Gaian prophet of doom: "There's a lot of puritanical silliness about it."

[bananas]

James Lovelock, founder of the Gaian religion,
known for his prophecies of doom and destruction,
believes that humans should ascend to the heavens:

"I strongly support space travel ... There's a lot of puritanical silliness about it."

2010: A new space odyssey beckons

<snip>

James Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia theory, said: "I strongly support space travel. The whole notion of Gaia came out of space travel. It seems to me any environmentalist who opposes space travel has no imagination whatever. That gorgeous, inspirational image of the globe that we are now so familiar with came out of space travel. That image has perhaps been of the greatest value to the environmental movement. It gave me a great impetus.

"There are the unmanned spacecraft, which are relatively inexpensive, that I certainly think should continue. The more we know about Mars, for example, the better we can understand our own planet. The second sort, the more personally adventurous sort of travel, offers great inspiration to humans. And, were it not for space travel we'd have no mobile phones, no internet, no weather forecasts of the sort we have now and so on. There's a lot of puritanical silliness about it."

<snip>

[Mythsaje]

1. Most, if not all, of the raw materials we're stripping from the Earth

are available in abundance OUT THERE. Not only can we STOP tearing it from the Earth itself, but we can replace some of the ones that should be replaced. Not only that, but given enough raw material and the promise of nanotechnology, we might be able to much, much more than that.

I agree completely with the premise.

[bananas]

2. I'm experiencing the mysterious feeling of deja-vu ...

it's as if I already read your post!

[Mythsaje]

3. LOL

Well, it's not as though I haven't said it before. Recently, as a matter of fact. :D

[Odin2005]

6. +1

[timeforpeace]

4. We don't have time to be patient. I know, it makes no sense, and is self-contradictory, but other

than that...So, every fantastic dream of mankind is gonna be achieved now, during this economic crisis, by government. Reality bites I'm afraid. Grownups have to make choices, and we must choose to feed the planet, take care of issues here before we can run off and play. But never growing up is fun, huh?

[Odin2005]

5. Calling Lovelock, a good scientist, the founder of a religion is an insult to Lovelock.

The Gaia Hypothesis is science, not the fuzzy mysticism New Agers and Lovelock's detractors claim it to be.