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
oil people burning
The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.
moving europe sea
By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions.
meaningful inertia humans
The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.
lying book understanding
I know that to personalize the Earth System as Gaia, as I have often done and continue to do in this book, irritates the scientifically correct, but I am unrepentant because metaphors are more than ever needed for a widespread comprehension of the true nature of the Earth and an understanding of the lethal dangers that lie ahead.
forests desert easier
Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest.
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.
thinking awful pessimist
I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen.
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.
two-sides growth ignorant
Those who fail to see that population growth and climate change are two sides of the same coin are either ignorant or hiding from the truth. These two huge environmental problems are inseparable and to discuss one while ignoring the other is irrational.
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.
war issues feelings
I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as a war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
real technology space
The apologists for space science always seem over-impressed by engineering trivia and make far too much of non-stick frying pans and perfect ball-bearings. To my mind, the outstanding spin-off from space research is not new technology. The real bonus has been that for the first time in human history we have had a chance to look at the Earth from space, and the information gained from seeing from the outside our azure-green planet in all its global beauty has given rise to a whole new set of questions and answers.
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.
democracy way climate
Climate change now represents so urgent a threat to mankind that the only way to deal with it is by suspending democracy.