The Many Lives of James Lovelock: Science, Secrets and Gaia Theory

James Lovelock is best known as the "father" of the Gaia theory, which claims the Earth functions "like an organism to maintain a habitable environment"; that we live in a holistic system in which life does not just adapt but shapes the environment; and that we, like all living things, play an active part in maintaining the balance supporting life. Jonathan Watts, however, shows there were many "mothers" necessary to the birth of this hypothesis, and to its presentation, not just to scientists but also to less academic readers. "Gaia," he writes, "was not the monopoly of one man... Like Gaia itself, it is a group effort, a product of relationships."

In this book, Watts applies Gaia theory to a biography:

...the chapters are organised by layers of relationships that made up Lovelock's life and shaped his thinking... On one hand it tells the story of a brilliant individual who played a central role in some of the great scientific developments of the twentieth century...Yet, at the same time, it challenges the idea of a solitary genius and stresses the importance of interactions—neglectful, manipulative, passionate, loyal, inspiring and resentful.

Many of these important interactions were with the women in Lovelock's life: the scientists Dian Hitchcock and Lynn Margulis, who each played a vital part in sharing ideas and shaping the Gaia hypothesis into a coherent thesis; and, especially, his first wife, Helen, his "gatekeeper and account manager," who unwillingly tolerated his affairs but, in spite of her own ill health, remained his "personal assistant" and "pillar of the family, making sure everyone was looked after while [he] travelled for work." Another significant contributor was Sidney Epton, who worked with Lovelock as ghost writer and editor to make his influential paper for The New Scientist easy and interesting reading for the general public.

So, although Lovelock caused fury, criticism, and "fierce academic debates" for unscientifically linking myth with serious research, and because of his "purple prose," Gaia's influence among the general public spread so widely, it was adopted and adapted by ecologists, "cybernetic analysts, eco-modernists, diplomats, New Age gurus, witches and wizards," and creationists and spiritual groups drawn to the goddess Gaia or to the idea of there being "a grand design" to life on Earth rather than it being the result of Darwinian evolution.

It was the novelist William Golding who suggested the name "Gaia" to Lovelock, telling him of the Greek Goddess of the Earth—the powerful, sometimes terrifying mother of all life. Watts doubts whether Gaia would have become so well-know if Lovelock had continued to refer to his theory as describing "a cybernetic biological system or a biologically controlled homeostatic system." "Gaia," as Lovelock liked to say, was "a good four-letter word."

Gaia, however, was only one part of Lovelock's life. It is surprising to read of his work on airborne disease for the National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR); with virology and hygiene for Medical Research Council (MRC), where he also worked with radio-active materials until he was warned of the health hazards. He was employed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California to measure the chemical composition of the soil and air on other planets. He had a relationship with Victor Rothschild of the petrochemical giant, Shell, who employed him as a senior consultant. And he engaged in anti-terrorism operations in Northern Ireland for the British Ministry of Defense. "He was never a full-time member of British Intelligence," but was "almost certainly Britain's longest-serving spy," with "a working relationship with MI5 and MI6 that was to last until well into his nineties possibly until his 100th birthday."

A number of sensitive questions Watts asked Lovelock about his work with these various employers ("was Lovelock knowingly involved in biological weapons development" when working for the MoD, for example) went largely unanswered, because Lovelock was still bound by The Official Secrets Act, which he signed in 1941 before being taken on by NIMR. He did, however, state that, "In no circumstances would I knowingly harm anyone."

Lovelock's most important invention, the Electron Capturing Device (ECD), was the result of a conversation with Archer Martin, "the world's leading gas chromatography expert," when they were both working for MRC.

Lovelock asked Martin whether he could analyse the blood of hamsters to understand why they alone—of all laboratory mammals—could successfully be reanimated after freezing. The answer came in the form of a challenge. Martin said the sample was too small for his instruments, so he could only examine the rodent if Lovelock invented a more sensitive detector.

Lovelock had for some time been experimenting with an ionizing anemometer that he had invented to track air movements. He had been using this...

