Gaia has been around for a while. René Dubos (1901–82) called such a concept “a theology of the Earth.” Loren Eiseley (1907–77) wrote of a living earth that could repair itself, but it took the biologist James Lovelock to choose the name Gaia as the sum total of all earthly life-forms. I guess he meant all the way, from E. coli and elephants to us folks. Gaia may not exist, but I do talk to her.
