In the 1960s, the scientist and environmentalist James Lovelock (who is dead right about the relative merits of nuclear and wind power, by the way) proposed the Gaia Hypothesis in which he suggested that the Earth functions as a sort of superorganism, reacting via natural feedback loops to natural and man-made changes in environmental conditions.
It is far from clear whether Lovelock was talking metaphorically or literally when he spoke of the Earth as being an organism. If he was talking metaphorically, Gaia is an interesting and potentially useful hypothesis which might help us to look at environmental change from a different perspective. If he was talking literally, it is, of course, utter bollocks.
This morning, I took some cardboard boxes to compost in my magnificent compost bins. As I was tearing up the boxes, a sudden gust of wind snapped in half one of the pieces of cardboard, the corner of which nearly took my eye out. It smarted. It smarted A LOT.
So that's what you get for trying to save the planet.
Sod you, Gaia! I'm off to buy an S.U.V!
Stop Press: You couldn't make this crap up… Not 20 minutes after I had published the above, I went to crush my empty beer can in my trendy new save-the-planet can crusher. Half-way through the crushing process, the can—which was by now a mass of sharp metal edges—fired right out of the crusher and hit me square in the face.
That's it: the planet's knackered.
So, the planet tried to get its own back by making Mr. Carter's eye smart? I think there's a Gaia agenda here.......
Actually, he has very jealous eyes. That's why they're always watching each other.
ps. Isle of Wight going naturally powered by 2020.
If we could only work out to free it from its foundations, we could use it as a giant floating holiday camp!
I have my own state of the art can crusher. (size 12)
I've worked out that I only need to crush 158,326 more cans to offset the carbon used to make my can-crusher. Being green has its benefits. Time to crack open another can, I think.