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Current attitudes to Gaia: the living environment concept.

J.R.E. Harger

 

prayer from "Liley" by Kate Bush The Red Shoes Evolution of a living planet

The absolute age of the earth is now taken to be somewhere about 4.5 billion years (four thousand five hundred million years). The oldest sedimentary rocks are around 3.75 billion years (Isua series in west Greenland) and there is some indication that they may show traces of the earliest life in the enhanced carbon-12/carbon-13, which suggests that photosynthesis, might then have been active. In present- day vegetation, a preponderance of light carbon (C-12) over heavy carbon (C-13) is observed with respect to the background ratio found in air. Photosynthesis (life) favours the fixation of light carbon. Actual cells have been found in sedimentary rocks from 3.5-3.6 billion years old in Africa and Australia (Knoll and Barghoorn, 1977; Walter, 1983). For the next 2.4 billion years all living organisms were single celled with simple undifferentiated matrix (no chloroplasts, no organelles), Gould 1989. The larger, so called "eukaryotic" cells of modern multicellular organisms and Amoeba evolved later (1.4 billion years ago), perhaps by aggregation of the simpler forms. The first appearance of multicellular organisms is, on balance, surprisingly recent at 700 million years ago. Approximately 100 million years later a full range of multicellular body-plans, including many that have long-since vanished, appears in the "Burgess Shale" of British Columbia in Canada and since then, 500 million years of emergent dominant life in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats has developed with man appearing on the scene in any recognizable modern form, as late in the game as around 1 million years ago although primitive forms (the Australopithacines, "Lucy") yield fossils of around 3 million years in age.

To provide a mechanistic accounting of this progressive development of life from the simplest of replicating, energy-utilizing chemicals, Charles Darwin proposed the theory of natural selection which posits that those organisms more fitted to their environment tend to survive at the expense of their "less-fit", "less competent" brethren as the result of competition for essentially limited (energy) resources. Later, it was realized that the ground- plan reflecting that "fittest structure" was propelled forward in the form of the genetic record through the medium of the chemical code locked into DNA molecules (or their functional pre-cursors). Thus, the genetic strands that have propelled life stretch backwards through time in an unbroken sequence. In turn, this means that this chemical structure, common to every human being, has migrated forward through time, taking on progressively more complex form: invertebrate, fish, amphibian, reptile, early mammal, man, with the numerous side-branches that have populated the world with differing forms suited to available energy resources and space at each step of the way.

Formulated in this manner, it might appear that an inevitable progression was involved, and indeed, perhaps it was. The way forward was however, far from clear. As mentioned above, the Burgess Shale fossils for instance reveal a bewildering array of body-plans many of which have disappeared without a trace in today's fauna. Stephen J. Gould (loc. cit.) uses this fact to argue that evolution was essentially a dice-game and, but for circumstance, an entirely different biological dominance structure might now inhabit the earth.

This overlooks the argument that natural selection has determined the losing plans to be inappropriate by default. For not only does an organism have to deal with the elements of environmental variation that it faces in "equable times" but it also has to retain a capacity to survive "selection bottlenecks" as represented by the effects generated by comparatively rare events such as the meteorite which impacted lower Mexico at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary, apparently assisting with the overall extinction of the dinosaurs. It appears that certain "conservative" body-plans are suited to this test and others are not. For instance, fern spores dominate the coal measures, which developed after the widespread annihilation caused by the C-T boundary event. Ferns developed as early land-plants capable of colonizing the terrestrial environment some 400 million years ago. It is significant that the physical conditions that resulted after the C-T event were probably closely similar to those pertaining at the time the ferns first developed the life-history enabling them to proceed out of the swamp environments onto essentially dry-land. A host of specialised, "well-adapted" plants perished as the result of the C-T event, but not the ferns, they had already developed a "conservative" body-plan which had not fallen to the side, although perhaps its representation had been somewhat marginalised by other forms which developed to take advantage of "equable times".

The relationship between creation and evolution

The objective formulation of the theory of evolution does not deal with the idea of "creation" in and of itself as perpetrated by a "prime-mover", a force having "moral attributes" from whom the universe proceeds and to whom it returns. It is however, readily reconciled with this idea in that it may be supposed that the creative act in the sense referred to, is to be found in the manifestation described above. In other words, the mechanism through which life arose on the earth and subsequently progressed, as dictated by the rules of natural selection and so forth, itself may be taken to refer to creation. No contradiction exists to this important point, which supposes life to play the part of "animating" the physical vehicle that supports consciousness. For this purpose, a simple dictionary definition of life may be taken as: that property of plants and animals (ending in death and distinguishing them from inorganic matter) which makes it possible for them to take in energy (food etc.) and to grow and reproduce.

