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James Lovelock

 
James Lovelock

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James Lovelock



 
 
James Ephraim Lovelock, CH
Order of the Companions of Honour

The Order of the Companions of Honour is a United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations Order . It was founded by George V of the United Kingdom in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry, or religion....
, CBE
Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom....
, FRS
Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence....
 (born 26 July 1919) is an independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, and futurist who lives in Devon
Devon

Devon is a large Counties of England in South West England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county but often indicating a shire....
, in the south west of England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
. He is known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis is an ecology hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth are closely integrated to form a complex system that maintains the climate and biogeochemistry conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis....
, in which he postulates that the Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
 functions as a kind of superorganism
Superorganism

A superorganism is an organism consisting of many organisms. This is usually meant to be a social unit of eusociality animals, where division of labour is highly specialised and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods of time....
.

in Letchworth Garden City
Letchworth

Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in Hertfordshire, England. The town's name is taken from one of the three villages it surrounded - all of which featured in the Domesday Book....
 in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a Ceremonial counties of England and Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England Counties of England in the East of England region of England....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
, Lovelock was, by his own account, an unhappy pupil at Strand School
Strand School

Strand School was a boys' Grammar schools in the United Kingdom in the Tulse Hill area of South London. It moved there in 1913 from its original location in the Strand, London....
. He studied chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
 at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester

The University of Manchester is a "red brick university" civic university located in Manchester, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration....
, before taking up a Medical Research Council
Medical Research Council (UK)

The Medical Research Council is a United Kingdom organisation dedicated to "improve human health through world-class medical research"....
 post at the Institute for Medical Research in London.






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Quotations


The climate and the chemical properties of the Earth now and throughout its history seem always to have been optimal for life. For this to have happened by chance is as unlikely as to survive unscathed a drive blindfold through rush hour traffic.

In the current fashionable denigration of technology, it is easy to forget that nuclear fission is a natural process. If something as intricate as life can assemble by accident, we need not marvel at the fission reactor, a relatively simple contraption, doing likewise.

Our planet...consists largely of lumps of fall-out from a star-sized hydrogen bomb...Within our bodies, no less than three million atoms rendered unstable in that event still erupt every minute, releasing a tiny fraction of the energy stored from that fierce fire of long ago.






Encyclopedia


James Ephraim Lovelock, CH
Order of the Companions of Honour

The Order of the Companions of Honour is a United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations Order . It was founded by George V of the United Kingdom in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry, or religion....
, CBE
Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom....
, FRS
Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence....
 (born 26 July 1919) is an independent scientist, author, researcher, environmentalist, and futurist who lives in Devon
Devon

Devon is a large Counties of England in South West England. The county is also referred to as Devonshire, but that is an entirely unofficial name, rarely used inside of the county but often indicating a shire....
, in the south west of England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
. He is known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis
Gaia hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis is an ecology hypothesis proposing that the biosphere and the physical components of the Earth are closely integrated to form a complex system that maintains the climate and biogeochemistry conditions on Earth in a preferred homeostasis....
, in which he postulates that the Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
 functions as a kind of superorganism
Superorganism

A superorganism is an organism consisting of many organisms. This is usually meant to be a social unit of eusociality animals, where division of labour is highly specialised and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods of time....
.

Biography

Born in Letchworth Garden City
Letchworth

Letchworth Garden City, commonly known as Letchworth, is a town in Hertfordshire, England. The town's name is taken from one of the three villages it surrounded - all of which featured in the Domesday Book....
 in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire

Hertfordshire is a Ceremonial counties of England and Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties of England Counties of England in the East of England region of England....
, England
England

native_name =|conventional_long_name = England|common_name = England|image_flag = Flag of England.svg|image_coat = England COA.svg|symbol_type = Royal Coat of Arms...
, Lovelock was, by his own account, an unhappy pupil at Strand School
Strand School

Strand School was a boys' Grammar schools in the United Kingdom in the Tulse Hill area of South London. It moved there in 1913 from its original location in the Strand, London....
. He studied chemistry
Chemistry

