The Gaia hypothesis, posits the concept of ecosystem homeostasis for the whole macro level biosphere of planet Earth. This hypothesis proposes that organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic self-regulating, complex system through distributed feedback loops that work to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. For example, the global carbon cycle maintains atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide at concentrations required by the plants and animals in earth’s biosphere. This is accomplished by a variety of processes including photosynthesis, respiration and the carbonate buffer system in the oceans. This hypothesis sees global ecosystem homeostasis as a consequence of homeostasis in the large number of distributed local, but mutually interacting ecosystems across the planet.