James Lovelock: The Revenge Of Gaia

"Global heating was not much more than a rumour in 1979 when Lovelock launched the Gaia hypothesis, an audacious vision of the living earth as an organism, whose geology and life-forms had together evolved ways of maintaining a climate and an atmosphere congenial to life. He seemed confident that Gaia’s intricate connections, linking forests and oceanic algae to cloud formation, would be able to counter the earth’s warming from man-made carbon dioxide. Now, as global temperatures creep relentlessly higher and climatic disasters proliferate, he believes we may have already gone beyond the point of recovery."

"It’s a powerful book but disablingly depressing; although Lovelock is a scientist of brilliant prescience, he is not such a good psychologist, and his severe and spartan argument may not push the right buttons."