Chemistry is the science concerned with the composition, structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions....
 at the University of Manchester
University of Manchester

The University of Manchester is a "red brick university" civic university located in Manchester, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration....
, before taking up a Medical Research Council
Medical Research Council (UK)

The Medical Research Council is a United Kingdom organisation dedicated to "improve human health through world-class medical research"....
 post at the Institute for Medical Research in London. His student status enabled temporary deferment of military service
Military service

Military service in its simplest sense, is service by an individual or group in an army or other military organization, whether as a chosen job or as a result of an involuntary draft ....
 during the Second World War, but he registered as a conscientious objector
Conscientious objector

A conscientious objector is an individual who, on religious, moral or ethical grounds, refuses to participate as a combatant in war or, in some cases, to take any role that would support a combatant organization armed forces....
. He later abandoned this position in the light of Nazi atrocities and tried to enlist for war service, but was told that his medical research was too valuable for this to be considered.

In 1948 Lovelock received a Ph.D.
Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph.D. or PhD for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", is an postgraduate academic degree awarded by University....
 degree in medicine at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Within the United States he has conducted research at Yale
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
, Baylor College of Medicine
Baylor College of Medicine

Baylor College of Medicine, located in Houston, Texas, Texas, United States, is one of the world's leading centers for biomedical research and clinical care....
, and Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
.

Career

A lifelong inventor, Lovelock has created and developed many scientific instruments, some of which were designed for NASA
NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
 in its programme of planetary exploration. It was while working as a consultant for NASA that Lovelock developed the Gaia Hypothesis, for which he is most widely known.

In early 1961, Lovelock was engaged by NASA to develop sensitive instruments for the analysis of extraterrestrial atmospheres and planetary surfaces. The Viking program
Viking program

NASA's Viking program consisted of a pair of space probes sent to Mars , Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each vehicle was composed of two main parts, an orbiter designed to photograph the surface of Mars from orbit, and a lander designed to study the planet from the surface....
 that visited Mars
MARS

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
 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 on a precursor of this program, Lovelock became interested in the composition of the Martian atmosphere
MARS

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
, reasoning that many 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
Chemical equilibrium

In a chemical process, chemical equilibrium is the state in which the Activity or concentrations of the reactants and products have no net change over time....
, with very little oxygen
Oxygen

Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
, methane
Methane

Methane is a chemical compound with the molecular formula . It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees....
, or hydrogen
Hydrogen

Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the chemical symbol H. At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a colorless, odorless, nonmetallic, tasteless, highly combustion and explosive Diatomic molecule gas with the molecular formula H2....
, but with an overwhelming abundance of carbon dioxide
Carbon dioxide

Carbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalent bond to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state....
. To Lovelock, the stark contrast between the Martian atmosphere and chemically-dynamic mixture of that of our Earth
Earth

Earth is the third planet from the Sun. Earth is the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World and Wiktionary:Terra.Note that by International Astronomical Union convention, the term "Terra" is used for naming extensive land masses, rather...
'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 (unsuccessfully) for extant life there.

Lovelock invented the electron capture detector
Electron capture detector

An electron capture detector is a device for detecting atoms and molecules in a gas through the attachment of electrons. The device was invented in 1957 by James Lovelock and is used in Gas-liquid chromatography to detect trace amounts of chemical compounds in a sample....
, which ultimately assisted in discoveries about the persistence of CFCs and their role in stratospheric
Stratosphere

The stratosphere is the second major layer of Earth's atmosphere, just above the troposphere, and below the mesosphere. It is stratified in temperature, with warmer layers higher up and cooler layers farther down....
 ozone depletion
Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion describes two distinct, but related observations: a slow, steady decline of about 4 percent per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth stratosphere since the late 1970s, and a much larger, but seasonal, decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions during the same period....
. After studying the operation of the Earth's sulfur cycle
Sulfur cycle

Sulfur is one of the constituents of many proteins, vitamins and hormones. It recycles as in other biogeochemical cycles.The essential steps of the sulfur cycle are:...
, Lovelock and his colleagues developed the CLAW hypothesis
CLAW hypothesis

The CLAW hypothesis proposes a feedback that operates between ocean ecosystems and the Earth's climate. The hypothesis specifically proposes that particular phytoplankton that produce dimethyl sulfide are responsive to variations in climate forcing, and that these responses lead to a negative feedback that acts to stabilise the temperature o...
 as a possible example of biological control of the Earth's climate.

