Abstract

“Go forth and multiply” should not be justification to rape and pillage Gaia. To the ancient Greeks, Gaia was the goddess of Mother Earth and she came to life in modern times as the Gaia hypothesis proposed by James Lovelock with microbiologist Lynn Margulis. At first, the Gaia Hypothesis became a subject of ridicule in the scientific community because the evolution of global self-regulation was too teleological; and from a biological perspective, natural selection acts on organisms, not the biosphere. But by the late 1980s, supporting models and mechanisms accumulated and the hypothesis became theory. Time has demonstrated to us that the Gaia hypothesis may have been ahead of its time, but during that time a personified Gaia has caused us to reflect on our place on “living Earth.” This paper discusses the value of Gaia as a metaphor for a “living Earth.” Gaia’s discontents are revealed to us through the effects of global warming and thus we should consider her status as a moral object worthy of our consideration. Some of us seek to understand a nature that we believe was created strictly by natural processes, while others of us seek to understand Nature as it is revealed to us through Creation. It is essential that we all work together to consider how the “living Earth” should be treated and judge our actions carefully.