James Lovelock, the maverick British ecologist whose work was essential to today's understanding of man-made pollutants and their effect on climate, died on his 103rd birthday.
His family said that he was still able to walk along the coast near his home, but his health deteriorated after a bad fall.
From astronomy to zoology, Dr. Lovelock had a wide range of knowledge. He was an ardent supporter of nuclear power as a means to help solve global climate change and a pessimist about humankind's ability to survive a rapidly warming planet.
His global renown rested on three main contributions that he developed during a particularly abundant decade of scientific exploration and curiosity stretching from the late 1950s through the last half of the 1960s
The Electron Capture Detector was invented to help measure the spread of toxic man-made compounds in the environment. The device provided the scientific foundations of Rachel Carson's book, "Silent Spring."
The basis for regulations in the United States and other nations that banned harmful chemicals like DDT and PCBs was provided by the detector.
His discovery that chlorofluorocarbons were present in the atmosphere led to the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer. Most countries have banned chlorofluorocarbons under a 1987 agreement.
Dr. Lovelock's most well-known theory is that Earth is a living organisms that can regulate its temperature and chemistry at a comfortable steady state.
In 1965, when he was a member of the space exploration team recruited by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the seeds of the idea were sown.
Dr Lovelock wondered why Earth's atmosphere was stable. Something must be controlling heat, oxygen, nitrogen and other components.
Climate Forward There’s an ongoing crisis — and tons of news. Our newsletter keeps you up to date.He later wrote that life at the surface must be regulated.
In 1967, he presented the theory at a meeting of the American Astronautical Society in Michigan and in 1968.
The Greek goddess of the Earth was the inspiration for the name of the project. Mr. Golding lived near Mr. Lovelock.
The hypothesis was welcomed by a few scientists as a way to explain living systems. It was called New Age pablum by many other people.
Lynn Margulis, an American microbiologist, contributed to the hypothesis and helped it gain credibility. She worked with Dr. Lovelock on research to support the idea.
Hundreds of papers on aspects of the Gaia theory have been published since then, and a number of scientific meetings about it have taken place. Mr. Lovelock has a theory of a self-regulating Earth.
He was a staff scientist at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill when he created his electron capture detector. The announcement was made in the Journal of chromotography.
The detector could be used to measure minute concentrations of chlorine-based compounds in the air. It ushered in a new era of scientific understanding about the spread of compounds and helped scientists identify the presence of toxic chemicals in soils, food, water, human and animal tissue.
Dr. Lovelock found that man-made pollutants were the cause of smog. chlorofluorocarbons were found in the clean air over the Atlantic Ocean. He published a paper about his findings in the journal Nature after he confirmed the global spread of CFC's.
Dr. Lovelock was proud of his independence from universities, governments and corporations. He was candid, bold, provocative and incautious. He was less successful in using his work for financial gain. One of the most important analytical instruments developed during the 20th century, the electron capture detector, was re-designed by Hewlett-Packard without any royalty or licensing agreement with Dr. Lovelock.
Dr. Lovelock thought that at concentrations in the parts per billion they posed no conceivable hazard to the planet. He said that conclusion was a mistake.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of California at Irvine published a paper in the same journal detailing the ozone layer's sensitivity to chlorofluorocarbons. They won the chemistry prize in 1995 for their work to alert the world to the ozone layer's decline.
Bill McKibben said that he had a great mind and a will to be independent. He helped to figure out that the ozone layer was going to disappear. The Gaia theory is one of his best contributions. The Gaia theory helped us understand that small changes could shift a system as large as the Earth's atmosphere.
James Lovelock was born on July 26, 1919, in a house in Letchworth Garden City. His parents lived in south London and owned a store. After his grandfather's death, James joined his parents in Brixton Hill.
He borrowed Jules Verne and other books from the local library while he was in London.
Dr. Lovelock believed that his mother was an early feminist. The common names of plants, animals and insects were taught to his son by his father, who was an outdoor enthusiast.
James was granted conscientious objector status in 1939 and graduated from Manchester University in 1941. He was hired as a junior scientist at the Medical Research Council, where he worked on infectious agents.
Helen is a receptionist at the research institute. Their first child, Christine, was born in 1944. There were two boys and a girl later. The London University School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine was where Dr. Lovelock obtained his PhD.
Helen Lovelock was a person with multiplesclerosis. He was married to a woman from the United States. He told The New Statesman that they met when she asked him to speak.
The survivors of Dr. Lovelock are his wife, daughters, sons, and grandsons.
Dr. Lovelock is the author of a number of books. It was argued in "The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning" that Earth was hurrying to a hot state more quickly than scientists think. His book, " Home to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist," was published in 2000.
The Amsterdam Prize for the Environment, awarded by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, was one of his many awards.
In 2004, Dr. Lovelock caused a sensation when he said that nuclear energy was the only realistic alternative to fossil fuels that could fulfill the large-scale energy needs of humanity.
He believed that man could not prevent an environmental catastrophe that would kill billions of people.
He told New Scientist that the reason we wouldn't find enough food was because we couldn't synthesise it. Up to 90 percent of the population will be culled during this century. At the end of the century, there will probably be a billion people. It has taken place before. When there were only a few hundred people left, there were many bottlenecks. The thing is happening again.
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