Explore how Gaia presents Earth as an integrated system in which living and non-living components interact to maintain life-supporting conditions.
Outline the Gaia hypothesis as a model of the global ecosystem.
Gaia hypothesis views Earth as a self-regulating system/homeostatic system/living organism;
...maintaining life-supporting conditions/equilibrium;
...through negative feedback mechanisms;
...eg where any changes in global temperature/ocean salinity/ O2 concentration stimulate mechanisms to inhibit/reverse that change;
living organisms interact with non-living elements to form habitable conditions on Earth / it proposes that the evolution of life on earth stabilised global temperatures/atmospheric composition/ocean salinity making the planet more habitable;
eg "Daisy World" where high temperatures promote growth of more reflective daisies;
humans are part of the living system, do not dominate it or have any intrinsic right of exploitation / but may contribute to positive feedback mechanisms destabilising equilibrium in the short term;