British scientist James Lovelock, known for early warning of the climate crisis and for his “
Gaia hypothesis
” presenting the earth as a living being capable of self-regulation, died at the age of 103, indicated Wednesday, July 27 his family.
"
James Lovelock died yesterday (Tuesday) at home surrounded by his family on his 103rd birthday
," the scientist's relatives said in a statement.
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Climate crisis alert
"
To the world, he was known as a pioneer, a climate prophet and the inventor of the Gaia theory
," added his family, adding that his state of health had deteriorated after a recent fall.
Presenting himself throughout his career as an "
independent scientist
", Lovelock had created controversy with his apocalyptic vision of the climate crisis.
“
It is now late, much too late to save the planet as we know
it,” he explained to AFP in 2009, a few months before the Copenhagen climate conference (COP15) which will take place. ended in resounding failure.
“
Prepare for enormous human losses
”, he said, a minority position in the scientific world at the time.
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Lovelock, born in 1919, grew up in south London between the wars and worked for the British Institute of Medical Research for twenty years.
Hired by NASA in the early 1960s, he went to California to work on the possibility of life on Mars.
He is known for having formulated the “
Gaïa hypothesis
” in 1970, presenting the Earth as a living being capable of self-regulation.
At the time, his theory was criticized by his peers.
“The most important of the last century”
“
What a life and what stories!
Jim's genius (his nickname) made him the Forrest Gump of science, shaping early climate science, the search for life on Mars, the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer, the conception of the world as a self-regulating system
,” tweeted his biographer, Guardian journalist Jonathan Watts.
“
Arguably the most important independent scientist of the last century, Lovelock was decades ahead of his time in his thinking about Earth and climate
,” hailed the Science Museum in London.
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In an interview with AFP in June 2020, Lovelock had relativized the coronavirus pandemic which "
kills in particular those of my age - the old ones - and there are already too many of them
".
“
Climate change is more dangerous to life on Earth than almost any other conceivable disease
,” he said.