The Gaia hypothesis: the biotic and abiotic agents in interaction

From the perspective of the above discussion it is axiomatic that the conditions present on the earth for the 3.75 billion years that life has dwelt thereon must have been appropriate to the process, in some sense, otherwise living organisms would not presently exist!

However, it took a planetary engineer and scientist to point out that this happy state of affairs was not necessarily the consequence of benign neglect that perhaps "it did not just happen by itself". The Gaia Hypothesis supposes the Earth to be alive (Lovelock 1988) and was first advanced by Lovelock in 1972 in a one page note based on comparative atmospheric composition of the nearby planets as indicated below.

GAS : Venus (Earth -ve life) Mars (Earth + life) _____________________________________________________________________

Carbon dioxide: 96.5% 98% 95% 0.03%

Nitrogen: 3.5% 1.9% 2.7% 79%

Oxygen: trace 0.0 0.13% 21%

Argon : 70 ppm 0.1% 1.6% 1%

Methane: 0.0 0.0 0.0 1.7 ppm

Surface temp deg C: 459 240-340 -53 13

Pressure (bars): 90 60 0.00064 1

_____________________________________________________________________

Note: Earth-ve life, means Earth with no life (estimate)

The idea that the Earth is a living being is obviously as old a mankind but was apparently first expressed in a scientific forum by James Hutton (the father of geology) in 1758 at a meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh although the emphasis on "mechanical objectivity" focused on biological investigations in recent years has tended to make this fundamental notion appear as "naive".

The Gaia hypothesis supposes that the world we inhabit is, to an extent, self-regulating and that the climate and environment is a consequence of an automatic goal-seeking system. The system includes: living organisms, subject to natural selection that survive by leaving the most progeny; that grow and exploit environmental opportunities; that affect the physical and chemical environment by acting on oxygen and carbon dioxide; that are bound by physical constraints (temperature and so forth).

Life is a planetary-scale phenomena, the presence of sufficient living organisms on the planet is necessary for regulation of the environment. The growth of organisms affects their physical and chemical environment so that both are coupled into a single indivisible process. Gaia is of course at least as old as life itself upon this Earth and if the "Big Bang" started the Universe 15 eons ago Gaia is a quarter as old as time itself, at least in this cycle of manifestation. Gaia does not only adapt herself to the Earth but also adapts the Earth to her requirements, one might say in a manner of speaking. Only life can impose the conditions whereby oxygen and methane can co-exist, without mutual obliteration, in the atmosphere.

Gaia herself does not necessarily represent the end or even a unique solution to existence. Our universe is by some, now supposed to represent but one element in an evolving form connected to the whole by "worm-holes" proceeding from "black holes" which engulf all matter and energy surrounding them. At some instant, these worm-holes end, perhaps in "singularities", equivalent to the point immediately before initiation of the "big bang", of the same form as that associated with the appearance of our own universe. So it is possible that essentially the same laws of natural selection, growth and so forth as govern living systems are also played out at a higher level thereby involving whole universes.

The notion of Gaia has been criticized as "teleological" which basically means that a notion of human consciousness is thereby introduced into the supposed causal mechanisms underlying the observed interactions and a "conscious purpose" is thereby assumed. Although it is easy to claim that self-regulation is in some sense, a feature of all extant populations of organisms in as much as those which do not exhibit this characteristic are long since extinct it is a little more difficult to convince "mechanical logic" that the goal of self regulation must indeed also be an objective response to natural selection. Populations that adopt such strategies survive by leaving more offspring and those that do not, simply go extinct.

The concept of integrated and "co-adapted nature" has been taken further and assembled under the title of "super-nature" (Watson 1988). In this formulation the biological basis of "awareness" arises as the result of selection for "mutualistic" characters amongst groups and associations of organisms. In the simplest form this is to be seen in close associations between two species, say clown fish and sea anemones on coral reefs. In more advanced formulations, whole assemblages of different species are seen as co-operating for mutual advantage. An example of this is to be found in the newly discovered phenomenon of co-ordinated spawning exhibited by many different coral species with the end objective presumably lying in the "strategic satiation" of available predators so that the reef as a whole can maximize its chances of survival and continuity. In the ultimate formulation, nervous systems, which at first serve merely to coordinate associative structure, then replace structure at a higher or reflexive level and the prospect of consciousness is evolved.

