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The Man Who Discovered Mother Nature
James Lovelock's bold new theory may
forever change the way we look at life on our
planet.
Lowell Ponte
AMID
GREEN
ROLLING
HILLS
in
southwest
England,
the
mud-and-straw
cottage seems unchanged since
Shakespeare's time. Peacocks strut in the
surrounding
meadow.
But
a
new
adjoining
building
houses
a
laboratory
filled
with
computers,
chromatographs, chemical and electronic
equipment.
The
owner,
James
Lovelock,
is
an
anachronism.
In
an
age
when
almost
all
scientists
are
specialists
working
in
large
organizations,
Lovelock,
now
72,
is
an
independent researcher
and inventor, freely pursuing his curiosity across
many fields.
Credited with more than 40
patents, he resembles a modern Ben Franklin, who
would
study
the
Gulf
Stream
one
day
and
the
next
fly
his
kite
to
catch
the
secrets
of
lightning bolts. And from his small
laboratory, Lovelock has proposed a theory that is
changing the way scientists think about
life on our planet.
It
all
began
more
than
three
decades
ago
when
Lovelock
devised
the
electron
capture detector. Still widely used,
this electronic nose is able to sniff out a few
parts
per
trillion
of
chemicals
found
in
the
soil,
water
or
air.
Aware
of
Lovelock's
skills,
NASA asked him in 1961 to help devise
ways of detecting life on Mars.
Lovelock
studied
the
chemistry
of
Mars,
using
analyses
provided
by
NASA's
infrared telescopes, and found that no
chemical changes were going on. Such stability
was a clear gravestone marking a
lifeless planet. Later, two Viking robot landers
on
Mars
confirmed
his
grim
analysis.
But
now
notice
this.
If
one
simply
withholds
treatment, it may
take the patient
longer to die, and
so he may suffer
more than
he
would if more direct action were
taken and lethal injection given. This fact
provides
strong reason for thinking
that, once the initial decision not to prolong his
agony has
been made, active euthanasia
is actually preferable to passive euthanasia,
rather than
the reverse.
But while searching for signs of life
on Mars, Lovelock became fascinated with
the
too hot for life, Mars
too cold and Earth just right?
Researchers used to assume that Earth
simply had the good luck to be at precisely
the
right
distance
from
the
Sun
so
that
water
remained
in
a
liquid
state,
at
temperatures between
boiling and freezing. But our sun has burned
hotter as it ages;
the best estimate is
that it shines with 25 to 30 percent more light
and heat than when
life first
appeared on
Earth
about 3.8
billion
years ago.
Earth's average
temperature
then is estimated to have
been around 73 degrees Fahrenheit. Today it's
cooler, about
59 degrees F. How could
this be?
Lovelock wondered whether some
powerful, self regulating system was at work.
He came up with a provocative thesis:
our planet acts like a giant living organism, in
which all living things interact to
maintain stability.
Individuals and species unknowingly
play a part, much as the red blood cells in your
body have a life of their own, but
unwittingly work in concert to maintain your life.
Nobel
Prize
winning
author
William
Golding,
Lovelock's
neighbor,
suggested