The Gaia Hypothesis states that:

Gaia is the environmental-control system created by sum total of life-forms on Earth.
. . Those life-forms are the "thermostat" of environmental control. All these life-forms on the Earth are so synergetically interconnected --they have such a tight interaction and interdependence-- that the Earth may reasonably be thought of as a single creature of many cells.
. . These "cells" blindly have such an effect on the environment that, in total, the ecology (degree of salinity, temperature, rain, oxygen, etc) is sufficiently controlled by that life, and so that conditions stay within the certain very narrow bounds that are best suited for the needs (survival) of that life. i.e.: it makes what it needs, even the weather.
. . These organisms feed their various outputs back into the interworkings of nature in such a way as to control it. Self-serving but unthinkingly automatic, they have evolved responses to the environment that serve selfish interests. With few exceptions, these selfish interests are in the best interests of all life.
. . These things can only be learned by the ego-free process known as the Scientific Method. Science has, in fact, the proper religious respect for things greater than ourselves... in that its practitioners ritually find a way, without ego or prejudice, to ask questions that humbly let nature (things as they are) make its own pure revelations. They shut up and listen. That makes the Scientific Method just a way to shut up. It's not at all easy.
. . By repetition of experiments and analyses, they zero in on the facts.
. . The Gaia Society Creed is based on a scientific observation of nature, and the Zen-like acceptance of that nature as the ideal, including the desirability of basic human nature.
. . The creed states that our awareness of this awesome totality, and the acceptance that "as it is (was) is the best that it can be", leads us, individually and in total, to behaviors best in accord with the continuity of life on Earth, and our greatest enjoyment of it.
. . We will devise and evolve a culture within the larger set of cultures; one that will best suit, entertain, and assist in the personal growth of our members.