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James Lovelock

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Writers and critics

   Dr James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS, (born July 26, 1919) is an
   independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist and
   futurologist who lives in Cornwall, in the south west of Great Britain.
   He is most famous for proposing and popularizing the Gaia hypothesis,
   in which he postulates that the Earth functions as a kind of
   superorganism (a term coined by Lynn Margulis).

Life history

   Lovelock was born in Letchworth Garden City. He studied chemistry at
   the University of Manchester before taking up a Medical Research
   Council post at the Institute for Medical Research in London.

   In 1948 he received a Ph.D. in medicine at the London School of Hygiene
   and Tropical Medicine. Within the United States he has conducted
   research at Yale, Baylor University College of Medicine, and Harvard
   University.

Professional career

   A lifelong inventor, Lovelock has created and developed many scientific
   instruments, some of which have been adopted by NASA in its program of
   planetary exploration. It was while working for NASA that Lovelock
   developed the Gaia Hypothesis.

   In early 1961, Lovelock was engaged by NASA to develop sensitive
   instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and
   planetary surfaces. The Viking program that visited Mars in the late
   1970s was motivated in part to determining whether Mars supported life,
   and many of the sensors and experiments that were ultimately deployed
   aimed to resolve this issue.

   During work towards this program, Lovelock became interested in the
   composition of the Martian atmosphere, reasoning that any life forms on
   Mars would be obliged to make use of it (and, thus, alter it). However,
   the atmosphere was found to be in a stable condition close to its
   chemical equilibrium, with very little oxygen, methane or hydrogen, but
   with an overwhelming abundance of carbon dioxide.

   To Lovelock, the stark contrast between the Martian atmosphere and
   chemically-dynamic mixture of that of our Earth's biosphere was
   strongly indicative of the absence of life on the planet. However, when
   they were finally launched to Mars, the Viking probes still searched
   for life there. To date no evidence for either extant or extinct life
   has been found (though interest has recently revived with the discovery
   of unexpected methane in the atmosphere).

   Lovelock invented the Electron Capture Detector, which ultimately
   assisted in discoveries about the persistence of CFCs and their role in
   stratospheric ozone depletion.

   Lovelock is currently president of the Marine Biological Association
   (MBA), was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, and in 1990
   was awarded the first Dr A.H. Heineken Prize for the Environment by the
   Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. An independent
   scientist, inventor, and author, Lovelock works out of a
   barn-turned-laboratory in Cornwall. In 2003 he was appointed a
   Companion of Honour (CH) by Queen Elizabeth II.

Controversy

Gaia

   While the Gaia Hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the
   environmentalist community, it has not been fully accepted within the
   scientific community. Among its more famous critics are Richard Dawkins
   and Ford Doolittle, and a detailed description of disputes surrounding
   it can be found here.

   Briefly, critics point out that since natural selection operates on
   individuals, it is not obvious how planetary-scale homeostasis can
   evolve.

   Lovelock countered these challenges with models such as Daisyworld,
   which illustrate how individual-level effects can translate to
   planetary homeostasis. However, as Earth Systems Science is still in
   its infancy, it is not yet clear how the lessons from Daisyworld apply
   to the full complexity of the Earth's biosphere and climate.

Nuclear power

   Lovelock has become concerned about the threat of global warming from
   the greenhouse effect. In 2004 he caused a media sensation when he
   broke with many fellow environmentalists by pronouncing that "Only
   nuclear power can now halt global warming". In his view, nuclear energy
   is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that has the capacity
   to both fulfil the large scale energy needs of mankind while also
   reducing greenhouse emissions.

   In 2005, against the backdrop of renewed UK government interest in
   nuclear power, Lovelock again publicly announced his support for
   nuclear energy, stating, "I am a Green, and I entreat my friends in the
   movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy".

   Although Lovelock's interventions in the public debate on nuclear power
   are recent, his views on it are longstanding. In his 1988 book The Ages
   Of Gaia he states: "I have never regarded nuclear radiation or nuclear
   power as anything other than a normal and inevitable part of the
   environment. Our prokaryotic forebears evolved on a planet-sized lump
   of fallout from a star-sized nuclear explosion, a supernova that
   synthesised the elements that go to make our planet and ourselves."

Mass Human Extinction

   Writing in the British newspaper The Independent in January 2006,
   Lovelock argues that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us
   will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in
   the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the
   Twenty First century .

   He claims that by the end of the century, the average temperature in
   temperate regions will increase by as much as 8°C and by up to 5°C in
   the tropics, leaving much of the world's land uninhabitable and
   unsuitable for farming. He suggests that "we have to keep in mind the
   awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and
   then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources
   they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can."

Books

     * Lovelock, James [1979] (2000). Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth,
       3rd ed., Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-286218-9.
     * Lovelock, James, Michael Allaby (1983). Great Extinction.
       Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-18011-X.
     * Lovelock, James, Michael Allaby (1984). The Greening of Mars.
       Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-32967-3.
     * Lovelock, James [1988] (1995). Ages of Gaia. Oxford University
       Press. ISBN 0-393-31239-9.
     * Lovelock, James [Gaia Books 1991] (2001). Gaia: The Practical
       Science of Planetary Medicine. Oxford University Press US. ISBN
       0-19-521674-1.
     * Lovelock, James (1991). Scientists on Gaia. Cambridge, Mass., USA:
       MIT Press. ISBN 0-262-19310-8.
     * Lovelock, James (2005). Gaia: Medicine for an Ailing Planet. Gaia
       Books. ISBN 1-85675-231-3.
     * Lovelock, James (2000). Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent
       Scientist. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860429-7. (Lovelock's
       autobiography)
     * Lovelock, James (2006). The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is
       Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity. Santa Barbara
       (California): Allen Lane. ISBN 0-7139-9914-4.

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