Historically, we (the occidental peoples) see Earth as an inamimate rock upon which we live. Perhaps we instead ought to try looking at Earth as an organism that hosts us (the Gaia theory). If we're going to do this, then we need also to change our worldview from an anthropocentric one that leads us to believe we are superior creatures with dominion over the other beings that share this planet with us and re-evaluate ourselves by means of an alternative view that might show us in a truer light to be a pathogenic virus within the organism. If we accept this, then are we capable of mutating from harmful to, at the very least, innocuous? I have my doubts, but I would like to be proven wrong.

When a virus invades our body, we are not at first aware of it because the numbers of the colony are too small, even though our immune system is already working to resolve the problem. As the colony mutliplies, we become aware because our body is working very hard to eliminate the invasion: fever is one of the indicators. Fever is a way to raise the temperature of the host beyond the level at which the virus survives.

If we accept the Gaia theory, and if we are a pathogenic virus within the organism Earth, what is global warming? When humans were too few in number and when we weren't industrialized enough to have a real impact, Earth paid no attention to us. Now, with more than 6 billion of us, and with serious polluting going on, things appear to be different.

Many believe technology is the solution to the problem, but is it not technology that creates the problem? And should we be looking at technology as something independent of us, anway? Isn't technology really part of human nature? Therefore, can humans fix the problem if it is in their very nature to create the problem?

Maybe Earth will fix us first.