permaculture

["John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>]

But in my non-scientific moments I consider the Earth to be alive, too. At 
least we should be treating it that way.

Toby
http://patternliteracy.com


I think that the idea that the planet is alive is even tenable 
scientifically since many of the components of the planet were formed and 
are maintained by life forces. Also because the inter- relations with feed 
back loops of millions of different species of organism are so complex that 
it is simplistic to state the whole is not alive when we are not always even 
sure how to define "life" in the first place. (for instance is a virus 
alive?)
What makes it difficult for us is the difference in process speed of a human 
life and of the planet as a whole. Compared to the life span of the planet 
us humans are completely insignificant even with all the damage we have done 
in such a very short time. "Proof" of Gaia being alive would be if the 
planet spits humans out and goes on without us sometime in the future.
john