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
mistake taken animal
We are the intelligent elite among animal life on earth and whatever our mistakes, [Earth] needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way 20th century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken [Earth] 2.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct she has little chance of evolving another.
clever viruses host
An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.
our-actions action consequence
For each of our actions there are only consequences.
development sustainable-development drivel
So-called 'sustainable development'... is meaningless drivel.
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.
rain cutting desert
The tropical rain forests are a telling example. Once cut down, they rarely recover. Rainfall drops, deserts spread, the climate warms.
littles individual evidence
There is little evidence that our individual intelligence has improved through recorded history.
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.
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.
country war numbers
Just after World War II, this country led the world in science by every way you could measure it, yet the number of scientists was a tiny proportion of what it is now.
climate hot states
All the modelling we do shows that the climate is poised on the jump up to a new hot state. It is accelerating so fast that you could say that we are already in it.
average different lucky
Climatologists are all agreed that we'd be lucky to see the end of this century without the world being a totally different place, and being 8 or 9 degrees hotter on average.
meaningful clever thinking
I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.
views personal-views
I've got personal views on the '60s. You can't have freedom without paying the price for it.