Over the past 75 years, a new canon has emerged. As life on Earth has become irrevocably altered by humans, visionary thinkers around the world have raised their voices to defend the planet, and affirm our place at the heart of its restoration. Their words have endured through the decades, becoming the classics of a movement. Together, these books show the richness of environmental thought, and point the way to a fairer, saner, greener world.

The creator of the Gaia hypothesis and the greatest environmental thinker of our time has produced an astounding new theory about the future of life on Earth. James Lovelock argues that the anthropocene – the age in which humans acquired planetary-scale technologies – is, after three centuries, coming to an end. A new age – the novacene – has already begun.

New beings will emerge from existing artificial intelligence systems. They will think 10,000 times faster than we do and will regard us as we now regard plants. The cruel, violent machine takeover imagined by sci-fi writers will not happen: these hyper-intelligent beings will be as dependent on the health of the planet as we are. They will need the planetary cooling system of Gaia to defend from the increasing heat of the sun. Gaia depends on organic life. We will be partners in this project. It is crucial, Lovelock argues, that the intelligence of Earth survives and prospers. We are at present the only beings capable of understanding the cosmos, but he speculates that the novacene could be the beginning of a process that will see intelligence suffusing the entire cosmos. At the age 100, Lovelock has produced the most compelling work of his life.

James Lovelock’s Gaia theory, the idea that our planet is a living, self-regulating system, has transformed the way we see our planet and what is now happening to it.

In this book he distils a lifetime’s wisdom and observation of the Earth to reveal the rate at which our climate is altering, how conventional ‘green’ measures are not working, and how life as we know it is going to change forever. Only Gaia, he shows, can help us fully understand this, and prepare us for the future.

‘The most influential scientist and writer since Charles Darwin’
   Irish Times

‘Supremely life-affirming … The definitive statement of the Gaia theory and its implications for the future’
   John Gray, Literary Review

‘Exhilarating … Lovelock is the closest thing we have to an Old Testament prophet’
   John Carey, Sunday Times

‘Gripping, convincing and indeed terrifying’
   Michael McCarthy, Independent

‘Lovelock’s writing has enormous warmth and vitality … we need scientists such as him’
   Fiona Harvey, Financial Times

James Lovelock is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory). He has written three books on the subject: Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, The Ages of Gaia and Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine, as well as an autobiography, Homage to Gaia. In September 2005 Prospect magazine named him as one of the world’s top 100 global public intellectuals.