Jim Lovelock is known as the father of the idea that Earth is a self-regulating living organisms. He argued that this should be elevated to a theory despite the fact that it generated predictions about the future. The field of Earth-system studies was born out of thinking about the environment and how it affects us.
Lovelock spent most of his career as an independent scientist funded by the income from his inventions and thus free from the constraints of an academic post. Observations made with his inventions made him think about the environment. The electron capture detector was one of his most important devices. The spread of chlorofluorocarbons and the build up of the pesticide DDT led to restrictions on the use of these substances.
He worked as a consultant for NASA in Pasadena, California, in 1965, when the French reported that the atmosphere of Mars was mostly carbon dioxide. Mars must be dead due to the fact that life can only exist in systems that are far away from equilibrium. He and Lynn Margulis believed that living things determine the atmospheric composition of a living planet. In 1974 Lovelock was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. The Lovelock test is used to search for signs of life on planets.
He believed that his parents celebrated the end of the First World War on 11 November, 1919, when he was born. He was raised in a poor area of London. His parents pushed him into a school that he didn't like. James Jeans's Astronomy andCosmogony was one of the books he preferred to read. Even though he refused to bow to authority, he did well in the exams. He was determined to become a scientist, but he couldn't handle the mathematics required for physics, his first choice The man turned to chemistry.
Unable to afford university, he took a job with a photographic chemist and worked towards a degree in chemistry. After the Second World War, Lovelock obtained a place at the University of Manchester as a full-time student and received a grant from the Kent county council. He was hired as a technician at the National Institute for Medical Research in London after graduating from college.
He preferred to burn himself rather than study the effects of heat on skin. After a week or so of repeated exposure, the pain became a sensation of pressure, but the area of arm he used in the study remained sensitive. He described his working life as a 20-year apprenticeship for the next 20 years. An investigation of how common colds spread, cryonic experiments involving freezing and reviving hamsters, and his suggestions for sound effects helped to inspire the original theme for the television series
He was an independent scientist by the mid-1960s and worked for organizations such as Shell and NASA. The concept was developed by Lovelock over the next 10 years. He published his first book in 1979 after 60 years. Thanks to Lovelock, this reached a wide audience.
Instead of a quiet retirement, Lovelock embarked on an essentially new career, promoting the idea of Gaia, developing the model and becoming revered by hippy 'environmentalists' who thought that Gaia would protect us. The best thing for Gaia would be to get rid of us, he said. He acted as an informal adviser to Margaret Thatcher when he was in the UK. Nuclear power was an alternative to fossil fuels.
Helen passed away in 1989. He planned to live a quiet life and walk the South West Coast Path with his wife. He wrote The Revenge of Gaia because of the threat of global warming. After his 90th birthday, he slowed down and stopped traveling around the globe to promote this message. He wanted to take up the offer of a flight in the Virgin Galactic space plane but his doctors told him not to. He was active for 100 years. Humans will be replaced by artificial intelligences if we are lucky, according to his final book.
The article was first published in August of 1992.
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