The idea can be taken further to associate the living Earth as a whole (Gaia) in mutualistic interactions mediated through atmospheric exchanges between populations and communities (ecosystems) via electrical phenomena (lightning to create nitrates for fertilization), and involving positive coercion of physical factors by biotic influences (rain-forests promoting rain through transpiration discharges of water vapour).

One might further say that the principal effect of "bottle-neck" selection events such as that represented by the (Cretaceous-Tertiary) or K-T boundary incident (as you may recall, a very large meteorite struck the region of southern Mexico causing an extended winter and probable extinction of both the dinosaurs and many other life-forms) is the elimination of all forms of mutualism as nature is forced back into adopting previously relinquished objective and individualist- favouring strategies through stringent natural selection. In ecological terms, the processes by which communities of plants (for example) build-up gradually from open clearings to full forests (the climax community) is known as succession. Succession in this sense covers perhaps units of time up to tens of years and in structure represents the elements of the whole of evolutionary history (3.5 billion years) in compressed format. The successional complex is the defined by evolution as the ecosystem which maximises biomass and incident energy utilization in any given circumstance. No part may be withdrawn without weakening the whole and decreasing the degree to which available energy is rendered into biological form. This in turn governs the ultimate stability of Gaia. Wide-scale stress is observed to force climax ecosystems back to earlier stages in succession. Global extinction events act similarly, but they move biological potential back into earlier stages of evolution.

Global dynamics: allogenic and autogenic changes

The course of evolutionary history has seen many global extinction events induced by outside or allogenic events and has also witnessed a number of biological expansions which have induced autogenic changes over millions of years of comparative stability captured enormous quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere where it has briefly resided, after being forced from the earth through volcanic action, before being re-deposited as coal and oil by courtesy of biological action. Autogenic changes of this nature have undoubtedly served to promote ice ages through the drawdown of carbon dioxide. Ice ages may also have been promoted by allogenic changes associated with orbital variations, particularly in more recent times.

Human populations have now, co-incidentally, reached a point where the conditions permitting individual and group survival in the modern world dictate continued and obligate exploitation of fossil energy deposits arising as energy storage units from earlier ecosystems, so that with very few exceptions, every move we make contributes to the liberation of previously sequestered greenhouse gases whether the massive release arising from launching space vehicles, which also liberate significant amounts of ozone depleting chemicals, or the more modest contribution from a family car on the way to the grocery store.

We now move into an increasingly warmer global regime because humankind, since the dawn of civilization and particularly over the last few centuries has systematically worked to eliminate the great forests from the face of the earth and to drain the wetlands. In recent times humankind has also been driven to expose and degrade the vast carbon deposits laid down in safekeeping, in part, by those same forests in days gone by and has so opened Pandora's box of carbon based gases and other industrial pollutants such as the nitrogen based gases.

We can now see, that in the geological past occasions resulting in excessive release of carbon dioxide have occurred before and indeed substantially higher periods of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have dominated the earth throughout much of the time when it has supported higher life forms at warmer temperatures than we see today. Such releases may have been occasioned by meteorite impacts or by periodic fires in accumulated organic material. Releases could also have come about as the result of exposure of fossil carbon deposits by the excavations of the massive ice-sheets which then oxidized, by discharge through volcanic action perhaps associated with crustal sub- duction mechanisms or by as yet unknown processes which then resulted in warm inter-glacial periods.

In the case of the current releases however, the far-reaching forests which may have subsequently reclaimed and sequestered the carbon gases, and have done so previously in cycle after cycle, have all but vanished at humankind's bidding and we are now presented with an uncertain future in the form of run-away carbon dioxide increases.

The importance of the carbon cycle: a run-down

At present rates of increase, a doubling of CO2 from pre- industrial levels may be expected to take place sometime around the year 2025-2030 or so. If ozone losses continue and the resultant beta UV radiation depresses oceanic plankton populations the consequent release of carbon dioxide from the world's seas will considerably hasten this process.