...to measure the composition of gasses and liquids with a degree of sensitivity that no other scientist on Earth possessed at the time. He did not fully understand how it worked until decades later, when he would talk in hallowed terms of his device's "quantum' properties and "magical' effectiveness... That instrument was the electron capture device (ECD).

Taking up Martin's challenge, Lovelock "retreated to his lab" and over the next few years developed two smaller, cheaper ionizing detectors "hundreds of times more sensitive that anything that had existed before."

He went on to use his ECD for atmospheric analysis, which led, amongst other important discoveries, to the identification of lead and sulphur in car exhaust and from the burning of fossil fuels; the spread of atmospheric pollutants around the world; the increase of CFC's (greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere; and, eventually, to Lovelock's formulation of the Gaia hypothesis, which, too, changed as he became more and more aware of humans' effects on the world around us.

Lovelock was a maverick, an inventor, brilliant at chemistry, and although he was hopeless at maths due to dyscalculia, he had a "phenomenal memory." Open minded and always willing to see an alternative point-of-view, he became an excellent fixer and problem solver. As one man who worked with him at the Medical Research Council put it:

With Jim here were always ten ideas: nine of them would be too outlandish and impossible but there was always one gem.

Watts notes, however, that Lovelock was not comfortable with personal relationships:

...this was an area where he often felt ill-equipped for self-reflection... Despite an ability to charm and a mischievous sense of humour, he preferred to live away from others. Although he developed the world's most sensitive chemical detectors, he could be incredibly tin-eared and inconsiderate of the feelings of those closest to him.

As a parent he was unpredictable.

Lovelock's idea of diverting his baby son, Andrew... was to fill empty tins with gas then ignite them with a boom. "You never knew what was going to happen with Dad. One time he tied a hydrogen balloon to Jane's toy pram and it floated off," Christine said.

He wasn't a boring old fart. His boundaries of what was permissible were different. My sister and I got used to it. He taught us how to make volcanoes.

As a boy, he had been a passionate bombmaker, "fascinated by the explosive power of chemistry," and Watts quotes him as saying, "Not many people made bombs. And, of those who did, not many still have all their fingers." By the time he left full-time employment and set up his own laboratory in a barn near his house, he was unafraid of working with dangerous substances, including explosives and radioactive materials. When he was in his 90s, and the Science Museum in London considered acquiring his entire laboratory for an exhibition focused on his work, they found "there were too many hazards, including radiation, mercury, asbestos, Semtex, and just about everything you could possibly imagine."

One of the most interesting and worrying chapters in this book is based on the relationship between Lovelock and Victor Rothschild. Rothschild clearly valued Lovelocks expertise in tracing atmospheric pollutants in relation to petroleum products, but it seems he also wanted to control what Lovelock publicly disclosed about this.

On one occasion he wrote to Lovelock that he "particularly" did not want him "to talk to non-Shell people" about the atmospheric effects of the combustion of fossil fuels, which was part of the title of two confidential papers Lovelock produced in 1966. When, in 2000, Lovelock...

...told the Shell executive that by the end of the century, pollution would be catastrophic, fossil fuels would have to be replaced by nuclear power, and that conservation would become the great political and religious issue of the day... The oil baron told him to keep quiet about his predictions.

Rothschild, however, was an influential patron, and his contacts in high places put Lovelock in touch with government ministers and with key figures in the intelligence services.

Watts is meticulous and thorough in charting Lovelock's life and work, but basing his biographical method on the Gaia Theory does mean he jumps back and forth in time as he deals with the important relationships that brought the theory into being. His conclusion, however, that "Lovelock was everything that was right and wrong about the twentieth century," is amply demonstrated, and his summing up of Lovelock's character seems true:

He was a curious, funny, kind, dynamic, ambitious, jet-setting exemplar of "progress" who was never afraid of risks... Yet he was also reckless, secretive, occasionally callous, prone to low self-esteem, inclined to exaggerate his own achievements, and seduced by power, praise and knowledge.

Gaia changed the way we look at our world, and Lovelock was the most important figure in its development and in its lasting influence on our growing awareness that nature is not just a resource for us to exploit without consequences.