FACING GAIA

This dense and erudite book is an elaboration of the Gifford Lectures on natural religion delivered at the University of Edinburgh. Bruno Latour may be an unfamiliar name to readers – he is a leading sociologist and anthropologist who now holds a chair at Sciences Po, where he is director of its medialab. The term 'monogeism' was coined by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk as a reminder that there is no spare planet, and historically reflecting the influence of monotheism in Western culture. The title itself represents Gaia as a force in the new unstable climatic regime representing the Anthropocene. It is ironic that the advent of this term representing a new and implicitly managerial relationship to Nature has emerged precisely when its processes are becoming more unstable and chaotic with all that implies for human life. We are aware that a generalised European standard of living requires three planets and four for the US, but the present economic ideology of growth brings us nearer to the reality of limits Earth Overshoot Day this year was August 1 – the date when we have used more from Nature than it can regenerate in a year, meaning that we are currently using 1.7 planets - i.e. drawing down our capital.

Latour understands Gaia in various dimensions – medical, scientific, political and religious. He clears up quite a few misunderstandings of the concept by critics, who often attribute to it features that Lovelock and Margulis explicitly repudiate. There is of course a limit to the metaphor but the main point is that it goes beyond environmental determinism to propose an interactive and evolving system where self-regulation emerges from evolution without any overall plan or foresight. From a theological angle, Latour discusses ecological apocalypse or the end times and the way that people react in denial, whereas for the author, 'there is no longer any doubt that the end time has actually come about' (p. 196). Evasion can take the form of hope, but this kind of hope can be the enemy of action. This is a repeated pattern in environmental books ending with an apocalyptic final chapter with the proviso that there is hope if we change our ways. So at the very least, this kind of hope is provisional, and is the enemy of action if none is taken. For the author, 'the apocalypse is a call to be rational at last, to have one's feet on the ground' and to stop conciliating the adherents of pacification in favour of further deferral, sometimes in the name of science. The precautionary principle in ecology has none of the political force that it has in defence matters, although both entail an attitude of responsibility. Latour further points out that we collectively choose what we are sensitive to and what demands a quick reaction – the long emergency of the Earth has so far mobilised only activists.

One of the most interesting chapters on convening the various peoples of nature begins with an instructive comparison between the cover of Nature magazine announcing the Anthropocene with the cover of Hobbes' Leviathan who dominates a vast landscape foreshadowing the need for supranational authority in environmental matters. Latour develops a number of contrasts in instructive charts, distinguishing between epistemological and anthropological approaches to God, the Earth and ordering principles. For many, the ordering God has been replaced by the laws of nature, although both approaches are more transcendent than immanent. This is further developed into two distinctive forms of science and the same for religion, showing that no single definition can apply to either. Hence the importance of framing, for instance in asserting the primacy of ecology over economics, as in the extensive work by Lester Brown reviewed in these pages.

There is a big difference between the world of Columbus in 1492 and the Earth Summit of 1992. There is no abundant New World to be discovered and exploited unless one takes seriously fantasies about colonising Mars, which reminds me of Dostoevsky's short story The Dream of the Ridiculous Man where the protagonist arrives on an unblemished planet and proceeds to recapitulate human errors – without a change of thinking there will be no corresponding transformation of the outer world. This also suggests that the journey should embody the motto of plus intra rather than plus ultra. The new category of humans which he calls Earthbound need to explore the question of limits and identity – they belong to a delimited territory, which is the Earth itself, and need to use this as a starting point for their thinking in terms of both agency and responsibility.