JamesLovelock, a British scientist, is the author of the Gaia Theory. For thoseunaware, this theory states that the Earth has the ability to auto regulation ofits environmental conditions, including temperature and chemical composition, inmuch resembling a living being. According Lovelock, the earth behaves as aliving being, except for the ability to reproduce. This theory caused muchcontroversy in the 70s and 80s of the twentieth century, when this theory wasknown only as the Gaia Hypothesis, whose name was inspired by the Greek goddessrepresenting the Earth. This personalization of Gaia earned much criticism fromthe scientific community against Lovelock, while it made the hypothesis gainsupport among environmental and esoteric groups. Thanks to various scientificevidence and support from many scientists, especially climatologists andglaciologists, the Gaia Hypothesis eventually won the status of a theory, beingformally accepted by the scientific community. The Gaia Hypothesis predictionsguide the actions of the IPCC, the United Nation's advisory body on climatechange. In one ofhis latest works, the book "The Revenge of Gaia", Lovelock discusseshow human influence disturbed the delicate balance of Gaia, being the mostnotorious example of this disorder the current climate change. According toLovelock, we have gone too far this disturbance and we are about to cause anirreversible environmental change, which Gaia will not be able to cope alone.According to him, sustainable development is unable to reverse the situation,and only a "sustainable retreat" would be able to minimize theeffects of this environmental change. Furthermore, only proactive actions couldreverse the damage already done. But what does he means by "sustainableretreat"? We livetoday in a context in which development is directly linked to consumption. We consumefood, clothing, hygiene and cleaning products, appliances, computers, phones,cars, etc. The more a nation consumes more is considered developed. Nowconsumption implies production of new items and disposal of used ones. Somegoods we consume are considered durable. For example, we buy houses to last atleast 30 or 40 years. Others goods are not so much durable. We buy cars to last10 years, TVs to last 5 years, and cell phones to last six months. Not tomention the waste we generate and the emissions of various pollutants. Thelarge cities are becoming increasingly unhealthy thanks to sulfur dioxide andcarbon monoxide emissions, soot, etc. Most people consider carbon dioxide as theworst villain, due to its influence on called greenhouse effect, which is theability of the atmosphere to retain solar heat. Excess carbon dioxide is supposedlyincreasing this effect and warming the planet. But this is only one of manyaspects of climate change. We change the climate when we deforested woods foragriculture, livestock, mining, hydroelectricity, etc. We change the climatewhen we release pollutant materials into rivers and seas, changing itschemistry and upsetting the ecological balance. We change the climate when weburn our garbage or when we launched it into environment. We change the climatewhen we replace native forests by a pine or eucalyptus monoculture, which aredarker and absorb more solar energy, heating the environment. We change theclimate when we throw away our old car to buy a new one, because to build a newone, we need to extract more iron from the soil, forge