Lovelock was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
Royal Society

The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, or even the Royal, is a learned society for science that was founded in 1660 and is considered by most to be the oldest such society still in existence....
 in 1974. He served as the president of the Marine Biological Association (MBA) from 1986 to 1990, and has been a Honourary Visiting Fellow of Green College, Oxford
Green College, Oxford

Green College was a graduate Colleges of the University of Oxford of the University of Oxford in England. It was centred around an architecturally appealing 18th century building: the Radcliffe Observatory, which is modelled after the ancient "Tower of the Winds" in Athens....
 since 1994. He has been awarded a number of prestigious prizes including the Tswett Medal (1975), an ACS
American Chemical Society

The American Chemical Society is a learned society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has over 160,000 members at all degree-levels and in all fields of chemistry, chemical engineering and related fields....
 chromatography award (1980), the WMO
World Meteorological Organization

The World Meteorological Organization is an intergovernmental organization with a membership of 188 Member States and Territories. It originated from the International Meteorological Organization , which was founded in 1873....
 Norbert Gerbier Prize (1988), the Dr A.H. Heineken Prize
Dr A.H. Heineken Prize

The Dr A.H. Heineken Prizes, named in honor of Alfred Heineken Fondsen, former Chairman of Heineken, are a series of awards bestowed by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences ....
 for the Environment (1990) and the RGS
Royal Geographical Society

The Royal Geographical Society is a United Kingdom learned society founded in 1830 with the name Geographical Society of London for the advancement of geographical sciences, under the patronage of William IV of the United Kingdom....
 Discovery Lifetime award (2001). He became a CBE
Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a United Kingdom order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom....
 in 1990, and a Companion of Honour
Order of the Companions of Honour

The Order of the Companions of Honour is a United Kingdom and Commonwealth of Nations Order . It was founded by George V of the United Kingdom in June 1917, as a reward for outstanding achievements in the arts, literature, music, science, politics, industry, or religion....
 in 2003.

An independent scientist, inventor, and author, Lovelock works out of a barn-turned-laboratory in Devon.

CFCs

After the development of his electron capture detector
Electron capture detector

An electron capture detector is a device for detecting atoms and molecules in a gas through the attachment of electrons. The device was invented in 1957 by James Lovelock and is used in Gas-liquid chromatography to detect trace amounts of chemical compounds in a sample....
, in the late 1960s, Lovelock was the first to detect the widespread presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. He found a concentration of 60 parts per trillion of CFC-11 over Ireland
Ireland

Ireland is the List of islands by area in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islet....
 and, in a partially self-funded research expedition in 1972, went on to measure the concentration of CFC-11 from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic aboard the research vessel
Research vessel

A research vessel is a ship designed and equipped to carry out research at sea. Research vessels carry out a number of roles. Some of these roles can be combined into a single vessel, others require a dedicated vessel....
 RV Shackleton. He found the gas in each of the 50 air samples that he collected but, not realising that the breakdown of CFCs in the stratosphere would release chlorine
Chlorine

Chlorine...
 that posed a threat to the ozone layer
Ozone layer

The ozone layer is a layer in Earth's atmosphere which contains relatively high concentrations of ozone . This layer absorbs 93-99% of the sun's high frequency ultraviolet light, which is potentially damaging to life on earth....
, concluded that the level of CFCs constituted "no conceivable hazard". He has since stated that he meant "no conceivable toxic hazard".

