Blog 8 - The GAIA Hypothesis

In this section, Kohak dressed Lovelock's GAIA hypothesis which is saying that our earth has evolved to be a "self-regulating super-organism." He says that earth has come to be able to get rid of the CO2 and produce O2. I don't believe that this is the case. I think that nature (the trees, ecosystems, etc) are what have been put on this earth, either by evolution or creation, and they have the biological systems that help the earth do this. The problem with this is that if we keep cutting down and ruining all this nature, eventually the world won't be able to self-regulate, which could pose the major threat in our environment.

Another part of this section is when Kohak addresses many different biologists, ecologists, theorists, etc. and their views of how this world is reacting to problems. Konrad Lorenz for example is a biologist that says "human beings are capable of killing a brother -- in the conviction that they are doing good." This could be seen as one excuse for why people can kill these animals, because they think it will help in the long run. In reality, this could make sense to an extent, that if there are animals that are overpopulating the area, in order to keep them under control, to kill them would be the best thing. But just think... aren't humans almost overpopulating earth? What about the baby boom generation? If we keep reproducing, that is just as bad as all the deer reproducing. This is where some people say yeah but they are only deer -- but who says they are an only. They were put here for a reason and if they are being killed, then they are not fulfilling their reason for being here.

An analogy that stuck out most to me was the ape/wolf comparison to humans. At first we were like the apes, eating when we wanted and not being very social, but then as time went on, we became like the wolves, a pack animal. Families would sit down to dinner every night and everything was done together. This was true up until about the 70's-80's and then people got "busy." We are still slipping back into the ape-like creatures, because of things such as sports, school, travel, etc. All of these are reasons, or excuses, for not being able to sit down with the rest of our family for dinner, just like the apes.