Is our planet doubly alive? Gaia, globalization, and the Anthropocene’s planetary superorganisms

Abstract

The theory of the superorganism—that there exist composite forms of life organized at scales above the multicellular organism—has been part of scientific discourse and speculation since the late 1800s. Over the last century theories of the superorganism have grown in scope from designating the local insect colony as emergently alive to positing a global entity enveloping the entire planetary surface. The planetary version of superorganism theory has developed in two different forms, the ecological form of Gaia theory and the sociological form of globalized humankind, with the possible implication that the surface of our single planet is now occupied by two distinct planetary superorganisms. In this article, I summarize the parallel histories of this speculative biological-planetary concept, propose a theory about the relationship of the two coexisting planetary superorganisms, and reflect on how this theory recasts the global environmental challenges of the Anthropocene. I conclude with a note about simplistic or totalizing superorganism assertions.