The reason why James Lovelock is supported by so many people is because of his deep and broad insight toward Earth, outside his profession as scientist. This book is my favorite because it gives us a great overview of global warming and the doing of human race. It is amazing how he looks at the future in terms of hundreds of years. (many books on environment nowadays only cast the next five to ten years. that won't solve the problem) His way of understanding nature, in other words his respect toward Gaia, the living Earth, must be new to those educated in the European-American way, but the basic philosophy is common among many Asian and Indiginous culture. The way he built a Gaia theory seems similar to quantum mechanics, in the sense that science proved intuitive human knowledge.
Just one thing I disagree is his protective stance toward nuclear energy. It is true that other "bio" or "reproductive" energy sources are all distroying nature as a price for reducing CO2, and he argues that atomic fission is the only practical technology to fill up the time until the next clean energy is ready. But the difficulty of disposing nuclear waste still seems to be a good reason of opposition. It is important to differenciate atomic fission from atomic fusion, which is a clean energy still on the road to practical application. Nonetheless this book is a must-read for those who are interested in environmental technology.
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