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Science matters: Celebrating a scientific life, Richard Harwood
Celebrating a scientific life
Richard Harwood hails a living legend
On 26 July 2019 James Lovelock passed the milestone of his 100th birthday. The author of the ground-breaking ‘Gaia Hypothesis’ (Lovelock, 2000) is one of the leading thinkers in presenting the environmental challenges facing us in terms of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, climate change and over-population.
In this book, and its sequels, Lovelock puts forward his idea that the Earth functions as a single organism. He explores the hypothesis that the Earth’s living matter influences air, ocean and rock to form a complex, self-regulating system that has the capacity to keep the Earth a fit place for life. A highly significant and original book, it can be viewed as being on a par with Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring as an influence on the development of the environmentalist movement.
Since Gaia was first published, Lovelock’s hypothesis has become a hotly debated topic in scientific circles. In subsequent books he has sought to address the questions and misgivings raised (see the preface to the third edition, and also The Revenge of Gaia, and The Vanishing Face of Gaia). Over the years he has also modified and adapted his thinking in line with further research and developments. A radical and fiercely independent thinker, he has been prepared to take unpopular lines of thought, not least when proposing that nuclear energy needs to be part of our energy provision as we move from dependence on a fossil fuel-based energy economy – a controversial proposition, but one that finds support in Goldstein and Qvist’s recently published (2019) A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, based on policies pursued in Sweden, France and Ontario. Renewables have their place, but they are not continuous and cannot replace baseload electricity supply; it is also difficult and very expensive to store electricity. These are the arguments used by some, including Lovelock, in arguing that any future energy mix must include nuclear energy.
James Lovelock (Photograph taken in 2005 by Bruno Comby)
All this is relevant in a context of increasing concern over national moves towards a carbon-free energy future, with Britain having recently set itself a target date of 2050. Increasing evidence of the progressive melting of both the Arctic and Antarctic icecaps, shifts in prevailing seasonal temperatures, and concern over deforestation of the Amazon and other rain forest regions (with reports of an area equivalent to 2000 football fields being lost daily in Brazil) all contribute to the urgency of the discussion – an urgency compounded by the reluctance of some key players to even acknowledge the evidence and nature of the problem.
The issues raised by Lovelock and others back in the 1970’s remain of great significance and make the contribution outlined in his books worth re-visiting. Even critics of the stronger aspects of the Gaia hypothesis recognise that ‘its study has … generated many new and thought-provoking questions’, and that ‘While rejecting Gaia, we can at the same time appreciate Lovelock’s originality and breadth of vision, and recognise that his audacious concept has helped to stimulate many new ideas about the Earth, and to champion a holistic approach to studying it’ (Tyrrell, 2013).
Intriguingly, Lovelock’s latest book, published in 2019, moves to new ground; namely the likely impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on our futures. Even at the age of 100, James Lovelock remains a source of valuable insights – a person worthy of the accolade of being ‘one of the world’s top 100 global public intellectuals’ (Prospect magazine, 2005) and ‘possibly the greatest environmental thinker of our time’.
References
Goldstein J S and Qvist S A (2019) A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, New York: Public Affairs Lovelock J (2000) Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, 3rd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press Lovelock J (2019) Novacene: the Coming Age of Hyperintelligence, London: Allen Lane Tyrrell T (2013) On Gaia: A Critical Investigation of the Relationship between Life and Earth, Princeton: Princeton University Press
