As Lovelock’s scientific collaborator Stephen Harding at the Schumacher Institute sums it up: “He was the first to realise that our planet is a vast self-regulating complex system that has Surface conditions remain within a narrow range favorable for life because of the numerous feedbacks between organisms, rocks, atmosphere and water.”
Lovelock described himself as an intuitive scientist who thought beyond the narrow confines of cause and effect, and with his extraordinary creativity, he achieved many extraordinary breakthroughs.
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He is also motivated by a deep concern that humans are an extremely volatile force for life on Earth, especially with regard to our reckless use of fossil fuels. He points to the rising concentration of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, which increased from 290 ppm to 420 ppm during his lifetime.
So, in addition to being a scientist, he became an advocate for climate collapse. Some of his views did not please mainstream environmentalists, especially when he suggested that a rapid shift to nuclear reactor technology is crucial to decarbonizing the world’s energy system.
The fact that Lovelock is not technophobic becomes more apparent in his last book, Novacene: The Coming Era of Hyperintelligence2019. He describes it as the post-Anthropocene era, defined by the emergence of ultra-advanced robots or cyborgs.
He argues that these largely autonomous, benevolent cyborgs will protect Gaia for their own benefit, as they will ultimately depend on Gaia’s well-being for their own survival. The optimistic proposition of a burgeoning “IT Gaia” confuses many.
So will Gaia come alive after the Anthropocene and its pervasive ecotoxic legacy? So far, despite all the evidence we’ve collected through satellites and other sophisticated probes, human action has been less of a concern to ensure the planet’s ecological stability.
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Lovelock’s work has drawn strong reactions from those concerned about the future of life on Earth, some of which may be quite surprising.
When looking for images of Gaia on the Internet—such as drawings, paintings, and sculptures by many different artists—she (and almost always a she) appears primarily as a rather romantic New Age “earth goddess” rather than a High-tech “IT Gaia”.
As our relationship with nature becomes more and more unstable, we seem to have a great desire to see nature complete and happy, even if we do very little to ensure that. Somewhere in these images may be the longing that Lovelock himself felt when he chose the world of “Gaia” derived from Greek mythology to describe his bold new scientific theories.
Lovelock appeals to science and emotion. While he may be dismissive of some of the eco-cultural visual images that have developed around his work, he may also find some of them very interesting.
The James I know is a man with a great sense of humor, a big heart, and a truly extraordinary, creative brain. He may be dead now, but the impact of his deep intuition will be felt for a long time to come.
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Professor Herbert Girardet is the co-founder of the World Future Council and a member of the Club of Rome.His most recent book is Create a regeneration city (Routledge). Mr. Girardet is also a trustee of the Resurgence Trust, which owns and publishes ecologist.
