The smallest ecosystem, that is, the minimal form of element-cycling life is unknown even in principle. Accurate estimates of the ecological chemistry of the biota, including the material needs of humans, may strain current scientific capability and will upset political sensibilities, yet it becomes a crucial scientific goal to quantitate closely such scientific insights. Their justification is simple. The Society's aims are to promote an integrated understanding of the Earth system, and to test predictions made by Gaia and associated theories. In The Biosphere , Vernadsky showed how the gases of the biosphere are generatively linked with living matter which, in turn, determines the essential chemical composition of the reactive components of the atmosphere.
Atmospheric gases are in an equilibrium state of dynamic and permanent exchange with living matter.
The gaseous constituents of the biosphere are thus closely connected with photosynthesis, the cosmic energy factor. An understanding of the greater extent of the potential population relative to any ecologically standing population, is embedded in Vernadsky's great insight. This man, who never considered himself a biologist, saw life much more profoundly than any biologist then or now. Vernadsky's profound realizations have to some extent infiltrated our culture, yet we in the Americas, in the Pacific and even in western Europe tend toward ignorance of his work. The new book helps, to some extent, to drag Vernadsky out of western obscurity into the limelight he enjoys in eastern countries.