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It�s become a cliche to say that we are living on the edge of eco-disaster. It�s also a reality which cannot be overstated. The ecology of Gaia is an interface between land (the Geosphere), air (the Atmosphere), water (the Hydrosphere) and life (the Biosphere), a delicate web of interconnections formed over millions of aeons on the verge of unravelling before our eyes... If the earth�s 4.5 billion year history could be compressed into 30 days, life in the form of simple bacteria appeared on the tenth day whilst the first vertebrates crawled onto the land around the twenty fifth. Homo sapiens (peoplekind) appeared at about 1 minute to midnight on the thirtieth. The industrial revolution would have happened within the last fraction of a second of that minute, yet within this instant, the face of the planet has changed almost as much as within all the previous aeons.