About book Homage To Gaia: The Life Of An Independent Scientist (2001)
This is his autobiography, written at age 80. Lovelock is best-known for formulating the Gaia hypothesis, that the Earth is, metaphorically, a global superorganism: life regulates its environment to be more favorable for life, by the familiar and everyday process of natural selection. For example, a higher CO2 level in the atmosphere will result in more luxuriant plant growth, which will lower the CO2 content [1].Lovelock, who has a Ph.D in medicine, had a long career as a working scientist and inventor. He invented the exquisitely-sensitive electron-capture detector, and used it to pioneer measuurements of fluorocarbons in the atmosphere, work which led to the banning of Freon as a hazard to the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere.Lovelock is appropriately skeptical about the rhetorical excesses in the "Ozone Wars", and deplores the continued misuse of science in environmemtalism-as-religion. He's well-aware of the misuse of his Gaia "earth-mother" metaphor by muddle-headed New Agers, but gave numerous lectures to religious groups at the time the Gaia hypothesis was struggling for scientific respectability, which couldn't have helped his case. Lovelock himself is an agnostic, a fiercely-independent iconoclast, and an old-fashioned, very British eccentric scholar.Lovelock spent most of his career as an independent scientist and consultant, a difficult path for a research scientist but one which suited his personality -- and his desire to live and work in a rural setting. He's an interesting man and an influential scientist. His memoir is somewhat repetitive and overlong, and he sometimes sounds like a querulous old fart -- but if you have admired Lovelock's scientific work, you will enjoy reading about his life.Lovelock himself is a science-fiction fan -- as was William Golding, a neighbor who named the Gaia hypothesis. Lovelock co-wrote one science-fiction (sort-of) novel, _The Greening of Mars_ -- and his critics gleefully (and unfairly) labelled his Gaia work as science-fantasy. His work has held up pretty well, and his ideas are becoming mainstream in the earth and life-sciences -- though many of his successors avoid the "tainted" Gaia label.Lovelock's memoir has an interesting account of his progress from an unquestioning young Socialist in the 1930's to an admirer of Lady Thatcher. His uncritical admiration for the British National Health Service continues, even after a disastrous operation that permanently damaged his urethra, apparently due to a 'labour action' by the union at his hospital. Oddly enough.Lovelock is currently campaigning for nuclear power, as a way out of global-warming. His book has kind words for the industries he's worked in, especially Shell Oil. My kind of Green.Lovelock's official website: http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/lovebio..._____________________[1] --eventually. This feedback mechanism clearly doesn't operate quickly enough to control fossil-fuel CO2 emissions.Review written 2006 by Peter D. Tillman
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