James Lovelock's Model: The Plight Of The Gaia Model

In 1960, the wolves who had covered most of the United States found themselves hunted; a hunt that would last until the 1960’s when they would be put on the endangered species list after their populations plummeted. The species of Gray wolf that was most common in the U.S. was almost hunted to extinction because complaints from ranchers and farmers that the wolf was a mindless, selfish, gutless killing machine. However, it is obvious through careful studying and monitoring that the wolves are a key part to their landscape, they keep down the deer and elk count and thus maintaining the balance in their ecosystem. Though it is true that their numbers have recovered slightly under the endangered species act, and due to this the population must …show more content…
(Gaia Packet pg.3) The Gaia Model consists of an outer circle with three parts the Physiosphere, the Biosphere, and the Noosphere. The Physiosphere is divided into the four ‘Classical’ elements and prerequisites for life; Earth (topsoil), Air (primarily oxygen), Fire (Energy), Water. From the Noosphere there are four more categories that further break down the spheres; Politics; information about power, authority, and entitlement. Economics; which is information about the exchange value of commodities, as mediated through the money system. Technology; information about properties of our physical and biological world, and Culture; information about values and priorities, the shared assumptions of societies.. Each piece of the model enhances and ties into the next, this is the base of the Gaia Model in a nutshell. The Wolves and the difficulties they face fall into two of the categories rather well, from the Physiosphere the wolves being hunted most effects in Earth, their plight and future tied to the health of the land they call home. And from the Noosphere, although it effects a little of each, politics best fits as their future is in the hands of those who are being pressured by the people who put them in office to let the mass killing of the Gray wolf