"what a life and what a legacy"
July 27, 2022 8:06 AM Subscribe
This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- loup
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posted by Windopaene at 8:14 AM on July 27, 2022
posted by Windopaene at 8:14 AM on July 27, 2022
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we should have listened to him a long time ago.
posted by supermedusa at 8:15 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
we should have listened to him a long time ago.
posted by supermedusa at 8:15 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
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(And I promise you Tom Scott’s story about Lovelock will not disappoint )
posted by rongorongo at 8:16 AM on July 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
(And I promise you Tom Scott’s story about Lovelock will not disappoint )
posted by rongorongo at 8:16 AM on July 27, 2022 [5 favorites]
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posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:24 AM on July 27, 2022
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:24 AM on July 27, 2022
🌍
posted by lalochezia at 8:24 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by lalochezia at 8:24 AM on July 27, 2022 [3 favorites]
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posted by JohnFromGR at 8:34 AM on July 27, 2022
posted by JohnFromGR at 8:34 AM on July 27, 2022
from the linked obit:
“His Gaia theory, conceived with the Pentagon consultant Dian Hitchcock and honed in collaboration with the US biologist Lynn Margulis, laid the foundations for Earth system science and a new understanding of the interplay between life, clouds, rocks and the atmosphere. He also warned, in clearer terms than any of his peers, of the dangers humanity posed to the extraordinary web of relations that make Earth uniquely alive in our universe.”
[...]
His Gaia theory was ridiculed when he first proposed it, by many who believed it was “new age nonsense”. It now makes up the basis of much of climate science. He was also controversial among his fellow environmental scientists and campaigners because he advocated for nuclear energy. Now, many agree with his view.
As I first heard it posited, his theory was that the planet we called Earth was in fact a sentient being, conscious and beyond complex; certainly beyond our puny human capabilities of comprehension. As a young man who was doing lots of psychedelics at the time, spending lots of time exploring wilderness (rain forests, beaches, mountains) -- I had no problem accepting it as at least plausible.
Still do.
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posted by philip-random at 8:41 AM on July 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
“His Gaia theory, conceived with the Pentagon consultant Dian Hitchcock and honed in collaboration with the US biologist Lynn Margulis, laid the foundations for Earth system science and a new understanding of the interplay between life, clouds, rocks and the atmosphere. He also warned, in clearer terms than any of his peers, of the dangers humanity posed to the extraordinary web of relations that make Earth uniquely alive in our universe.”
[...]
His Gaia theory was ridiculed when he first proposed it, by many who believed it was “new age nonsense”. It now makes up the basis of much of climate science. He was also controversial among his fellow environmental scientists and campaigners because he advocated for nuclear energy. Now, many agree with his view.
As I first heard it posited, his theory was that the planet we called Earth was in fact a sentient being, conscious and beyond complex; certainly beyond our puny human capabilities of comprehension. As a young man who was doing lots of psychedelics at the time, spending lots of time exploring wilderness (rain forests, beaches, mountains) -- I had no problem accepting it as at least plausible.
Still do.
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posted by philip-random at 8:41 AM on July 27, 2022 [7 favorites]
(And I promise you Tom Scott’s story about Lovelock will not disappoint )
yeah.
HE PUT FROZEN HAMSTERS IN THE MICROWAVE AND THEY CAME BACK TO LIFE.
posted by adept256 at 9:15 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
yeah.
HE PUT FROZEN HAMSTERS IN THE MICROWAVE AND THEY CAME BACK TO LIFE.
posted by adept256 at 9:15 AM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
As I first heard it posited, his theory was that the planet we called Earth was in fact a sentient being, conscious and beyond complex; certainly beyond our puny human capabilities of comprehension. As a young man who was doing lots of psychedelics at the time, spending lots of time exploring wilderness (rain forests, beaches, mountains) -- I had no problem accepting it as at least plausible.
Still do.
I think about this a lot. Not even necessarily sentient, but emergent properties are a thing. Do cells “know” they’re part of an organism? Even if you take the Gaia hypothesis as a metaphor, it’s clear that the Earth is a living system we can’t divorce ourselves from. When I learned about the Gaia Hypothesis in college it blew me away and changed my thinking forever.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:37 AM on July 27, 2022 [10 favorites]
Still do.
I think about this a lot. Not even necessarily sentient, but emergent properties are a thing. Do cells “know” they’re part of an organism? Even if you take the Gaia hypothesis as a metaphor, it’s clear that the Earth is a living system we can’t divorce ourselves from. When I learned about the Gaia Hypothesis in college it blew me away and changed my thinking forever.
posted by showbiz_liz at 9:37 AM on July 27, 2022 [10 favorites]
Oh bugger! In the late 00s, Lovelock came to give a talk and promote his latest book in Dublin and I went along with a couple of pals. Afterwards we all queued up to buy, and get signed, a copy each. When I got to the table, I diffidently said that we'd met before, in Boston, in about 1982, in the office of Lynn Margulis. He brightened up (if that's possible for such a relentlessly ebullient chap) and said that he thought I'd looked familiar. I demurred: we'd met for about 3 minutes nearly 30 years previously. But he insisted that he never forgot a face and we chatted briefly about Margulis before I made way for the next Gaiagroupie.
