James Lovelock

A leader in the field of climate science, Mr Lovelock died at his home surrounded by friends and family.

The family requests privacy at this time." "He passed away at 9.55pm of complications related to the fall. "To the world he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia theory.

Scientist, environmentalist, inventor and exponent of the Gaia theory of the Earth as a self-regulating system.

He reasoned that the Earth’s atmosphere was a continually changing balance of gases because of its living and breathing inhabitants, while the Martian atmosphere was static. The only explanation, he decided, was that the Earth was a self-regulating system that had found a way to preserve its equilibrium: and that the organisms on Earth had kept their environment stable. The study of life concentrated more on a closer examination of molecules and atoms rather than on whole organisms, with the implication that the whole was never more than the sum of its parts and scientists could figure out how organisms worked by taking them to pieces. In Novacene: The Coming Age of Hyperintelligence (2019), he delivered what he called “a shout of joy” for the colossal expansion of human knowledge during his lifetime, and hoped for the potential salvation of humanity by a new generation of artificially intelligent cyborgs that would – unlike many of his fellow humans – understand the importance of other living things in maintaining a habitable planet. He recalled inventing a gadget as a schoolboy, an airspeed indicator that he held out of the window during train journeys. Lovelock’s transition to independence began when he left the NIMR in 1961 to work for Nasa, the US space agency. While at the NIMR, he took a PhD in biomedical science and made the most important of his inventions, the electron capture detector. A vigorous writer and speaker, he became a hero to the green movement, although he was one of its most formidable critics. Lovelock, who has died on his 103rd birthday, was best known through the Gaia theory, a controversial idea that he proposed in the 1960s and developed with the US biologist Lynn Margulis in the 70s. In the unfettered freedom of the library, he soaked up information with equal relish from science fiction or any science textbook that caught his interest, on astronomy, natural history, biology, physics and chemistry. He designed new types of extraordinarily sensitive instruments that could detect the presence of unimaginably tiny concentrations of man-made chemicals in gases. “The planet we live on has merely to shrug to take some fraction of a million people to their deaths,” Lovelock wrote in 2006.

James Lovelock, the British environmental scientist whose influential Gaia theory sees the Earth as a living organism gravely imperiled by human activity, ...

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A British ecologist, he captured imaginations with his hypothesis and was essential to today's understanding of man-made pollutants and their effect on the ...

The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. Dr. Lovelock is the author of “Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth” (1979), among other books. Later came another girl, Jane, and two boys, Andrew and John. In 1949, Dr. Lovelock earned a Ph.D. in medicine from the London University School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Another, “The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning” (2009), argued that Earth was hurrying to a permanent hot state more quickly than scientists believe. “He had a great mind and a will to be independent,” said Bill McKibben, the author of “The End of Nature” and a scholar in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. “He credibly played a significant role in literally saving the Earth by helping to figure out that the ozone layer was disappearing. In 1939 James enrolled at Manchester University, was granted conscientious objector status, which enabled him to avoid military service at the start of World War II, and graduated in 1941. In 1969, using his electron capture device, Dr. Lovelock went on to find that man-made pollutants were the cause of smog. Dr. Lovelock often ascribed his determined independence to his mother, an amateur actress, secretary and entrepreneur whom he regarded as an early feminist. Mr. Lovelock’s theory of a self-regulating Earth has been viewed as central to understanding the causes and consequences of global warming. When combined with a gas chromatograph, which separates chemical mixtures, the detector was capable of measuring minute concentrations of chlorine-based compounds in air. One was his invention of the Electron Capture Detector, an inexpensive, portable, exquisitely sensitive device used to help measure the spread of toxic man-made compounds in the environment. The hypothesis might never have gained credibility and moved to the scientific mainstream without the contributions of Lynn Margulis, an eminent American microbiologist.

The leading environmental scientist died at home in Dorset on Tuesday surrounded by family,.

He passed away at 9.55pm of complications related to the fall.” “To us he was a loving husband and wonderful father with a boundless sense of curiosity, a mischievous sense of humour and a passion for nature. They said: “To the world he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia theory.

The scientist was best known for his theory that the Earth is a self-regulating community of organisms.

Lovelock was passionate about, and committed to, his work as he felt it imperative to warn humanity of the incoming climate catastrophe. He was the first to confirm the presence of fluorocarbons in the stratosphere and issued one of the earliest warnings that petroleum products were destabilising the climate and damaging the brains of children. He also warned, in clearer terms than any of his peers, of the dangers humanity posed to the extraordinary web of relations that make Earth uniquely alive in our universe.” To us he was a loving husband and wonderful father with a boundless sense of curiosity, a mischievous sense of humour and a passion for nature. “It was thrilling to talk to one of the greatest minds Britain has ever produced. To the world he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia theory.

James Lovelock, when he was 94, posing with one of his early inventions, a homemade gas chromatography device, used for measuring gas and molecules present ...

And yet there is a crying need for such people, especially those able to take the holistic view, as risky and uncertain as that sometimes is. For example, in The Revenge of Gaia (2006), he predicted that if we continued to use fossil fuels at the current rate, humanity might become extinct outside far northern refuges such as Greenland, where perhaps a billion of us might survive. This, Lovelock realised, was the signature of life that could be highly useful as we searched for other living planets. Lovelock was at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, when the first analyses of the Martian and Venusian atmospheres were received. Arguably his greatest invention is the electron capture detector, a device that allows for the detection of atoms in gases. A man of elfin stature, Lovelock was born in 1919.