However, the experiment did provide the first useful data on the ubiquitous presence of CFCs in the atmosphere. The damage caused to the ozone layer by the photolysis of CFCs was later discovered by Frank Rowland
Frank Sherwood Rowland

Frank Sherwood Rowland is an American Nobel Prize and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Irvine. His research is in atmospheric chemistry and chemical kinetics....
 and Mario Molina
Mario J. Molina

Jos? Mario Molina-Pasquel Henr?quez is a Mexico Chemistry and one of the most prominent precursors to the discovering of the Ozone depletion. He was a co-recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in elucidating the threat to the Earth's ozone layer of chlorofluorocarbon gases , becoming the only Mexican citizen to ever rec...
 . After hearing a lecture on the subject of Lovelock's results, they embarked on research that resulted in the first published paper that suggested a link between stratospheric CFCs and ozone depletion
Ozone depletion

Ozone depletion describes two distinct, but related observations: a slow, steady decline of about 4 percent per decade in the total volume of ozone in Earth stratosphere since the late 1970s, and a much larger, but seasonal, decrease in stratospheric ozone over Earth's polar regions during the same period....
 in 1974, and later shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The Nobel Prize in Chemistry is awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to scientists in the various fields of chemistry. It is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Alfred Nobel in 1895, awarded for outstanding contributions in chemistry, Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Prize in Literature, Nobel Peace Pri...
 for their work.

Gaia

First formulated by Lovelock during the 1960s as a result of work for NASA
NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
 concerned with detecting life on Mars
MARS

In cryptography, MARS is a block cipher that was IBM's submission to the Advanced Encryption Standard process. MARS was selected as an AES finalist in August 1999, after the AES2 conference in March 1999, where it was voted as the fifth and last finalist algorithm....
, the Gaia hypothesis proposes that living and non-living parts of the earth form a complex interacting system
Cybernetics

Cybernetics is the interdisciplinary study of the structure of regulatory systems. Cybernetics is closely related to control theory and systems theory....
 that can be thought of as a single organism
Organism

In biology, an organism is any life thing . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimulus , reproduction, growth and developmental biology, and maintenance of homeostasis as a stable whole....
. Named after the Greek
Greek mythology

Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the Ancient Greece concerning their List of Greek mythological figures#Immortals and Greek hero cult, Cosmology#Metaphysical cosmology, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices....
 goddess
Greek primordial gods

The Ancient Greece Greeks proposed many different ideas about Primordialism deities in their Greek mythology, which would later be largely adapted by the Romans....
 Gaia
Gaia (mythology)

Gaia Gaia is a Greek primordial gods and chthonic deity in the Ancient Greek Pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess....
, the hypothesis postulates that the biosphere
Biosphere

The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. From the broadest Geophysiology point of view, the biosphere is the global ecology system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and Earth's atmosphere....
 has a regulatory effect on the Earth's environment that acts to sustain life.

While the Gaia Hypothesis was readily accepted by many in the environmentalist community, it has not been fully accepted within the scientific community
Scientific community

The scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science....
. Among its more famous critic
Critic

The word critic comes from the Greek language ' , "able to discern", which in turn derives from the word ' , meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation....
s are the evolutionary
Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
 biologist
Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life.Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment....
s Richard Dawkins
Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, Royal Society#Fellowship, Royal Society of Literature is a United Kingdom ethology, evolutionary biology and popular science author....
 and Ford Doolittle
Ford Doolittle

Dr. W. Ford Doolittle is a biochemist., he is a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax , Nova Scotia. He received his Bachelor of Arts in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University in 1963 and his PhD from Stanford University in 1967....
. These (and other) critics have questioned how natural selection
Natural selection

Natural selection is the process by which favorable heritable trait become more common in successive generations of a population of Reproduction organisms, and unfavorable heritable traits become less common, due to differential reproduction of genotypes....
 operating on individual organisms can lead to the evolution of planetary-scale homeostasis
Homeostasis

Homeostasis is the property of a system, either open system or closed system, that regulates its internal environment and tends to maintain a stable, constant condition....
.

