James Lovelock, environmental scientist who created Gaia ecology theory, dead at 103
James Lovelock, the environmental scientist whose influential Gaia concept sees the Earth as a residing organism gravely imperilled by human exercise, has died on his 103rd birthday.
Lovelock’s household mentioned that he died Tuesday night “in his house surrounded by his household,” from problems associated to a fall. The household mentioned that till six months in the past, Lovelock “was nonetheless in a position to stroll alongside the coast close to his house in Dorset and participate in interviews, however his well being deteriorated after a nasty fall earlier this 12 months.”
Born in 1919, Lovelock studied chemistry, drugs and biophysics within the U.Ok. and the U.S. He labored on the Medical Analysis Council in Britain and within the Sixties on NASA’s moon and Mars packages on the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. However he spent a lot of his profession as an unbiased scientist outdoors of huge tutorial establishments.
Lovelock’s contribution to environmental science included growing a tool to measure ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) within the environment and pollution in air, soil and water.
WATCH | CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos interviews James Lovelock in 2009:
Dr. James Lovelock is a world famend scientist who sadly believes we’re all useless meat.
The Gaia speculation, first proposed within the Seventies, noticed the Earth itself as a fancy, self-regulating system that created and maintained the circumstances for all times on the planet. Lovelock mentioned human exercise had thrown the system dangerously out of kilter.
“The biosphere and I are each within the final one per cent of our lives,” he instructed The Guardian newspaper in 2020.
Initially dismissed by many scientists, the Gaia concept turned influential as concern about humanity’s impact on the planet grew, not least due to its energy as a metaphor. Gaia is the Greek goddess of the Earth.
Lovelock is survived by his spouse Sally and youngsters Christine, Jane, Andrew and John.
“To the world, he was greatest often known as a scientific pioneer, local weather prophet and conceiver of the Gaia concept,” they mentioned in an announcement. “To us, he was a loving husband and great father with a boundless sense of curiosity, a mischievous sense of humour and a ardour for nature.”
The household mentioned there could be a non-public funeral, adopted by a public memorial service at a later date.
