Latest 10 additions

Enjoy life while you can - Decca Aitkenhead interviews JL for The Guardian, Saturday 1 March 2008. "Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do? ..."

Failure of climate regulation in a geophysiological model - by James E. Lovelock & Lee R. Kump, Nature 369, 732 - 734 (30 June 1994). "There has been much debate about how the Earth responds to changes in climate - specifically, how feedbacks involving the biota change with temperature. There is in particular an urgent need to understand the extent of coupling and feedback between plant growth, global temperature and enhanced atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases. Here we present a simple, but we hope qualitatively realistic, analysis of the effects of temperature change on the feedbacks induced by changes in surface distribution of marine algae and land plants."

Climate Change on a Living Earth - public lecture given at the Royal Society, 29 October 2007.

Ocean pipes could help the Earth to cure itself - letter to Nature from James Lovelock and Chris Rapley, 26 September 2007. "We propose a way to stimulate the Earth's capacity to cure itself, as an emergency treatment for the pathology of global warming ... The oceans, which cover more than 70% of the Earth's surface, are a promising place to seek a regulating influence. One approach would be to use free-floating or tethered vertical pipes to increase the mixing of nutrient-rich waters below the thermocline with the relatively barren waters at the ocean surface ...Such an approach may fail, perhaps on engineering or economic grounds. And the impact on ocean acidification will need to be taken into account ... But the stakes are so high that we put forward the general concept of using the Earth system's own energy for amelioration. The removal of 500 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide from the air by human endeavour is beyond our current technological capability. If we can't 'heal the planet' directly, we may be able to help the planet heal itself."

Mixing the oceans proposed to reduce global warming - news story in Nature by Quirin Schiermeier, 26 September 2007. "Could mighty pumps be installed in the ocean to mix up the waters and cool the planet? In a letter to the editor published in Nature this week, James Lovelock and Chris Rapley suggest that this deus ex machina could be an "emergency treatment for the pathology of global warming". Large vertical pipes could, they say, be used to mix nutrient-rich waters from hundreds of metres down with the more barren waters at the surface. This could cause algal blooms at the surface, which would consume carbon dioxide (CO2) through photosynthesis. When the algae die, some of this carbon could sink into deep waters. The algae may also produce chemicals that spur cloud formation, further cooling the planet."

Lovelock urges ocean climate fix - article on BBC website by Richard Black, Environment Correspondent. "Two of Britain's leading environmental thinkers say it is time to develop a quick technical fix for climate change. Writing in the journal Nature, Science Museum head Chris Rapley and Gaia theorist James Lovelock suggest looking at boosting ocean take-up of CO2. Their idea, already being investigated by a US firm, involves huge flotillas of vertical pipes in the tropical seas." 26 September 2007.

Gaia's Warrior - Robin McKie, science editor of the UK's Observer newspaper, interviews James Lovelock for Australia's G: the Green Lifestyle Magazine, July / August 2007 issue. "In the 1960s James Lovelock was an eco-pioneer; today he's a firm advocate of nuclear power. Meet the independent thinker who is never far from the intellectual fray ... " Article available as pdf (500KB).

Planetary Atmospheres: compositional and other changes associated with the presence of life - This paper by James E. Lovelock and C. E. Giffin was submitted September 1968 to the American Astronautical Society and published in Advances in the Astronautical Sciences 25, pp.179-193, 1969. It is the first scientific paper to discuss Earth System Science as it is currently understood.

Paramedic to the planet - article by Andrew Brown, published in The Guardian, Saturday December 31, 2005. "James Lovelock revolutionised environmentalism with Gaia, but upset Greens by supporting nuclear power. As for climate change, he believes disaster is inevitable but useful ... "

The Ecologist podcasts recorded at the Science Media Centre, 28 November 2006, as 13 .mp3 files each several minutes long. "James Lovelock, the world famous scientist and environmentalist behind 'Gaia' theory (the view of the earth as an entirely interlinked system), speaks to journalists about 'global heating', nuclear power, and why Siberian real-estate might be a good option."