Gaia Meets Digital Earth

Gaia represents a compelling vision and metaphor for a living, organic planet that is more than the sum of its parts. Raised into our consciousness by Dr. James Lovelock, this conceptual brainchild has been further elucidated by biologists like Dr. Lynn Margulis who have discovered the inherent capacity of the planet to adjust homeostatic conditions with biological systems, akin to a living being. A gathering of Gaia enthusiasts will meet in October in northern Virginia (http://www.gaiatheory.org/) to work out the science and application domains of the Gaia theory for very pragmatic reasons; preservation of life on Earth. Martin Ogle will be helping to lead this group in preparation for their input to the ISDE5 gathering. What will this do? Matching Gaia theory with Digital Earth performance portends an extremely rich field for modelling and assessing our collective futures.