But one strains to get a feeling for Gaia in the life of the 83-year old British scientist, or rather technician as he calls himself proudly. The chapter "The Quest for Gaia," where he recalls how he invented his revolutionary theory of the Earth, only comes after the chapter on his invention of the Electron Capture Detector. Lovelock makes the ECD appear so much exciting, important, and, yes, full of life than Gaia itself. This detail is symptomatic.

Is it his working-class background that means that people’s rights are always more important than green issues ? His grand old age - at 83 years old you can be forgiven to have old-fashioned ideas ? His choice of an independent status that means his research has to be supported by corporate "clients" such as Hewlett Packard and Shell ? Whatever it is, and most surprisingly for a man who is regularly invited to give sermons in New Age churches in America, Lovelock loves to hate environmentalists.

"One of the several reasons why I regard the Green Movement with mixed vexation and affection is their obsession with the products of the chemical and nuclear industry… The most poisonous of all substances are the toxins of micro-organisms and plants… I do wish the Greens would grow up and forget the simplistic untruths of their student days. It is natural when young to distrust industry and the profit motive, but when we become consumers, we are all exploiting the Earth," he writes in the chapter "The Practical Side of Independent Science." A consequence of the Gaia theory itself is also that the Earth is extremely resilient to man’s assaults on its life-support properties.

A recurrent theme in his staunch criticisms of the Green movement - the only sections in the book when Lovelock seems to let his emotions override facts ! - is that environmental problems are demand-, not offer-related. This dichotomy can be found throughout the environmental movement, opposing the believers in the powers of market and science to heal the Earth, and those who object that these caused the problems in the first place. Lovelock has chosen his side a long time ago, and it is consistent with his political beliefs. He holds Mrs. Thatcher, a chemist by training, as the most intelligent Prime Minister England is blessed to have had. And the only true environmentalist, perhaps ? After all, "she was the first to warn of the dangers of global change that loomed in the next century."

Lovelock’s distrust of un-scientific Greens is only matched by his dislike of Unions. In this case however, it is more than a political belief. Industrial Action at King’s Hospital resulted in a medical error which almost caused him the loss of his manhood… And in Lovelock’s well-filled eight decades on this planet, women have played an important part, as he romantically expounds in the last chapter "Three Score Years and Ten and Then the Fun Begins."

You don’t need to understand anything about science, you don’t even need to agree with Lovelock’s politics, his autobiography is sure to educate and entertain you.

– Anne Ruimy

– Anne Ruimy is the editor and publisher of rocky road – a new Irish environmental magazine

---

| Back | Index | Next |

---