Gaia guru urges ocean pipes to fix Earth’s climate

LONDON (Reuters) – A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth’s damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday.

James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that planet Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried — even if they ultimately fail.


In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 meters long and 10 meters wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilizes algae on the surface.

This algal bloom would push down carbon dioxide levels and also produce dimethyl sulphide, helping to seed sunlight-reflecting clouds.

“If we can’t heal the planet directly, we may be able to help the planet heal itself,” Lovelock, of the University of Oxford, and co-author Chris Rapley, from London’s Science Museum, said.

Reuters