{"product_id":"gaia-wakes-earths-emergent-consciousness-in-an-age-of-environmental-devastation-9781788218283","title":"Gaia Wakes: Earth's Emergent Consciousness in an Age of Environmental Devastation","description":"\u003cp\u003eGaia Wakes presents a compelling new framework for understanding the past, present, and future of our planet. Starting from a strong foundation in economics and drawing on a vast range of multidisciplinary scholarship, Topher McDougal explores the possibility of a fifth transition towards an upgraded Earth: the development of a technologically enabled planetary brain capable of coordinating ecological functions and peering far into the future and universe. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eGaia Wakes endows the emergence of a planetary brain with both a plausible economic mechanism and a historical context in which that mechanism has operated over the course of 3.8 billion years of life on Earth. It argues that the global environmental devastation we are beginning to experience and rapid recent advancements in artificial intelligence may jointly be part of a naturally recurring cycle of \"upgrades\" that has driven the increasing complexity of life on Earth. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAmbitious and provocative, the author combines economics with a breathtaking range of subjects including futurism, technology, philosophy, ecology and planetary and environmental sciences to offer new insights into questions that have long challenged us about the relationship between humankind and the world in which we live. Gaia Wakes stands out as a bold and original perspective on the future of our planet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTopher McDougal is Professor of Economic Development in the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. He has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic and Americas Quarterly.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Agenda Publishing","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51276607652114,"sku":"9781788218283","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_05de8606-0b1d-4c9b-8f8c-24e119dd379f.jpg?v=1747132870","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/gaia-wakes-earths-emergent-consciousness-in-an-age-of-environmental-devastation-9781788218283","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}