The concept of Mother Earth, called Gaia by the ancient Greeks, goes back thousands of years. It is a part of many religions and mythologies. The first scientific mention of it was made by James Hutton in 1785. Hutton, a geologist, is considered by some to be the father of modern geology. In a lecture given before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he stated that studying the Earth through physiology would be beneficial, as the cycling of the elements is reminiscent of the circulation of the blood.

In 1975, J.E. Lovelock reintroduced the Gaia Hypothesis in his book Gaia, A New Look at Life on Earth, introducing the idea that life on Earth functions as a single organism. The name he picked, Gaia, is that of the Greek goddess of the Earth, mother of all life; he applied it to the biosphere. He b...

Please subscribe to keep reading.