James Lovelock is best known as the father of Gaia theory; the idea that all parts of our planet form a complex interacting system, like a single organism. H...
first book Gaia: a new look at life on earth in 1979; but the scientific community remained highly sceptical. For decades Gaia was ignored, dismissed and even ridiculed as a scientific theory. To this day, evolutionary biologists, in particular, take issue with the notion of a self-regulating planet. John Maynard Smith called it "an evil religion". Jonathon Porritt says Lovelock taught him "the value of cantankerous, obstinate independence, sticking to what you think is right and making those the cornerstones of your existence". Outspoken in support of nuclear power, Lovelock has offered to store a large amount of high level nuclear waste in a concrete box in his garden. On climate change, he believes it's too late for mankind to save the planet. At the start of his Life Scientific, Lovelock says he learnt more working as an apprentice for a photographic firm in south London than he ever did later at university. The best science, he insists, is done with your hands as well as your head. Thanks to Henry Higgins style elocution lessons aged 12, he was able to get a job at the well respected National Institute for Medical Research. Wartime science was all about solving ad -hoc problems and he loved it. A prolific inventor, he made a very early microwave oven to defrost hamsters and invented the Electron Capture Detector - an exquisitely sensitive device for detecting the presence of the tiniest quantities of gases in the atmosphere and led to a global ban on CFCs. Aged 40, Lovelock decided to go it alone and, he insists, the theory for which he is best known, Gaia, simply would not have been possible had he remained working within the scientific establishment. Producer: Anna Buckley.https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b01h666h
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Added by Michael Grove at 14:59 on February 10, 2019
derstood, our own understanding and commitment to the very concept of GAIA as proposed by Margullis & Lovelock remains at the heart of that which [WE] both ascribe to, most particularly in the context of PAST • PRESENT • FUTURE • AS ONE • NOW • in which I referred to Lovelock’s 100th Birthday and and his very adamant proposal that Earth • GAIA will [BE] in[DEED] saved by artificial intelligence, bearing in mind that he has always been an ardent supporter of nature’s own nuclear fusion as the ART of the Possible Solution to the dangers of climate change, which have [NOW] well and truly ARRIVED so to speak or NOT !!!???…
Added by Michael Grove at 11:46 on September 15, 2021
ies will be jeopardised and life as we know it severely disrupted. Almost all predictions of the likely rate of climate change have been based on estimates which professional observers in the real world NOW show are consistently underestimating the true rate of change.
As a global community we continue to be fixated by conventional 'green' ideas which we believe will help save our world. Lovelock argues that only Gaia theory, which he originated over forty years ago, can really help us understand the crisis fully. The root problem is that there are too many people and animals for the Earth to carry. And there is in fact only one possible procedure which might bring a permanent cure for climate change, but we are unlikely to adopt it.'Our wish to continue business as usual will probably prevent us from saving ourselves' says Lovelock, so we must adapt as best we can and try to ensure that enough of us survive to allow a more capable species to evolve from us. There could hardly be a more important message for humankind. James Lovelock has been an active and accurate observer of the Earth environment since the 1960s and was the first to find CFCs and other gases accumulating in the air. His Gaia theory provides insight into climate change in the coming century.This is his final warning.
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lopment of a system based on a magnetron, that I had borrowed from the Navy, which allowed me to make what was in effect a small microwave oven • rather than continuing to use the old fashioned equipment of the time that were based on radio valves etc.
James Lovelock
Electron capture detector developed by James Lovelock in the Science Museum, London
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Added by Michael Grove at 10:02 on February 12, 2019