Leading environmental scientist and creator of the Gaia hypothesis James Lovelock passed away on his 103rd birthday, a statement from his family has ...

He later attended the University of Manchester at the age of 21, and graduated in 1941 as a chemist. Just ahead of me was a group of four women talking fairly vigorously. There will be a public memorial service later. His status as a student allowed him to temporarily defer from military service during WWII, however he also registered as a conscientious objector. “It’s an engineering job and it has been well done. “To us he was a loving husband and wonderful father with a boundless sense of curiosity, a mischievous sense of humour and a passion for nature. Sandy was among them. “To the world he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia theory. Lovelock later earned a Ph.D degree in medicine from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the D.Sc degree in biophysics from London University. Lovelock was raised as a Quaker and, speaking to Noema Magazine in 2020, said that the Quaker Sunday school he attended from the age of six was “different from any other Sunday school I had encountered”. At first, Lovelock couldn’t afford to go to university, however he said that he regarded this as a blessing in disguise, as it meant that he wasn’t immediately trapped in the bubble of academia. In a statement, they said that Lovelock died “at home in Dorset surrounded by family” following complications related to a fall he suffered earlier in the year.

LEADING environmental scientist and creator of the Gaia hypothesis James Lovelock died at his Dorset home on his 103rd birthday.

He passed away at 9.55pm of complications related to the fall.” “To us he was a loving husband and wonderful father with a boundless sense of curiosity, a mischievous sense of humour and a passion for nature. They said: “To the world he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia theory.

Sir Adrian Smith FRS, President, Royal Society, said: “James Lovelock was an extraordinary man and an outstanding scientist. Celebrated for his work on ...

“The Science Museum held a special place in Jim’s life and I believe his significant research is an extraordinary testament to the power of museums to inspire young people. He will be remembered for his warm, fun-loving personality, his truly innovative thinking, his clarity of communication, his willingness to take bold risks in developing his ideas, and his abilities to bring people together and learn from them. He remained a passionate advocate for action to address climate change and biodiversity loss throughout his life.

"To the world, he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia Theory," the statement said. "To us, he was a loving husband ...

"To the world, he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia Theory," the statement said. "James Lovelock made a vast range of contributions to scientific research, from developing instruments to search for life on Mars and creating the electron capture detector," the Science Museum Group, which acquired the rights to Lovelock's archive in 2012, said in a statement Wednesday. Lovelock, who was born in England's Letchworth Garden City, has made many contributions to the scientific community, including the highly influential Gaia theory, which considers the Earth as a model in which its living and nonliving parts interact as a complex system that are essentially a single organism.

James Lovelock, the British environmental scientist and creator of the Gaia theory, which hypothesizes Earth acts as a single living organism, ...

"To the world, he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia Theory," the statement said. "James Lovelock made a vast range of contributions to scientific research, from developing instruments to search for life on Mars and creating the electron capture detector," the Science Museum Group, which acquired the rights to Lovelock's archive in 2012, said in a statement Wednesday. Lovelock, who was born in England's Letchworth Garden City, has made many contributions to the scientific community, including the highly influential Gaia theory, which considers the Earth as a model in which its living and nonliving parts interact as a complex system that are essentially a single organism.

Philip Ball reflects on the legacy of the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, who has died aged 103.

He was one of the last of that breed. Lovelock developed his ideas about the role of the biosphere on the planetary environment during the 1970s, partly in conversation with the equally inventive and unconventional biologist Lynn Margulis, who had proposed the theory that eukaryotic organisms arose in a symbiotic merger of prokaryotes. Lovelock was way ahead of his time in conceiving of planetary environments as dynamic: not just setting the conditions under which life many or may not develop, but also responding to it. But the core idea has since been thoroughly validated by the sciences of earth, environment and ecosystems: the biosphere does indeed play an active and even an adaptive role in shaping the planetary environment and climate through the operation of biogeochemical cycles. (It was not, necessarily, but the reconciliation was not immediately obvious.) Some felt it bordered on mysticism, hinting at notions of teleology and higher purpose – all the more so when Lovelock suggested that the Gaian Earth system had genuine characteristics of a living organism. Whether discussing his ideas about the Gaia hypothesis, climate change, nuclear power or the biological effects of radiation, he considered that he was merely voicing the rational view.

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist and inventor, died surrounded by his family on July 27 2022 – his 103rd birthday. Jim led an extraordinary life.

The detector was just the start of his inventing career and he filed more than 40 patents. Although he is most associated with Gaia, he did an extraordinary range of research, from freezing hamsters to detecting life on Mars … He was more than happy to bristle a few feathers, whether by articulating his dislike of consensus views, formal education and committees, or by voicing his enthusiastic support for nuclear power. It was essential in demonstrating that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere, which originated in aerosols and refrigerators at the time, were destroying the ozone layer. This antagonised many scientists, but created a lot of fruitful debate in the 1980s and 1990s. He is best known for his Gaia hypothesis, developed with the brilliant US biologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s, which transformed the way we think of life on Earth. Instead, Lovelock and Margulis argued that species not only competed but also cooperated to create the most favourable conditions for life.

Leading environmental scientist and creator of the Gaia hypothesis James Lovelock died at his Dorset home on his 103rd birthday.

He passed away at 9.55pm of complications related to the fall.” “To us he was a loving husband and wonderful father with a boundless sense of curiosity, a mischievous sense of humour and a passion for nature. They said: “To the world he was best known as a scientific pioneer, climate prophet and conceiver of the Gaia theory.