One point he made in that talk stuck with me. He expressed regret at planting 10 hectares of native English trees in a corner of his Devon farm / research station. Not because it went horribly wrong, but because the trees took and thrived and provided habitat and eventually fuel, tool-handles and milking stools. Lovelock beat himself up [gently - coz he was old] for the hubris of deciding what trees should grow on the land that he was borrowing from his children. Better to have let nature take its course; allowing the brambles and gorse to encroach on the field from the margins and provide shelter and grazer deterrence for wind-blown and bird-shat tree seeds to get their chance in the sun. By definition, naturally sown trees are the best fit for that corner of habitat; and they would modify the microclimate to suit as they grew up straight and tall. Chapeaux!
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:03 AM on July 27, 2022 [13 favorites]
One point he made in that talk stuck with me. He expressed regret at planting 10 hectares of native English trees in a corner of his Devon farm / research station. Not because it went horribly wrong, but because the trees took and thrived and provided habitat and eventually fuel, tool-handles and milking stools. Lovelock beat himself up [gently - coz he was old] for the hubris of deciding what trees should grow on the land that he was borrowing from his children. Better to have let nature take its course; allowing the brambles and gorse to encroach on the field from the margins and provide shelter and grazer deterrence for wind-blown and bird-shat tree seeds to get their chance in the sun. By definition, naturally sown trees are the best fit for that corner of habitat; and they would modify the microclimate to suit as they grew up straight and tall. Chapeaux!
posted by BobTheScientist at 10:03 AM on July 27, 2022 [13 favorites]
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posted by May Kasahara at 10:19 AM on July 27, 2022
posted by May Kasahara at 10:19 AM on July 27, 2022
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posted by doctornemo at 10:35 AM on July 27, 2022
posted by doctornemo at 10:35 AM on July 27, 2022
Lovelock was an academic advisor to one of my academic advisors, and his influence has absolutely made its way to me. Rest in peace.
posted by cubeb at 10:49 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by cubeb at 10:49 AM on July 27, 2022 [4 favorites]
I'm proud to have been involved with a band called "The Psychick Warriors Ov Gaia". Not really due to the somewhat overblown name but still, it was my introduction to the concept of Gaia.
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posted by Kosmob0t at 11:24 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
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posted by Kosmob0t at 11:24 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
From the last Lovelock book I read:
“Our knowledge of the Earth’s system is about where our knowledge of the human system was at the turn of the [last] century. We have so much to learn -but so little time to learn it.”
posted by doctornemo at 11:31 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
“Our knowledge of the Earth’s system is about where our knowledge of the human system was at the turn of the [last] century. We have so much to learn -but so little time to learn it.”
posted by doctornemo at 11:31 AM on July 27, 2022 [2 favorites]
When he turned 100 the BBC world service marked it with a worthwhile programme: Lovelock at 100: Gaia on Gaia
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posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 3:49 PM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 3:49 PM on July 27, 2022 [1 favorite]
🌏
posted by mollymillions at 5:54 PM on July 27, 2022
posted by mollymillions at 5:54 PM on July 27, 2022
I like this extended article about Lovelock - his background and his way of thinking - written on his 101st birthday: James Lovelock Looks Beyond Gaia. In this we learn that his family was too poor to send him to university - so he took evening classes to get there. He got a PhD in medicine - but worked in fields as diverse as respiratory infections, artificial insemination, gas chromatography. His Guardian obituary mentions he worked on sound design for a 1957 film that inspired the BBC to found its Radiophonic Workshop, he was instrumental in showing the harm that Chloro-flurocarbons were doing to the atmosphere. He told NASA there was no life on Mars even before he had designed a detector for it to put on the Viking probe. He worked for M15 - on who knows what but I imagine as some sort of Q - until he finally retired in his mid 90s - and he wrote about the coming Novacene era - to be dominated by hyper intelligent beings. He thought maybe humans should start living together in nests - more like hornets.
posted by rongorongo at 12:15 AM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by rongorongo at 12:15 AM on July 28, 2022 [1 favorite]
Here's something astonishing. I know obituaries are generally written ahead of time, but note that in the other Guardian obituary (linked by rongorongo above), the original writer died in 2005.
posted by milkb0at at 3:22 AM on July 28, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by milkb0at at 3:22 AM on July 28, 2022 [5 favorites]
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posted by biogeo at 8:10 AM on July 27, 2022