James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRSis an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth26 July 1919
whales atmosphere needs
The entire range of living matter on Earth from whales to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of maintaining the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts.
land environmental beef
If we gave up eating beef we would have roughly 20 to 30 times more land for food than we have now.
mistake grants ifs
Nowadays if you're dependent on a grant - and 99% of them are - you can't make mistakes as you won't get another one if you do.
forests desert easier
Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest.
wind-turbines energy schemes
We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can't stand windmills at any price.
wise thinking our-world
I think that we reject the evidence that our world is changing because we are still, as that wonderfully wise biologist E. O. Wilson reminded us, tribal carnivores. We are programmed by our inheritance to see other living things as mainly something to eat, and we care more about our national tribe than anything else. We will even give our lives for it and are quite ready to kill other humans in the cruellest of ways for the good of our tribe. We still find alien the concept that we and the rest of life, from bacteria to whales, are parts of the much larger and diverse entity, the living Earth.
if-there-is-a-god scientist certainty
I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty.
rain cutting desert
The tropical rain forests are a telling example. Once cut down, they rarely recover. Rainfall drops, deserts spread, the climate warms.
jobs way negative
You never know with politicians what they are really saying. And I don't say that in a negative way-they have an appalling job.
space looks earth
We'd never have got a chance to go outside and look at the earth if it hadn't been for space exploration and NASA.
world climate usual
The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.
development sustainable-development drivel
So-called 'sustainable development'... is meaningless drivel.
nuclear campaigns surprise
I have heard that the Saudi Arabians are paying Greenpeace to campaign against Nuclear Power. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
science data games
No one who has experienced the intense involvement of computer modeling would deny that the temptation exists to use any data input that will enable one to continue playing what is perhaps the ultimate game of solitaire.