James Lovelock, in full James Ephraim Lovelock (born July 26, 1919, English chemist, medical doctor, scientific instrument developer, and author best known for the creation and promulgation of the Gaia hypothesis, an idea rooted in the notion that all life on Earth is part of an entity that regulates Earth’s surficial and atmospheric processes. Lovelock was also the inventor of several chemical-detecting devices, including the electron-capture detector (ECD).
Lovelock invented the electron capture detector, which ultimately assisted in discoveries about the persistence of CFCs and their role in stratospheric ozone depletion. After studying the operation of the Earth’s sulphur cycle, Lovelock and his colleagues, Robert Jay Charlson, Meinrat Andreae, and Stephen G. Warren developed the CLAW hypothesis as a possible example of biological control of the Earth’s climate.
First formulated by Lovelock during the 1960s as a result of work for NASA concerned with detecting life on Mars, the Gaia hypothesis proposes that living and non-living parts of the Earth form a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Greek goddess Gaia at the suggestion of novelist William Golding, the hypothesis postulates that the biosphere has a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that acts to sustain life.
In the MSNBC article Lovelock is quoted as proclaiming:
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened;”
“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now”;
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time … it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising – carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that”.
Awards and honors:
Lovelock was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974. His nomination reads:
“Lovelock has made distinguished contributions to several diverse fields, including a study of the transmission of respiratory infection, and methods of air sterilisation; the role of Ca and other divalent ions in blood clotting; damage to various living cells by freezing, thawing and thermal shock and its prevention by the presence of neutral solutes; methods of freezing and thawing small live animals; methods for preparing sperm for artificial insemination, which have been of major economic importance.
He has invented a family of ionisation detectors for gas chromatography. His electron capture detectors are the most sensitive that have been made and are universally used on pollution problems for residual halogen compounds. He has many inventions, including a gas chromatograph, which will be used to investigate planetary atmospheres. His chromatographic work has led to investigation of blood lipids in various animals, including arteriosclerotic humans. He has made a study of detecting life on other planets by analysis of their atmosphere and extended this to world pollution problems. His work generally shows remarkable originality, simplicity and ingenuity”.
- See more at http://www.jameslovelock.org/,
