Mother Earthism- Another Source of Denial?

Question

I am noticing another belief among new agey types that "the earth heals itself' as a way to dismiss global warming. There is this idea that the earth is a living being that consciously reacts to protect itself from human activity. We can pump all the c**p into it we want and it will always bounce back (it will of course, after millions of years when humanity no longer exists).

This new agey idea is almost identical to "Jeohovah will sort it all out. He won't let global warming destroy his creation".

Do you know people like this? I recommend Lee Silver's book "Challenging Nature".

Answer 1

Jim Z  

You might want to take another look at the nature of reality through the eyes of quantum physics.  The three dimensional cause and effect mechanistic view is an incorrect view of the universe.

Sources:

"The Tao of Physics"   F. Capra

"Taking the Quantum Leap"  

"The Spiritual Universe"      

"The Dreaming Universe   "

"Parallel Universes"    all by  Fred Alan Wolf PhD

"God and The Big Bang"

"The Dancing Wu Li Masters"

"Mysticism and the New Physics"



And you might want to see the movie

"What The Bleep Do We Know  - Down the Rabbit Hole"

Answer 2

You got it backwards.  The people that view earth as a living thing are nearly always alarmists or gullible people that believe we are destroying the earth.  I have countless times chidded them for pretending that we are destroying the planet.  Words mean things.  The planet is a giant rock with an iron/nickel core.  I have repeated this montra numerous times lately to try to drum a little sense and science into those leftists that have taken up this neo-paganism and then pretend it is science based.  Sorry, the hippy new agers are on your side of the argument.

Answer 3

I think you have a superficial understanding of the statement. First of all there is nothing that humans can do to the planet that will wipe out all life forever. Life is very tough and resilient. Cockroaches will be around 500 million years from now.

The question is what kind of life do we want to have on the planet, and that we have a good deal to say about. Humans are on the verge of becoming gods (through our knowledge of DNA) and this is both a tremendous opportunity for us and a tremendous responsibility.. We can probably learn to counteract any of the effects of global warming, if we are willing to spend enough money.

If we regard the Earth as our Mother, we may learn to treat Her with a great deal more respect. I fail to see how this would be bad.

Answer 4

I do know about it, but as all human hypothesis, try to revel how natural laws works. The creation doesn't end with human and animal extinction, it begins again from other level, as had happened several times. Have you ever heard about fifth new world as Mayans, and others ancient civilizations predicted?

In museums all over the world exists objects that can prove such things, perfect made clockwise found under the sea of Greek with at least 3000 years old, rock with a strange object captured in it (like car machinery) that must be in to the rock at least 12000 years.

Human ego denies it to feel save and in control, but that is nature, we decide if there's something else beyond third dimension. What do you choose?

Answer 5

You can wipe them off the map just like you guys tried to erase the mini-ice age out of the history books.  By the way, how did Greenland get its name?  Wasn't it once warm there?  Anyway, you can call real science c**p all you want but the fact is that we aren't warming at all.

I went outside last night and got really chilly.  I wonder what happens to all that heat generated by the heat during the day?  Yet, you expect us to believe that global warming exists longer than ten years, twenty years or even beyond?  Global warming fanatics are making Gore and the media rich off of this stuff.

Give a scientist a living and he will give you knowledge. Give a scientist wealth and he will give you anything you want.

Answer 6

It’s truly difficult to overlook the religious aspect of the environmental movement, and its thrust to the forefront with the global warming scare. The most extreme environmentalists are true earth worshippers under the cult of Gaia. Gaians believe the earth to be a sentient, super-organism that is divine. Consider these quotes:

“All of the lifeforms on this planet are a part of Gaia - part of one spirit goddess that sustains life on earth.”

“Just as the human body uses a fever to fight off an infection, Gaia is raising Her temperature to expel a harmful parasite – humans. Unless humans renounce their destructive ways and rejoin the diverse community of living beings in Gaia’s loving embrace then Gaia will be forced to act in order to secure Her supreme reign.”

– Sir James Lovelock, Ages of Gaia.

