Homage To Gaia. - Review - book review

James Lovelock

OUP 2000 [pound]19.99

There aren't many books that show what it's like to grow up in Dickensian squalor; to see all the rivets on Dr Strangelove's first creation, the V1 bomb, as it flies past; to bring nearly frozen hamsters back to life; and to make one of the most valuable, life-affirming discoveries of the 20th century. But that's what James Lovelock does in this sprawling intellectual and personal autobiography, which he modestly describes as a 'memory dump'.

Lovelock is among the most important contributors to the Western scientific tradition in the last hundred years. His most famous idea is the Gaia hypothesis, which holds that living organisms and non-life together form a coupled system in which life creates conditions that favour it. The hypothesis has been exceptionally fertile in facilitating important discoveries about Earth systems (not least in understanding and modelling climate change), and in undermining the wilder claims of neo-Darwinism. It has also enriched all our capacities to wonder about the very nature of life, consciousness and the non-human world.

Among Lovelock's important inventions was his Electron Capture Detector, or ECD. This device, which he 'stumbled upon' in 1957, is so sensitive that, from the other side of the planet, it can detect a few parts per trillion of pollutant gases released into the atmosphere. The ECD played an important role in inspiring the modern environmental movement because it showed that tiny traces of dangerous pollutants don't just disappear but can spread through every part of the web of life. The story is Lovelock in a nutshell -- brilliant, socially-useful science on a shoestring.

This should not be a first book for lay readers who want to understand the hypothesis and its implications. Better to read Lovelock's earlier volumes Gaia -- A New Look at Life on Earth and The Ages of Gaia or an introduction such as Gala's Body by Tyler yolk. There's also a first rate exploration of some of the philosophical and ethical implications of Gala, Mary Midgely's new pamphlet published by Demos. But this is a great read if you want to understand the man and the genesis of his work.

So who is Lovelock? A Brixton lad who thinks he could be a quarter Jewish. A lapsed Quaker. The member of a very rare blood group most often found among Inuits of northern Canada. Such labels don't really help. If anything, Lovelock has lived some of the virtues that in his younger days (and a more chauvinistic time) were idealised in the best type of Englishman: inventive and extremely practical; unsentimental and yet deep feeling; distrustful of authority and pomposity; and passionately committed to public service, fair play and respect for all people.

Homage to Gaia also illustrates points on which Lovelock differs from many contemporary environmentalists. His relative lack of suspicion of large corporations does not mean he endorses unbridled turbo-capitalism.

But some readers will see it as naivety. His support for nuclear power is founded on a belief that there is no alternative that will deliver the energy requirements for decent development for all the world's people at the same time as reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.

On nuclear power, this reviewer would argue that Lovelock is wrong. Developments in renewable energy technologies (especially in the last 10 years or so) and the potential for quantum jumps in energy efficiency, offer enormous promise that is only starting to be harnessed, But, to ensure these alternatives deliver, a crucial factor will be more of precisely the kind of ingenuity and brilliance that Lovelock has demonstrated throughout his life.

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