The man who explained our living planet

The famous scientist/inventor James Ephraim Lovelock died on his 103rd birthday, July 26th, 2022. Lovelock made several landmark contributions to science but is best known for proposing that the Earth is a self-regulating organism – the Gaia hypothesis. This hypothesis made him a hero to the green movement, but he also became a powerful critic of environmentalism.

Lovelock was brought up in London and became fascinated with science while quite young. His parents couldn’t afford university fees, so James worked as a laboratory technician, attending evening classes to study for a BSc. He joined the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) in 1940 and stayed for 20 years, taking a PhD in biomedical science along the way. As a Quaker he was a conscientious objector during world War 2.

While at NIMR Lovelock made his most important invention, the electron capture detector, a matchbox-size device capable of detecting the tiniest traces of toxic man – made chemicals. This invention earned Lovelock sufficient money to allow him to become an independent scientist, experimenting in his own laboratory. Lovelock’s detector played a critical role in implicating emissions of refrigerant chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the depletion of the atmospheric ozone layer, leading to the 1987 Montreal Protocol banning production of CFCs worldwide.

In 1961 Lovelock moved to Nasa to study the moon’s surface prior to the Apollo landings and to search for signs of life on Mars. University academics showed little interest in studying Martian biology, which Lovelock attributed to their fascination with molecular biology following the 1953 discovery of DNA structure.

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[ Creator of Gaia theory James Lovelock dies on 103rd birthday ]

The idea that life is best investigated by first dismantling it disappointed Lovelock, who adopted a holistic approach to studying Mars and Earth. He contrasted the Martian atmosphere – 95 per cent carbon dioxide (CO2) with small amounts of nitrogen (N2), argon and other gases – with the chemically dynamic Earth’s atmosphere – 77 per cent N2, 21 per cent Oxygen (O2), 0.04 per cent CO2 and traces of other gases. Oxygen in our atmosphere is a signature of life on Earth. Lovelock basically showed Mars is lifeless without sending probes there to make robotic measurements.

Lovelock’s pondering of why Earth’s atmosphere is so different from Mars and Venus was the genesis of his Gaia concept. He particularly noted the fact that, although our sun’s energy output increased 30 per cent during the 3.5 billion years that life existed on Earth, Earth’s surface temperature remained constant – physics alone predicts the Earth’s surface temperature should have markedly increased. He concluded the Earth is self-regulating and that life had kept Earth cool. Earth’s atmosphere was continually changing because of its living/breathing inhabitants, while the atmosphere of sterile Mars remained static.

Early Earth’s atmosphere was mainly CO2 and water vapour. Water vapour condensed to form the oceans. The earliest ocean lifeforms sucked CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis, releasing oxygen back into it. The concentration of atmospheric CO2 declined over deep time to its present trace levels and O2 built up to nourish oxygen-dependent organisms. In collaboration with American biologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s, Lovelock postulated that the Earth’s biosphere is a self-cooling/regulating system that unconsciously manipulates the Earth (atmosphere, rocks, water) to suit itself. Lovelock named his hypothesis Gaia after the Greek goddess who personified Earth.

In his 2006 book The Revenge of Gaia Lovelock predicted that humans had gone too far and too quickly in changing the environment and that Gaia could soon exact severe revenge

Science was initially sceptical of Gaia but fairly quickly accepted its main tenets. The Greens enthusiastically welcomed Gaia. Lovelock called himself “an old-fashioned Green” and made scathing remarks about current environmentalism such as “the environmental movement has become a religion and religion doesn’t worry much about the facts” and “too many greens are not just ignorant of science, they hate science”. He likened greens to “some global over-anxious mother figure who is so concerned about small risks that she ignores the real dangers”.

Lovelock never believed environmentalism should rule out all forms of power generation apart from renewables and advocated that Britain should become energy independent through a combination of nuclear power and fracking shale gas, both low CO2-emitting activities.

In his 2006 book The Revenge of Gaia Lovelock predicted that humans had gone too far and too quickly in changing the environment and that Gaia could soon exact severe revenge. He later revised his position stating he had based his prediction on exaggerated assumptions and that it is extremely difficult to predict future climate.

Lovelock’s death prompted many obituaries, notably in the Guardian. He advanced our knowledge and understanding of our Earth and solar system in an immense way. He will be greatly missed.