You can sort of explain how life is in beautiful symbiosis with the planet it resides on, but mostly this sort of perspectives cause harm. It's not science and

You can sort of explain how life is in beautiful symbiosis with the planet it resides on, but mostly this sort of perspectives cause harm. It's not science and encourages magical thinking. - "Gaia" makes it easy to think we are bound to Earth, and that nature protects Earth. There is no magical force that ties us to Earth, or a magical force that keeps it liveable, it's just a lucky coincidence and a complex set of systems. Maybe we stop global warming, and then a supervolcano erupts. - "Balance of ecosystems" creates the illusion that even the tiniest change in nature will hurt it. We spend more time worrying about tigers going extinct than an asteroid wiping out all life. - "Biodiversity" makes us think that more variety is always better. No universal law rules that a single super-crop couldn't keep us happy and fed in an environment without biodiversity. If we bring two of each species to a space station, it won't be because of economic reasons. Wild animals and plants do their best to destroy biodiversity constantly anyways. - "Nature knows" causes us to think that naturally occurring solutions are better. For example the genetically engineered Golden Rice, which could save millions of lives yearly, is a victim of this belief. Similar flaws in thinking even cause most of the medical profession to only see medicine as a way to treat disease instead of improving wellbeing. Ask doctors and they'll tell you: all medicine has side-effects! If you gave doctors a pill that eliminates the need for sleep without side effects, they would only give it to people who are dying from insomnia.