Veteran U.N. bureaucrat Maurice Strong of Canada is being positioned as the next U.N. Secretary-General. He founded the U.N. Environmental Program, which has an "Environmental Sabbath" project that aims to set aside a day of the week as a day of rest for the earth, not God. The project encourages young people to sit around a tree and meditate. Strong, an associate of Vice President Albert Gore, has openly speculated about a collapse of Western industrial society being necessary to usher in a more environmentally-sustainable civilization. He is working with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to develop an "Earth Charter," another U.N. treaty, to save the planet and the earth spirit "Gaia" from plunder. Gore himself writes about "Gaia," the earth spirit or Goddess, in his own book, Earth in the Balance. According to this religious worldview, the interests of plants, animals and things are put above the needs of human beings. The use of natural resources becomes blasphemy against the earth spirit "Gaia."