To control CO2 increases we need to understand some basic facts about the global carbon cycle. First, there are very few carbon sinks, that is places and processes where carbon from the atmosphere in the form of carbon di oxide can be "deposited" and thereby removed from the system. Fixed carbon can accumulate naturally either by carbonate deposition (for instance shells and coral) or by photosynthesis (forming wood) to be then buried either in the ground or on the shallow sea floor to be covered up for long-term storage. Excluding the liberation of man-made greenhouse gasses such as CFC's etc., the direct effects of respiration as well as certain other specific considerations, the major portion of the anthropogenic liberation of carbon (7-10 gt.C, 1 gt. = 109 t., are estimated to have been released in 1990) as CO2 to the atmosphere proceeds by two main mechanisms, either by combustion and oxidation of fossil or recently living organic carbon or by destruction of soil carbon reservoirs through agricultural expansion, particularly where former actively

Accumulating wetlands are involved. The extent to which both mechanisms are active depends directly on population.

The net terrestrial primary production from plants is estimated at 50-60 gt. C/yr. although it is also supposed that this is balanced by an equivalent release due to decay. This sector could be converted to accumulate a significant amount of carbon by planting new trees. The atmosphere currently contains 751 gt. C (353 ppmv CO2, and 1 gt. C = 0.47 ppmv CO2), compared to a pre-industrial content of around 550- 590 gt. C, a difference of 165 gt. C or so. From 3 - 3.4 gt C are accumulated into the atmosphere currently and that figure grows by around 0.4% annually.

The world's water bodies also constitute a more immediately dynamic sink for CO2. Direct measurements are limited but recent empirical estimations of net direct CO2 uptake by the ocean have suggested a figure of 1.6 - 1.9 gt.C/yr.

The oceans are estimated to contain an immense 36,600 gt. C, the majority of which is in solution, particularly in the oceanic depths. Of the 30-80 gt.C/yr. primary production in the oceans, only 0.006-0.7 gt. of this carbon is buried on continental shelves with a further 0.002-0.2 gt. on the slopes and in the deeps. The difference between the 10 gt C liberated and the amount known to be returned to storage minus the 3-3.5 gt accumulated in the atmosphere, is relatively small, less than the variation associated with estimates for some of the major partitions.

The human place in the environment

It is apparent that at least four universal courses of action must be implemented immediately in order to rectify the situation: (1) carbon dioxide emissions and related green-house gases must be curtailed; (2) global forests and wetlands world-wide must be managed in a manner that will ensure a sustainable function in the capture of atmospheric carbon; (3) a course of global environmental management must be undertaken in part by designing and deploying more efficient ecosystems using existing biodiversity and by enhancing ecosystem capacity, to draw-down carbon dioxide on a global scale and by enacting sustainable development practices; (4) high-atmosphere ozone dissolution must be arrested by curtailing disruptive pollutants.

Regardless of what actions we are driven to take, the empirical record of carbon dioxide concentrations trapped in the air-bubbles of polar ice over the past 150,000 years together with the more immediate atmospheric measurements, clearly indicate that global change will surely affect each and every person on the planet within the space of one generation or less. In strict obedience to physical law, these patterns from the past tell us that the mean global temperature is likely to rise by 3-4 degrees centigrade in response to the first doubling in effective greenhouse gas concentrations since the 1800's.

The human role and responsibility

Education targeted on the environment and the attitudes appropriate for stewardship of the planet (Gaia) still remain a novelty in the schools of today. Awareness and concern about the environment have now been heightened by such factors as: the prospects for change induced by warming; population growth; concentration of population in coastal areas; establishment of the Exclusive Economic Zone; exhaustion of resources; inadequate management of growth and development; pollution; over-fishing; excessive siltation, build-up of greenhouse gases and anthropogenic constituents in run-off.

Environmental ethics

As human population pressures increase throughout the world (more people have been added since 1950 than for all of human history up to that point) and the influence of industrial man spreads from formerly restricted areas in ever widening circles powered by fossil-fuel energy accumulated from ancient ecosystems, the factors mitigating against continuity of undisturbed natural communities intensify. With the possible exception of a few remote communities in the abyssal depths of the oceans or perhaps under the Antarctic and Arctic ice- caps many ecologists now feel that there are few if any undisturbed ecological communities remaining on the face of the earth.

Global energy fluxes.

