GAIA'S GIFT: EARTH, OURSELVES AND GOD AFTER COPERNICUS

Debates about the emerging global environmental crises such as climate change tend to focus on the proximal issues of causation and rarely mention the more fundamental influence of our world view and its underlying assumptions and values that are much more difficult to identify. In Gaia's Gift, Anne Primavesi once again helps to correct this by exploring an aspect of the ideological revolution that began with Copernicus and Darwin, and, she argues has yet to be completed. The essence of this revolution was the challenge to humanity's God-given centrality within the cosmos, and yet both science and religion are still infused with the notion that we are in some way elevated above the rest of creation. According to the religious version, we alone are created in the image of a transcendent God who has placed humans in the cosmic place of honour and given us life and everything in it. We are spirits inhabiting matter, standing on the interface between earth and heaven, aiming to earn redemption through obeying God's will. Non-human earthly creatures, together with the earth, are subject to us. The scientific version maintains that our big brains and our rationality give us some extra 'value', placing us 'above' other creatures, and entitling us to dominion over 'dead' matter. It is, therefore, quite acceptable for us to do what we will with the earth's resources for our own benefit. The book identifies Gaia Theory as highly relevant in completing the revolution by helping us to see that we are dependent on, rather than in control of the whole earth community. Gaia Theory provides an entry point by shifting our perspective. In Gaia, we are members of the community of life on the earth's surface that depends ultimately on the gift of energy from the sun to earth. Priority rests with the complex range of interdependent relationships upon which all life depends and within which we are intimately embedded. Other members of the earth community are also 'special' in their roles and abilities, and each of us does more for the community than merely live in it. Ecological understanding has helped us to grasp the notion of cycles and connectedness between organisms, but something deeper is required to fully sense the extent of our interconnectedness. Anne Primavesi directs our attention towards the notion of deep time, and the realisation that billions of years before we emerged, Gaia was evolving conditions and systems that would prove essential to our emergence and survival. The gift of our existence is a result of billions years of life: myriad life-forms living, growing, dying, evolving. This is Gaia's gift. Being aware of the greater whole arouses emotional responses such as awe, admiration and gratitude, all necessary human reactions to the world. The emotional impact nature makes on us is part of its meaning for us: meanings give things their value, and it is myth that acts as a container for imagination, thought, emotions, meanings and a certain shared perception of the world. The role of myth, and our participation in it through ritual, is explored with reference to 'gift exchange' cultures such as the Native Americans of the Pacific west coast, and their notion of givenness that sees the vital components of one's life as freely-given gifts from other living beings (often given through their death). This is in stark contrast to our consumer culture and the perception of these things as possessions and commodities. Here, the dominance of commodity-exchange couched within the myth of the 'free market' dulls our sense of gratitude and the desire to give-away in our turn. The provider, the earth, has become invisible with the distance between the consumer and the natural resource base through technological and urbanised environments, and availability rests with the ability to pay. We are beginning to appreciate our connection from a scientific perspective as the impact of our species is having increasingly obvious effects on the global scale, and research shows that we may be unpicking the tight coupling responsible for regulation. We are realising that our impact can elicit unpredictable reactions from Gaia that can be detrimental to the survival of large numbers of human individuals, and most particularly to our western civilisation and its reliance on complex infrastructure. But are we recognising the role of the mythic? As the book concludes, "what earth has given and continues to give to countless other life forms, and what it means to us and to our lives, is literally, religiously and imaginatively discounted ….. without earth's givenness built up over deep time, and without the present gifts of life-support systems made possible by it, we would not exist. And that if we do not preserve, respect and nourish that givenness, Gaia's gift to us, although not necessarily to those who come after us, will fail."