YOU'VE done it half a dozen times today without giving it a second thought. If it was chilly in the morning, you may have turned up the heating or put on another layer. As the day got warmer perhaps you opened a window to cool things down. We are adept at controlling our immediate environment.
What about the living planet as a whole? Can the biosphere regulate the environment to suit itself, preventing the planet from freezing or boiling? This is the essence of the Gaia hypothesis proposed in the 1960s by James Lovelock, but climate scientists have never bought into it. They point out that there have been some wild swings in the climate, some of which were caused by life.
Read more: "James Lovelock and the Gaia hypothesis"
But now it appears the world would have warmed a bit more than it has were it not ...
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