We chose the name The Gaia Project because of what it signifies to us.

Firstly, Gaia was the ancient Greek goddess of the earth; a good starting point for an organization aimed at maintaining ideal living conditions for humans on our planet.

Secondly, back in the 1960s, a man called James Lovelock came up with the Gaia Hypothesis. His theory was that the physical earth (e.g. the oceans, the mountains and the atmosphere), and the living inhabitants (animals, plants, and especially us) were coupled together in one complex interactive system. He was essentially saying that you could look at the earth as a single, self regulating organism. A small change in anything on the earth, would result in a change elsewhere to keep the planet in balance. Of course, that means that a big change somewhere, needs to be reflected by a big change elsewhere for the planet to survive.

And that’s what we’re doing now. Our current actions of emitting vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are changing its composition. This has already started to change the earth’s climate, and the trend is only accelerating. Throwing our earth system so out of balance is going to have severe, if unpredictable consequences.

The earth will survive, as it has for billions of years, through many naturally induced climate changes. What we’re fighting for here, is our own survival. That’s our project.