James Lovelock 1919-2022
The scientist at the end of the world
In science and life, the reward for a curious mind is to look for one thing and find another that is more interesting. That was how James Lovelock – conceiver of the Gaia theory – explained the outlook that made him one of the most influential thinkers of the past century, and he encouraged me to apply the same approach in interviewing him over the past two years for a biography.
What it revealed was that, even beyond the laudatory obituaries and tributes that followed his death at 103, there was far more to Jim – and his influence on the modern world – than almost anyone realises.
Lovelock is rightly celebrated first and foremost for the Gaia theory, that most holistic of ways of understanding life on Earth, but the origins of that hypothesis may