Lovelock has responded to these criticisms with models
Model (physical)

A physical model is a smaller or larger physical copy of an object. The object being modelled may be small or large .The geometry of the model and the object it represents are often similar in the sense that one is a rescaling of the other; in such cases the Scale is an important characteristic....
 such as Daisyworld
Daisyworld

Daisyworld, a computer simulation, is a hypothetical world orbiting a sun whose radiant energy is slowly increasing. It is meant to mimic important elements of the Earth-Sun system, and was introduced by James Lovelock and Andrew Watson in a paper published in 1983 to illustrate the plausibility of the Gaia hypothesis, which later became G...
, that illustrate how individual-level effects can translate to planetary homeostasis. However, as Earth Systems Science
Earth science

Earth science , is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth . It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet....
 is still in its infancy, it is not yet clear how well Daisyworld applies to the full complexity of the Earth's biosphere
Biosphere

The biosphere is the global sum of all ecosystems. From the broadest Geophysiology point of view, the biosphere is the global ecology system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, and Earth's atmosphere....
 and climate
Climate

Climate encompasses the temperatures, humidity, atmospheric pressure, winds, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and numerous other Meteorology elements in a given region over long periods of time, as opposed to the term weather, which refers to current activity of these same elements....
. For instance, climatologists believe that the models used by Lovelock were overly-sensitive to organisms.

Nuclear power

Lovelock has become concerned about the threat of global warming
Global warming

Global warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation....
 from the greenhouse effect
Greenhouse effect

The greenhouse effect refers to the change in the steady state temperature of a planet or moon by the presence of an atmosphere containing gas that absorbs and emits infrared....
. In 2004 he caused a media
News media

The news media refers to the section of the mass media that focuses on presenting current news to the public.These include print media ; broadcast media , and increasingly Internet-based mass media ....
 sensation when he broke with many fellow environmentalists by pronouncing that "only nuclear power
Nuclear power

Nuclear power is any nuclear technology designed to extract usable energy from atomic nucleus via controlled nuclear reactions. The only method in use today is through nuclear fission, though other methods might one day include nuclear fusion and radioactive decay ....
 can now halt global warming". In his view, nuclear energy
Nuclear energy

Nuclear energy is released by the splitting or merging together of the Atomic nucleus of atom. The conversion of nuclear mass to energy is consistent with the mass-energy equivalence formula ?E = ?m.c?, in which ?E = energy release, ?m = mass defect, and c = the speed of light in a vacuum ....
 is the only realistic alternative to fossil fuel
Fossil fuel

Fossil fuels or mineral fuels are fossil source fuels, that is, carbon or hydrocarbons found in the earth?s Crust .Fossil fuel range from volatile materials with low carbon:hydrogen ratios like methane, to liquid petroleum to nonvolatile materials composed of almost pure carbon, like anthracite coal....
s that has the capacity to both fulfill the large scale energy needs of mankind while also reducing greenhouse emissions. He is an open member of Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy
Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy

Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy is a pro-nuclear power non-profit organization. The organization has over 9000 official members and supporters....
.

In 2005, against the backdrop of renewed UK
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 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 these 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
Prokaryote

The prokaryotes are a group of organisms that lack a cell nucleus , or any other cell membrane-bound organelles. They differ from the eukaryotes, which have a cell nucleus....
 forebears evolved on a planet-sized lump of fallout
Nuclear fallout

Fallout is the residual radiation hazard from a nuclear explosion, so named because it "falls out" of the atmosphere into which it is spread during the explosion....
 from a star
Star

A star is a massive, luminous ball of Plasma that is held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth....
-sized nuclear explosion, a supernova
Supernova

A supernova is a Astronomy#Stellar astronomy explosion. Supernovae are extremely luminous and cause a burst of radiation that often briefly outshines an entire galaxy, before fading from view over several weeks or months....
 that synthesised
Nucleosynthesis

Nucleosynthesis is the process of creating new atomic nuclei from preexisting nucleons . It is thought that the primordial nucleons themselves were formed from the quark-gluon plasma from the Big Bang as it cooled below ten million degrees....
 the elements
Chemical element

A chemical element is a type of atom that is distinguished by its atomic number; that is, by the number of protons in its atomic nucleus. The term is also used to refer to a pure chemical Chemical substance composed of atoms with the same number of protons....
 that go to make our planet and ourselves."


