotive. Certainly things will change, but they would change anyway even in an utterly stable climate. Some conveniences will disappear, such as cheap petrol and in certain cases ready supplies of clean water. But these will be replaced with alternatives, such as biomass, electricity or hydrogen, or some mix of these and others, or in the case of water perhaps by desalination plants augmenting the natural supply. This is nothing new - previously, deforestation meant that cheap firewood became scarce, for example. As some things become difficult or expensive, we will find alternatives.

Similarly, if a species becomes extinct it may be supplanted by another better suited to the changed environment. This is evolution, and it has been happening for billions of years and will continue to happen, with or without us. There is nothing sacred about a given species of animal or plant, after all.

Things will change, but things have always changed. The part of environmentalism I object to, and most strongly, is the naive and ridiculous desire to prevent change, to try and maintain things as they are now. We simply cannot do that, and nor are the consequences of trying to do it really predictable. In trying to maintain a status quo or in puruit of some lofty environmental goal, we may end up causing more damage to the environment that if we had done nothing.

If you really want to "go with Gaia" then let evolution do its work, let species fade in the face of threat and new ones rise to exploit the new opportunities. They'll do it anyway, whatever we do. That is the natural way, interfering and trying to preserve some arbitrary condition is profoundly unnatural, doomed to failure and very probably going to result in a worse outcome. However, since many environmnetalists seem deeply ignorant of just how complex things are, or how much they have changed in the past, it's not surprising many advocate such silliness.

Are you seriously postulating that the Earth has some conscious intellect? And do you expect to be taken at all seriously in this?

Of course it is haphazard. If you think it's not, perhaps you could speak to the plan which has produced the current range of species and conditions. If there is no plan, it is haphazard. If it is not haphazard, there must be a plan. So where's the plan?

The definition of "haphazard" from American Heritage Dictionaries:

"Dependent upon or characterized by mere chance." There's no "whatever I want it to mean" about it, Ed. Either there's a plan or it's haphazard. As for pattern, perhaps you're getting confused between a plan producing pattern on the one hand and on the other a pattern suggesting the existence of a plan - you're simply saying post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Just because something exhibits a pattern does not mean there is a plan behind it.

As to consciousness, the reason that I - and I suspect the vast majority of people - say there is no conscious "Gaia" is that there is no known plausible mechanism by which such a thing could exist. Using the principle of Occam's razor, one concludes that the idea of an inanimate Earth devoid of conscious mind is far preferable to the absurd notion of Gaia as a sentient entity. The burden is on you if you think otherwise.

The planet is a ball of molten rock and metal 13,000km in diameter with a thin solid crust upon which various species live. The planet itself is not alive, however, and there is no plausible mechanism by which it could be. If you think it is, describe its life cycle - what does it eat, what excrete, what breath, what is the postulated mechanism for these processes to take place?

The fact that conscious minds have evolved on the planet does not mean that the planet itself has a conscious mind, nor can it possibly be said in any meaningful sense that the evolution of conscious intellect on the Earth makes the Earth itself conscious. Nor can it be said that an absence of a conscious Earth makes man unconscious - there is simply no connection there. If you think there is, what is it?

Did the Moon, devoid of life, suddenly become conscious when conscious astronauts step onto it? If so, how? If not, why not? There's nobody there now, so is it still conscious?

Your argument is essentially religious. Basically you're saying "Gaia" is a living entity, it's conscious if only because we're conscious, you can't explain why or how this happens because it's too big for us, but we'd better believe it because some bloke you think is clever said so.

Explain what exactly is the difference between that and saying God exists and is a living conscious entity, He must be because we are here and we needed to be created, but you can't explain how or why this happens because God is too big for us to understand but we'd better believe it because some blokes you think are right wrote this down in the Bible? What is the difference of kind in these two arguments?

As I said before, environmentalism is the new religion. God is too silly a concept for modern man, one assumes, therefore we need a new metaphysical concept, a new crutch of a superior form which we'd better obey, worship, respect or grovel before.

No thanks.

But you CAN know these things. Through sciences such as geology, biology, chemistry and physics we can understand perfectly well the mechanisms by which things live, die and evolve. There isn't a lot of mystery there, so why add metaphysical nonsense just because you don't, won't or can't understand technical issues?

I'm not a materialist. I'm just not gullible enough to get suckered into the New Age touchy-feely Gaia lunacy, nor do I feel the need to anthropomorphise or reify things bigger than me or which I have difficulty understanding.

What do you mean, how life happens? You mean how it works? How it arose? Why living things live and then die? How it evolves?

The origins aren't known for certain, but the most likely hypothesis thus far appears to be the creation of organic molecules, especially amino acids, from inert sterile gas and water mixtures. You may wish to look up Stanley Miller's experiment. Compare also the type and proportions of amino acids found in the Murchison meteorite - the same as in Miller's experiment. This strongly suggests these basic building blocks are not exactly hard to make.

