Gaia Hypothesis & Energy Equilibria

Gaia Hypothesis
The gaia hypothesis suggests that the earth is alive. This was formulated by James Lovelock
that proposes that earth's functions as a single organism which maintains conditions required for
its survival. Gaia means mother-earth, originating from ancient greeks. The earth is a complex
entity involving biosphere, atmosphere, ocean and soil. According to the hypothesis, gasesses
in the atmosphere would not be announced and chemical reactions would be actively occurring
if life existed on a planet; so, other planets are considered to be “dead”. Earth’s atmosphere is a
mix of many unusual and unstable glasses thus, life is present. There is a regulation of the
planet’s atmosphere where the whole system of the climate follows a self-regulating process.
The earth acts as a single system with a collection of physical, chemical, geological and
biological forces. Balance between the energy from the sun and thermal syncs that energy to
space. The flows of energy and recycling of materials are too maintained by Earth. Energy from
the sun is constant (it’s captured by earth as heat / photosynthetic processes, returning to space
as long-wave radiation). However the mass of the planet is limited, meaning that the matter
cycles within it. Everything that happens on the planet, all have an effect on the planet. If Earth
is truly self-regulating, it will adjust to the impacts of man. These adjustments may act to
decrease or limit the numbers, or exclude the existence of man completely.

Environmental Systems
The collection of interactions between the components of the biosphere, which consists of the
atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere, and the ecosphere, can be considered as the
environmental system in an ecological sense.
Equilibrium Energy
The energy that ensures thermal equality between the storage and the subsystem is equilibrium
energy. Therefore, it is obvious that. In other words, the energy needed for a microcanonical
system to have the same temperature as a canonical system is equal to the equilibrium energy
of a canonical system at that temperature.

Laws of Thermodynamics
(1) The first law of thermodynamics says that heat is energy and as all other forms of energy are
subject to it follows the law of conservation of energy. Heat cannot be created nor broken down
and can only be transferred to a non-form or another but by knowing this you can do so much
with it.

(2) The second law of thermodynamics relates to entropy. It is a measure of the amount of
disorder in a process. In a closed system the amount of entropy will never decrease. But in an
irreversible process the amount will increase over time. Entropy (disorder) increases in a closed
system when matter flows freely or energy shifts from one form to another. After some time,
differences in temperature, pressure, and density usually become horizontally equal.