The question of energy throughput and its effects on the structure and function of human and natural ecosystems is of considerable interest from the ecological and environmental perspective. It appears that that natural systems have evolved in association with relatively consistent energy fluxes even if these may have varied somewhat over the long-term of the earth's history. The relationship between the higher species diversity of tropical systems (high natural energy flux) compared to that of polar regions (low natural energy flux) together with the intervening trends are relatively well known. here are more species per unit area in the tropics than for instance on the tundra. It is also well known that most species are not abundant through their potential range. A possible explanation for this is that the majority are relics of past environments in which different global conditions and climates pertained. Global species diversity may thus be properly viewed as a form of ecosystem memory, which could permit a competent biological response to a host of differing environments including those predicted to develop as the result of anthropogenic climate change.

Examination of the laws governing energy-flow and transformation (thermodynamics), leads to the conclusion that energy transformations involve what may be termed an entropy cost translating as increasing disorder. Thus energy is available as a once-only use-function in transformation from a higher to a lower state insofar as the ability to perform work is concerned. As the result of this process, energy does not disappear, it simply becomes degraded and cannot be further used. In principal, it then takes the form of low-grade thermal pollution (contributing directly to global warming) and wastes. The socially competent energy transformations resulting in the elaboration of useful work certainly provide an increase to the general economy but at the same time result in increased disorder (the entropy penalty cost). For every automobile produced a corresponding amount of pollutants is generated and a specific environmental cost is involved. The difference in these two conditions is intended to result in a socially useful state of increased order (the automobile) and is the basis of economic life, as we know it today. At relatively low population densities and with modest energy throughput, the environment readily absorbs these costs. Global populations of from 5- 10 billion people together with their concomitant energy throughput are an entirely different matter indeed.

It might be said that natural ecosystems have resulted from an order-positive imbalance on the solar energy degradation pathway. In other words, an anomaly has been created in the action of the second law of thermodynamics. In essence the second law says: work performed as the result of energy degradation always results in an increase in disorder, the degraded energy (usually heat) can never be reclaimed for the same amount of useful work without an additional energy injection.

This anomaly represented by living systems however, depends on continued energy throughput. Although disorder (sometimes called entropy) everywhere increases, nature never-the-less converts essentially un-ordered chemicals into more ordered physical states, as long as energy flow is maintained, i.e. an order-positive imbalance exists based on solar energy throughput. This form of "ecologically balanced" energy flux can be taken as one end of a range of progressively increasing socially mediated energy-throughputs. At the other extreme of this range, as associated with the detonation of a thermonuclear device on a city or the more moderate expression of modern conventional warfare, an immediate order-negative imbalance results from the energy degradation.

Thus we may well ask at what multiple of solar energy throughput per unit area and time might we expect to find an acceptable ratio between the entropy cost penalty and maintenance of physical system order compatible with overall ecosystem well-being? An answer to this question might also tell us at what level of energy throughput per unit area we might expect to see a point at which subtraction from established cultural and technical (physical) order is initiated. We may then approach the analysis of human ecosystems from an ecological perspective. The concept of an order-positive imbalance, or, a unit increases in order, for a given energy flux must take into account the entropy cost of energy conversion/capture, transmission and degradation. All energy capture schemes involve environmental costs. Hydro projects may alienate biodiversity; solar energy panels may block sunlight from reaching the ground and thus potentially reduce biological productivity. The selenium and metals etc. used in photoelectric cells and peripheral structures must be mined and processed involving energy costs and appropriate carbon penalties as well as the induction of direct environmental damage and pollution etc.

By taking these factors into account, one may then inquire into the relationship in human systems between unit increase in order and energy throughput. This may be done in gross terms per unit time per

Unit area (local, regional global) and may also be properly stratified by grade of energy input. Since we may also properly regard money as a social claim on energy and thereby indirectly as a means of accounting for socially available energy (considering all forms from fusion energy, hydro-electrical energy to low-grade heat energy etc.), questions may be elaborated and answered on an ecological basis concerning the relationships between capital accumulation, expenditures or investments per unit area and the resulting energy/order relationships. For instance fossil fuel (oil) is extracted from the middle east, exchanged at a low value-rate for hard currency (firm claim on energy), used by industrial nations to elaborate infrastructure, industrial capacity and, incidentally, military hardware which is then swapped back for the original capital creating an immediate primary imbalance which eventually leads to destruction of both the military equipment and the developing country infrastructure along with significant environmental degradation, and as yet an unquantified contribution to global warming.