In The Revenge of Gaia
The Revenge of Gaia

The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back - and How we Can Still Save Humanity is a book by James Lovelock....
 (2006), where he puts forward the concept of sustainable retreat
Sustainable retreat

Sustainable retreat is a concept developed by independent research scientist Dr. James Lovelock, who is well-known in ecological circles for developing the Gaia theory, in order to define the necessary changes to human settlement and dwelling at the global scale with the purpose of adapting to global warming and preventing its expected negati...
, Lovelock writes:
"A television interviewer once asked me, 'But what about nuclear waste? Will it not poison the whole biosphere and persist for millions of years? ' I knew this to be a nightmare fantasy wholly without substance in the real world... One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife. This is true of the land around Chernobyl
Chernobyl disaster

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history and the only level 7 instance on the International Nuclear Event Scale....
, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States' Savannah River
Savannah River

File:Savannah river cargo ship.jpgFile:Riverwalk Augusta in December.jpgThe Savannah River is a major river in the southeastern United States, forming most of the border between the U.S....
 nuclear weapons plant of the Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it may cause in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets... I find it sad, but all too human, that there are vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organisations devoted to decommissioning power stations, but nothing comparable to deal with that truly malign waste, carbon dioxide."


On 30 May 2006, Lovelock told the Australian Lateline
Lateline

Lateline is an Australian television news and current affairs program, airing weeknights at on ABC1, similar in format to the BBC's Newsnight program....
 television program: "Modern nuclear power stations are useless for making bombs". This view may be based on fact that plutonium-239
Plutonium-239

Plutonium-239 is an isotope of plutonium. Plutonium-239 is the primary fissile isotope used for the production of nuclear weapons, although uranium-235 has also been used and is currently the secondary isotope....
 from the nuclear reactor of a power plant is contaminated with a significant amount of plutonium-240
Plutonium-240

Plutonium-240 is an isotope of the metal plutonium formed when plutonium-239 captures a neutron. About 62% to 73% of the time when Pu-239 captures a neutron it undergoes nuclear fission; the rest of the time it forms Pu-240....
, complicating its use in nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion....
s. It is easier to enrich
Enriched uranium

Enriched uranium is a kind of uranium in which the percent composition of uranium-235 has been increased through the process of isotope separation....
 uranium
Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-gray metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the chemical symbol U and atomic number 92....
 than to separate 240Pu from 239Pu to produce weapons-grade
Weapons-grade

A weapons-grade substance is one that is pure enough to be used to make a weapon or has properties that make it suitable for weapons use. Weapons-grade plutonium and uranium are the most common examples, but it is also be used to refer to chemical warfare and biological warfare....
 material, although even reactor-grade plutonium can in fact be used in weapons eg. dirty bombs
Dirty bomb

The term dirty bomb is primarily used to refer to a radiological dispersal device , a speculative radiological weapon which combines radioactive material with conventional explosive material....
. Friends of the Earth Australia
Friends of the Earth

Friends of the Earth International is an international network of environmental organizations in 69 countries.In contrast to many other NGOs operating internationally, Friends of the Earth International is structured from the bottom up as a confederation of groups....
 responded: "Lovelock's claim that nuclear power plants cannot be used for weapons production is false, irresponsible and dangerous. A typical nuclear power reactor produces about 300 kilograms of plutonium each year, enough for 30 nuclear weapons".

Climate and mass human mortality

Writing in the British newspaper The Independent
The Independent

The Independent is a United Kingdom Compact newspaper published by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media. It is nicknamed the Indy, with the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, being the Sindy....
 in January 2006, Lovelock argues that, as a result of global warming
Global warming

Global warming is the increase in the Instrumental temperature record of the Earth's near-surface air and the oceans since the mid-twentieth century and its projected continuation....
, "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 21st century. He has been quoted in The Guardian
The Guardian

Sorry, no overview for this topic
 that 80% of humans will perish by 2100 AD, and this climate change will last 100,000 years.

He further predicts, 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, with northerly migrations and new cities created in the Arctic. He predicts much of Europe will become uninhabitable having turned to desert and Britain will become Europe's "life-raft" due to Britain's stable temperature from being surrounded by the ocean. 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".