And another:

"The earth is not dead matter. She is alive. Now begin to speak to the earth as you walk. You can speak out loud, or just talk to her in your mind. Send your love into her with your exhalation. Feel your heart touching upon the heart of the planet. Say to her whatever words come to you: Mother Earth, I love you. Mother Earth, I bless you. May you be healed. May all your creatures be happy. Peace to you, Mother Earth. On behalf of the human race, I ask forgiveness for having injured you. Forgive us, Mother Earth"

- “Prayer to the Earth”, Student Textbook

While I’m sure not all environmentalists are whack jobs like this - most that I meet are just clueless middle aged women with too much time on their hands - but guess who else belongs to this cult of Gaia:

Robert Muller - former UN Assistant Secretary General and Chancellor of the UN University for Peace

Maurice Strong - founder and Secretary General of the United Nations Environment Programme and Senior Advisor to Koffi Annan. Founder of the Earth Council and the Earth Charter Initiative, and former President of the United Nations University of Peace.

(With people like this in high offices of the UN, is it any surprise that the UN’s IPCC would consider global warming a severe problem?)

Al Gore - former Vice President of the United States

Mikhail Gorbachev - former President of the Soviet Union

Steven Schneider - Stanford Professor of Biology and Global Change

Sir Richard Branson - multibillionaire and founder of the Virgin group of companies

Dr. Tim Flannery - Evolutionary Biologist and very well known environmental activist

Ted Turner - multibillionaire and founder of CNN

Of note is that this group of people alone represents a substantial source of funds in support of “green research” or global warming studies. Ted Turner alone has donated 1 BILLION dollars to the UN, with most of it earmarked for the IPCC. Does anyone really think he doesn’t expect a certain result for this investment?

And who knows how great sums of money the others have raised or donated? The Heinz Corporation (think John Kerry’s wife) has donated 1 million dollars to “global warming research.” Those who accuse skeptical scientists of being in the pay of “big oil” overlook the fact that “big broadcasting” and “big ketchup’ are funding global warming hysteria in grand fashion.

EDIT: aaronesque – no offense bro, but this is only a cursory sampling of these people’s quotes. If you do a little digging you’ll see that many of their quotes do not sound like metaphors at all, but instead overtly display belief in Gaian philosophy. Al Gore devotes 3 chapters in his book “Earth in the Balance” to the goddess worship, and laments that “The last vestige of organized goddess worship was eliminated by Christianity ....” His apparent disdain for Christianity is unfounded however, because there is nothing in Christian literature or theology that permits humans to pillage and plunder the earth’s resources; nor is there any support for the idea (as you mentioned) “If man breaks it, God will fix it.”

I do however agree with you that this Gaia-worship nonsense does nothing to prove or disprove AGW and adds nothing to a scientific debate on global warming – but it certainly strips credibility from some of the AGW proponents in the mind of many people.

Answer 7

I've seen many people make this sort of claim 'Earth will heal itself' claim.  This ignores the history of the planet's climate, which has rapidly shifted from warm periods to ice ages and then rapidly shifted back again.  Some climate scientists think of the planet more as an unstable drunk, which shifts states violently without much provokation.  I think the book 'Revenge of Gaia' talks about this.

Answer 8

Sure it does

It always has in the past

there was a long time when the atmosphere was 70% carbon .impossible for human life

And mother Earth after a few million years

became habitable to plants and then animals

The powers of recovery are fantastic

But so is our abuse

And now if we contaminate enough waters ,destroy enough forests , We could in the end make life unbearable here.,or at least claim many lives

The earth after a few hundred years can regenerate the forests and dilute the contamination enough to make life posible once again;.

Although to get rid of some pollution can be a lot longer

where will we go in the MEAN time???

But your categorizing was wrong those who regard the planet as a mother (a personality or living entity),those who believe in Gaia ,Are not the deniers or skeptics they are the opposition who wish to protect and nurture the Environment ,the Atheists here in yahoo

The skeptics tend to be  religious people ,who regard the planet as property of the humans alone, given by god

Animals are with out a soul or feeling ,and Natural resources are to be to be utilized as they feel like it,

God will deal with any problems.

Although his track record aint so hot

this is god by the way and he is very hot

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Answer 9

One thing I do know:  If the human race pollutes its environment to the point where humans can't live anymore, the pollution will definitely stop, and all of the side effects with it!

After that, will nature take over again?  Well, let your lawn go for three months and see if nature takes over.