A frequent misunderstanding of my vision of Gaia is that I champion complacence, that I claim feedback will always protect the environment from any serious harm that humans might do. It is sometimes more crudely put as “Lovelock’s Gaia gives industry the green light to pollute at will.” The truth is almost diametrically opposite. Gaia, as I see her, is no doting mother tolerant of misdemeanors, nor is she some fragile and delicate damsel in danger from brutal mankind. She is stern and tough, always keeping the world warm and comfortable for those who obey the rules, but ruthless in her destruction of those who transgress. Her unconscious goal is a planet fit for life. If humans stand in the way of this, we shall be eliminated with as little pity as would be shown by the micro-brain of an intercontinental ballistic nuclear missile in full flight to its target.

The Soviet Sputnik had demonstrated what seemed a Russian breakthrough in missile technology, and the fear had taken root that … [we] were apparently becoming more and more vulnerable to missiles,… and it had become increasingly questionable whether our delivery aircraft could reach their targets—already assumed to be in the area of Moscow. This had led to the concept of a nuclear missile launched by rocket: the British deterrent ultimately … was to be such a missile, launched from an underground site. A British warhead and a British missile: Blue Streak.