Most industrial societies have evolved through substantial periods of dependence on land-based economies operating under conditions characterised by an abundance of resources. For many, the negative effects induced by global industrialization and global economic processes are new phenomena, ones which often cannot be understood by the direct transfer of practices which were formerly adequate to deal with local causes and effects. Traditional societies faced with advances in technology and changes of scale, owing to the operation of the global economy find that many of their practices such as those involved in fishing and ocean management for instance, often prove inadequate to guide further development.

Environmental resilience

As human beings reduce existing biodiversity, they decrease the ability of the planet to adapt to changes. A sustainable biosphere, which retains a full compliment of biological form, is thus a necessary prerequisite to human survival in the long term. For the most part, it is thought that animal and plant species adapt to environmental changes primarily by slow genetic changes in physiological, structural or behavioural characteristics, humans prevail as a species, which essentially adapts by learning. The process by which this adaptive behaviour is spread among human populations is education.

Developed countries, are relatively poorer in biodiversity because they have gained their current quality of life at the expense of their biodiversity and in most cases also at the expense of the biodiversity of developing countries. Should those countries, which have not yet reduced their biodiversity resources, stop development based on the direct exploitation of biodiversity storehouses because it impairs their longer-term economic development? How should the cost of preserving biodiversity for the globe be shared between the rich and the poor countries? Environmental comprehension must address questions of this nature as well as the biological components themselves.

Biodiversity is basically studied as an ecological topic, but biodiversity problems and issues are connected to every fabric of our global society. We must draw upon sociology, psychology, communications, economics, geography, history and many other disciplines in order to develop and implement solutions to these complex problems. Our educational system should prepare world citizens with the necessary attitudes to cope with the actions that will be necessary to ensure the preservation of biodiversity and to understand related environmental issues. Our goal must be to ensure that students are capable of making informed choices which evaluate all known consequences against clearly identified values and with the best information available. The citizens of the future, while intelligently weighing the environmental consequences of personal, social, institutional, economic and all other decisions must become the vanguard of the developing environmental ethic which is now required to save the planet.

Not everyone in the world can afford to value the environment and needs of future generations highly. It will be difficult to develop positive attitudes and conserving behaviour towards the natural environment among many poverty-stricken citizens of developing nations. Without food for survival, there can be little thought given towards conservation of the environment for future generations. It is not surprising that many people of the world who are barely able - or unable - to provide those basic physical needs for themselves are unconcerned about actions that benefit environmental quality. The motivations provided by poverty, starvation and ill health cannot be changed merely by education about environmental quality. A healthy environment aligned with appropriate policies relating to supportable population densities could however, do wonders for poverty alleviation.

Environmental education can also help some disadvantaged citizens enhance their survival and the status of biodiversity by presenting them with more compatible options. If not at first directly, then certainly at a later stage, environmental education can help when informed students take over the reigns of power, and, knowing the active environmental linkages, guide the world towards a better future.

Summary

In summary, increasing environmental damage is primarily propagated by greed and the resulting acceleration in energy use of all kinds is threatening the stability of Gaia, the planet earth.

References

Gould S. J. 1989. Wonderful life. .W. Norton and Company, 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 347 pp.

Harger J. R. E. 1993. Potential limits of human dominated fossil energy based global ecosystems. Chemosphere, V 27 # 6, pp 907- 945.

Knoll A. H. and Barghoorn E. S. 1977. Archean microfossils showing cell division from the Swaziland System of South Africa. Science 198:396-398.

Lovelock J. 1972. Gaia as seen through the atmosphere. Atmospheric Environment 6, 579-580.

Lovelock J. 1988. The Ages of Gaia a biography of our living earth. Bantam Books 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 296 pp.

Walter M. R. 1983. Archeon stromatolites evidence of the earth's earliest benthos In J.F.Schopf (ed), Earth's earliest bioshhere: its origin and evolution, pp 187-213. Princton: Princeton University Press.

Watson L. 1988. Beyond Supernature. Bantam Books 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 296 pp.

J.R.E. Harger

For: EARTHWIRE Workshop: Traditional beliefs and religious approaches to environmental preservation.

Indonesia 11-15 April 1994.

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