Next step is the combination of simple amino acids into proteins and the combination of proteins into complex molecules like precursors of RNA and DNA. Metallic catalysis on a clay substrate seems a very good candidate for this, and it is known that like processes do in fact happen predictably. Certainly clays are good at helping the construction of protein polymers, and that's at the most fundamental level what RNA is.

Going from there to what we might recognise as life is the next step, although it's hard to agree on what is and is not life. Is a virus alive? A yeast? But once you've got replicating forms using external energy sources you for all practical purposes have life.

The evolution of complex multicellular life is next, and from here onwards the process is pretty much known and is the same process of selection of random genetic mutations still observed today. Evolution on the genetic level is undisputed fact, and the evolution of species is not seriously disputed but is not quite at the level of fact.

So how does Gaia work?

As far as I'm aware no-one has made life, in the sense of directly creating a living organism from inert chemicals. I suspect, though, that it is only a matter of (not very much) time before someone does this.

When I say we can know, I do not mean we *do* know, merely that we can. I submit that this is more reasonable than a combination of Luddism and metaphysical speculation.

The difference between life and non-life is a tricky question, as I suggested already in the case of yeast and virus. The departure of life is perhaps easier to define, being the general cessation of cellular activity within the organism. All that's "gone" is this activity, or perhaps more correctly the chemical processes which sustain it. There can be many reasons for this, but in the absence of disease the fundamental limit is that DNA only replicates a set maximum number of times, after which cells die and are not replaced, and when enough cells, or enough cells in specific subsystems, die without replacement then the organism is no longer able to sustain itself and a generalised cellular death occurs.

Whether life is a miracle or not is genuinely a religious position, although not one to which I am completely hostile. I think, though, that to say simply "it's miraculous" and leave it at that betrays a depressing lack of curiosity about these things, a fundamental lack of interest or ability to understand. You may as well say "God did it, end of story" and be done with it. I'd prefer to find out more, but I wouldn't be upset if it turned out God really did do it.

However, it really won't do to just say "life is a miracle" and leave it at that. This advances nothing and precludes rational investigation. We won't achieve anything - including fixing any supposed environmental problems - if we don't enquire, don't investigate and don't try to find out more.

Marjorie - Exactly, but with the proviso that although we depend on certain other subsystems for our existence it is NOT the case that ONLY those subsystems will permit our survival. We need clean water, for example, but we do not depend solely on natural supplies of the stuff since we can if necessary make our own. There are alternatives.

Ed - It's not fundamentally materialist nor does it display an absolute faith in the ability of science to speculate that the artificial creation of life is possible or even probable. There is no "life force" or vital essence, as it were, and there is no fundamental reason in principle why this cannot be done. Generally one finds in human society that if something can be done then sooner or later someone will do it. If you wish to take a mystical, metaphysical view of life as some miraculous thing then that's up to you, but it is somewhat at odds with reality.

What are you going to say when/if it happens? It's all a conspiracy or a lie?

So, Ed, where is the life force? If you analyse a live organism and then analyse it again after it is dead, what difference do you find? What do you think is missing?

I think Simon makes a good point, which I'd amplify to say that many people appear to have a hard-wired need to believe in something bigger than themselves, whether this be God, Gaia or some other metaphysical concept. It strikes me that there are a huge number of parallels between theistic belief and belief in Gaia as some organism, force or entity. It just changes the name, the underlying concept is the same. Ed expects no fluffy afterlife, but substitutes for this the ineffable Gaia as his metaphysical crutch.

Ed, you haven't answered a single question put to you other than to say "it's mystic, innit" and yet you say I am the one with the complete and unquestioning faith.

What, other than something you cannot understand, is this mystic "life force" you talk about? Could it not be that there is, in fact, no such thing and the reason that you cannot understand it is that you are trying to understand something that basically doesn't exist?

Ed, life basically IS just a bunch of chemistry and physics.

Your view appears to be that it's not, that's it's something more miraculous, metaphysical. But you cannot explain this, and indeed you say you are unable to understand it. You ARE in effect saying "it's mystic, innit" and you're leaving it at that. I think you're trying to see in life something that simply is not there, which could be why you're unable to understand it.

There is no evidence, nor is there any reason to suppose, that there is anything at all more to life than simply a bunch of chemistry and physics. If you think otherwise, it will not do just to say it's miraculous, you need to say WHY it is or must be more than just physics. An argument from personal incredulity ("I cannot understand it, therefore it is miraculous") will not wash.

If you think there's more to life than physics, explain WHAT and WHY and HOW this should be so and WHY you think so on the basis of WHAT evidence. If you cannot or will not do that, you're just saying it's mystic, as I said.

Ed, life IS chemistry. Please show one mechanism of a living creature which is not chemical. Just one.

It's very instructive to note that you cannot answer a single point put to you. You instead fall back on glib platitudes about how life is a miracle (it's actually entirely naturalistic), how we cannot comprehend something bigger than ourselves (in fact we can). Just because you may not understand some particular thing does not mean that no-one else can understand it, nor does it mean that no explanation is possible.