He partly retreated from this position in a September 2007 address to the World Nuclear Association
World Nuclear Association

The World Nuclear Association , formerly the Uranium Institute, is a confederation of companies connected with nuclear power production. Its members come from all parts of the nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining, uranium conversion, uranium enrichment, nuclear fuel fabrication, plant manufacture, transport, and the disposition...
's Annual Symposium, suggesting that climate change would stabilise and prove survivable, and that the Earth itself is in "no danger" because it would stabilise in a new state. Life, however, might be forced to migrate en masse to remain in habitable climes.

Ocean Pipes proposal


In September 2007, Lovelock and Chris Rapley
Chris Rapley

Christopher Graham Rapley Commander of the Order of the British Empire is a British scientist. He was director of the British Antarctic Survey from 1998 to 2007 and was appointed Director of the Science Museum in 2007....
 proposed the construction of ocean
Ocean

An ocean is a major body of Seawater, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a World Ocean that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas....
 pipe
Pipe

selfref|For Wikipedia guidelines on the use of "pipe links", see...
s "100 to 200 metres long, 10 metres in diameter and with a one-way flap valve at the lower end for pumping by wave movement" to pump water up from below the thermocline
Thermocline

The thermocline is a thin but distinct layer in a large body of fluid , in which temperature changes more rapidly with depth than it does in the layers above or below....
 to "fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom". The intention of this scheme is to accelerate the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean by increasing primary production
Primary production

Primary production is the production of organic compounds from atmospheric or aquatic carbon dioxide, principally through the process of photosynthesis, with chemosynthesis being much less important....
 and enhancing the export of organic carbon (as marine snow
Marine snow

In the deep ocean, marine snow is a continuous shower of mostly organic detritus falling from the upper layers of the water column. Its origin lies in activities within the productive photic zone....
) to the deep ocean. The idea is theoretical, and the authors note that it "may fail, perhaps on engineering or economic grounds", and that "the impact on ocean acidification
Ocean acidification

Ocean acidification is the name given to the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by their uptake of anthropogenic carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere....
 will need to be taken into account".

The proposal attracted widespread media attention, although also criticism. Commenting on the proposal, Corinne Le Quéré, a University of East Anglia
University of East Anglia

The University of East Anglia is a public university research university located in Norwich, England, and founded in 1963. The university is a member of the 1994 Group of research-intensive universities....
 researcher, said "It doesn’t make sense. There is absolutely no evidence that geoengineering
Geoengineering

Geoengineering is the idea of applying planetary engineering to Earth. Geoengineering would involve the deliberate modification of Earth's natural environment on a large scale "to suit human needs and promote habitability"....
 options work or even go in the right direction. I’m astonished that they published this. Before any geoengineering is put to work a massive amount of research is needed – research which will take 20 to 30 years". Other researchers have claimed that "this scheme would bring water with high natural pCO2 levels (associated with the nutrients) back to the surface, potentially causing exhalation of CO2".

A similar scheme to that proposed by Lovelock and Rapley is already being developed by a commercial company.

Books


(Lovelock's autobiography)


External links




Interviews

  • , Decca Aitkenhead, The Guardian, March 1, 2008.
  • , Public lecture by James Lovelock, The Royal Society, October 29, 2007.
  • , Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stone, October 17, 2007.
  • (30 minute RealVideo from July 2004)
  • , KQED San Francisco, September 13, 2006
  • , The Guardian
    The Guardian

    Sorry, no overview for this topic
    , March 15, 2007
  • from The Guardian, December 4, 2006
  • from Ideas
    Ideas (radio show)

    Ideas is a long running scholarly radio documentary show on CBC Radio One. Premiering in 1965 under the title The Best Ideas You'll Hear Tonight, it is currently hosted by Paul Kennedy and is on between 9:05 and 10:00 each weekday evening....
    :
    , Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, January 2, 2008. ()
  • Portraits Parlés by Ariane Laroux : Interview and portrait of Jim Lovelock, éditions of L'Age d'homme (2008)
  • New Scientist, January 23, 2009.