Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 10
Gaia and Biodiversity
It was a rainy English day, and Julia, Oscar and I had gone off to Bristol for Julia's talk
at the Green Food Festival about vegetarian cooking. Afterwards I went off to explore
the lovely dockland area with its art galleries and trendy restaurants. Wandering into the
foyer of the IMAX theatre, I saw something dramatic which caught my breath. A large
metal Earth, about three metres in diameter, hung from the ceiling near the ticket office.
Thick copper strands criss-crossed its hollow interior, and sheet metal continents curved
gracefully over the hollow sphere. But what intrigued me most of all was that the whole
thing was studded with TV screens, several for each continent and others for the oceans.
Each TV showed scenes of the wild world of the region it represented. In Africa, you
could see the dust clouds sent into the sunset by the great wildebeest migration; in South
America, birds and butterflies moved languidly through the tropical forest; in Indonesia,
orangutans swung from the trees; in Eurasia there were deer and herds of wild bison graz-
ing in open forest glades; in Australia there were lovely scenes of kangaroos in the wild
bush, and in the oceans you could see dolphins swimming in crystal blue waters and huge
manta rays plunging into schools of tiny fish. I stood transfixed as the installation pro-