Ed, your post about Taoist philosophy and modish "social ecology" whilst fascinating does not actually come remotely close to any sort of reasonable explanation of what this supposed non-chemical life force is. Your view is of course fashionable, grounded as it is in Oriental mysticism and contrary to the currently derided western notion of rational enquiry, but unfortunately that doesn't mean it's actually correct.

I repeat my question - provide just one mechanism of a living creature which is not based in chemistry.

Ed, it's all very well for someone to write of comparisons between physics and Tao philosophy, but it means nothing if there is in fact no connection.

So, have you figured out any mechanism of a living thing which isn't chemical in nature yet?

Mike,

It's not a case of doing nothing about it. Rather, it is a case of doing something appropriate about the correct problem, and not pursuing entirely the wrong issues. If CO2 doesn't have the effect on warming the environmentalists say it does (and it appears not to), we are wasting our time, effort and money doing something about a thing that won't solve any problems. If the solar cycle is the true cause (and it appears to be), we cannot influence that and should rather take steps to mitigate something we cannot prevent.

I'd also add that if the climate changes, either hotter or colder, we will need more energy than at present. Even with no change, we should expect to need more energy to cope with increased fresh water demand, probably through desalination and quite possibly for food production.

The question becomes not one of reducing energy use - this is not realistic on any significant scale - but of producing more energy cleanly and using what we do produce reasonably efficiently. The latter point is most easily achieved by pricing, since it will be natural for individuals and businesses to reduce energy use as the energy cost increases. The former needs nuclear, whatever the hysterical and ill-informed anti-nuclear lobby might think. There isn't a practical alternative.

Mike,

My view is that the human influence on climate change is likely to be negligible, since other factors are much more significant. I doubt very much that humanity has the capability to make that much difference. This is not, incidentally, a particularly uncommon view in scientific circles and it is simply not true to say that a "majority of scientists" support the anthropogenic thesis. I do not dispute that the climate is changing, I just don't agree with the notion that we are responsible.

Whether we are responsible or not, it seems likely enough that the climate is going through a period of change compared to the last 500 years or so. This being the case, we need to do something to cope with the change anf that will inescapably need more energy. The cleanest way of getting that energy is nuclear.

I think you over-estimate man's impact on the planet with your grim scenario of every last acre dedicated to our sustenance. Everyone blames America, but few recall that only something like 5% of the US land area is built on. People say we're running out of farmland, but forget that advances in farming technique are likely to *reduce* the acreage needed for crop growing, for the first time in all human history. It should also be borne in mind that increased prosperity beyond a certain point tends to depress reproduction rates, as is clearly seen in the prosperous west and in contrast is not seen in the less prosperous third world. The population question is largely self-answering. This of course makes it plain that the surest way of letting the population increase rapidly to the general detriment of all is to keep the third world poor, and the easiest way to do that is limit their energy use.

If you really want to wreck the planet, adopt the environmentalist agenda of resticting energy use and avoiding technological advance. If you want things to improve, let people use more energy and lift themselves out of squalor and poverty.

Perhaps most importantly, people so often forget that resource use changes and that we are not dependent on any single irreplaceable resource which has no alternatives, thus the idea of human exploitation of the planet resulting in its exhaustion is risible. As I've pointed out before, a few years ago we were going to run out of copper, but there is now a glut because we have shifted to fibre optics. Further, increasing scarcity promotes things like efficiency savings in resource use, recycling, search for cheaper alternatives, and so on.

Actually, Ed, one of the most promising agricultural advances is the increasing use of genetically modified food crops, already common enough in Europe and even more so in America. Needs less fertiliser and fewer acres. On the other hand, you can do it locally and "sustainably" if you wish, putting a greater strain on the land and producing less.

Mike - Yes, I am optimistic. I've heard too many of these gloom and doom environmental catastrophe theories over the decades, and have seen in many different places around the world the way people *actually* respond to threats challenges to be particularly worried about this latest one. In a few years, the green lobby will be banging on about another threat after AGW dies a death, just as they have done with all the others. Can't you see the pattern in their proclamations of doom?

As for nuclear power, I think it is preferable to clean coal because, frankly, it kills far fewer people, simply because far less material has to be mined and transported. Nuclear power, whatever the hysterical gibberish spouted by the more extreme environmentalists, is safe, clean and efficient. What's not to like about it?

Remember the thousands that were going to die after Chernobyl? Didn't happen, the directly attributable death toll is IIRC 56. What happened to all the others? Oh, yes, now it's clarified that they are *predicted* deaths *estimated* to *maybe* happen in the future *possibly* as a result, but of course nobody said that at the time. Unimpressive - the past 20 years has shown, yet again, that the environmentalist doom-mongers are plain wrong.

So, what's wrong with nuclear? And why?