Bioregionalism is a way of seeing ourselves as part of a complex ecosystem which – over time – we, as humans, have both modified and adapted to. This constant too-and-fro continues to form our human “culture”.
Gaia can be seen as the aggregate sum of all the world’s bioregions, which – taken together – form the biosphere. Gaia theory proposes that non-living matter within, on and above the Earth (rocks, water and atmosphere) has , for billions of years, been creating optimal conditions to support Life. It seems very close to what First Nation Peoples across the world have been saying for tens of thousands of years: the Earth is Alive. Such a theory is bound to attract controversy, as we will see.
Two scientists – James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis – came up with it in the 1970s. Looking back, one can see it as part of the zeitgeist of the time. Lovelock was working for NASA, the USA Space Agency that in 1969 had successfully put a Man on the Moon during the Apollo 11 Mission. In an earlier mission an astronaut had taken the first colour picture of Earth from Space. It became known as “Earthrise”, for it showed a tiny blue Earth rising above a desolate lunar landscape (it was taken as the spacecraft rounded the moon’s dark side and Earth hove into view).
For the first time in human history, millions of people could see a picture of their planetary home taken from space. Over the coming decades writers sought to describe the Earth from this perspective : metaphors that arose include “pale blue dot” and “blue marble”. The image was steeped in the collective consciousness by the time our two scientists were feeling their way towards a theory that would ultimately provide a science-based Origin Story for the planet and all its myriad life forms, Including us.
In the next post we will look at how Lovelock’s radical ideas starting coming together with a computer simulation known as “Daisyworld”.
bioregioning 