← Journals

Who was James Lovelock

Who was James Lovelock? What is the Gaia Theory (or hypothes…

View of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew traveling toward the moon. ©NASA da Unsplash

Written by

Valentina Lovat, IOC-UNESCO

Publishing Date

22 July 2022

Reading time

6 min

James Lovelock was a British scientist, independent researcher and writer known worldwide for having hypothesized the Gaia Theory, which describes the Earth as a living being in which organisms and matter are interconnected.

From Earth to Space, a Life for Science

Born in 1919 in England, James Lovelock graduated in chemistry at the University of Manchester and specialized in medical research in London. He then flew to the United States where he worked as a researcher at prestigious institutions such as Yale and Harvard.

He began collaborating with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, simply known as NASA, working on the development of numerous sensors and instruments useful for research and collection of atmospheric and space data.

Lovelock created a useful instrument for identifying the presence of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere, synthetic gases believed to be the main culprits in the reduction of the amount of ozone in the Earth’s atmosphere and therefore the increase in UV radiation reaching the Earth’s surface.
Thanks to this discovery, on September 16, 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed, an international treaty negotiated with the aim of reducing the production and use of substances that damage the ozone layer. Treaty described by Kofi Annan, then Secretary General of the UN, as an example of exceptional international cooperation. But his collaboration with NASA went beyond Earth. The researcher also collaborated in the study of Mars as a possible planet for the discovery of extraterrestrial life forms. He studied the composition of the Martian atmosphere and collaborated on the Viking mission by designing instruments for the analysis of the composition of the Martian atmosphere

Chi era James Lovelock_Decennio del Mare — A simulated view of Mars as it would be seen from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft ©NASA da Unsplash

The Gaia Theory (or hypothesis)

The reason James Lovelock is most famous is the Gaia Theory, whose name derives from the Greek goddess of the Earth, developed in the 1970s during the collaboration with NASA and the American biologist Lynn Margulis.

The Earth is seen as a self-regulating system that maintains its chemical-physical conditions (average temperature, pH, quantity of gases, etc.) suitable for the development of life, thanks to the activity of living organisms. Since the origin of life, organisms have had a profound effect on the composition of the atmosphere and the climate of the Earth.

This theory laid the foundations for a new way of doing science and research, starting a new way of looking at ecology and global evolution, thus moving away from the classic image of ecology as a biological response to a series of physical conditions. The idea of a co-evolution of biology and the physical environment, in which one influences the other, was suggested as early as the mid-1700s, but never with the same force as Gaia, which claims the power of life to control and influence the abiotic environment.

In more recent times, the original Gaia hypothesis has been revised several times as a consequence of greater scientific knowledge. Research on the intrinsic behaviors of complex systems can further contribute to clarify the possibility of applying Gaian notions to the ecological and physical systems of the Earth.

The Gaia hypothesis is described in the book published in 1979 “Gaia, new ideas on ecology”.

Climate change study and warnings, already more than 50 years ago

Lovelock was not only dedicated to the Gaia hypothesis and work for NASA in space, but he spent his life advocating for taking action against the climate crisis, starting many years before other researchers and activists took note of the ongoing crisis.

Jonathan Watts, global environment editor of the Guardian, reports that without Lovelock’s studies and actions, environmental movements around the world would have been born later and would have taken a very different path. In fact, in the 1960s he launched one of the first warnings that fossil fuels were destabilizing the climate.

Before the start of the Conference of the Parties in Glasgow (COP26), in an article written by him for the Guardian in November 2021, in which we report a part translated into Italian here, Lovelock reported that:

I don’t know if it’s too late for humanity to avoid a climate catastrophe, but I am sure that there is no chance if we continue to treat global warming and the destruction of nature as separate problems. This separation is a mistake, like the one made by universities when they teach chemistry in a separate class from biology and physics. It is impossible to understand these subjects in isolation, because they are interconnected.
The same is true for living organisms that significantly influence the global environment. The composition of the Earth’s atmosphere and surface temperature are actively maintained and regulated by the biosphere, by life.

Global warming is largely caused by the extraction and burning of fossil fuels since the mid-19th century, which release methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. These absorb radiant heat and prevent it from escaping from the Earth, causing global warming.

Warnings that once seemed like science fiction are now coming true. We are entering an era where temperatures and sea levels will rise decade by decade until the world becomes unrecognizable. There may be more surprises. Nature is nonlinear and unpredictable, especially in a time of transition.
James Lovelock for the Guardian, November 2021

Lovelock’s research and positions have been repeatedly contradicted and considered controversial by his colleagues, starting from the Gaia Hypothesis to his support of nuclear energy. Now many agree with his point of view.