James Lovelock
The scientist who revived the idea that Earth is a self-regulating living system and named it Gaia - which is less a metaphor than a description of something Hindu cosmology had always held without needing a laboratory to prove it.
James Lovelock is the scientist who for the first time since the scientific revolution in the West, thought of Earth as a living system and called it Gaia, based on the name of the Greek Goddess. In the 1970s he told us who the actions of mankind are harming the planet and tipping the balance in favor of catastrophic changes to our society and ecology. In his later works he even says that mankind’s actions have reached a point where we can destroy Gaia as a living being as we are going to boil the planet. He has done the most in raising ecological awareness in the past few decades and that is why Bodha takes inspiration from his work.
Select Works
- Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979) – Introduction of the Gaia hypothesis.
- The Ages of Gaia (1988) – Expanded scientific case for Earth as self-regulating system.
- Gaia: The Practical Science of Planetary Medicine (1991) – Applied implications of Gaia theory.
- Homage to Gaia (2000) – Autobiography of an independent scientist.
- The Revenge of Gaia (2006) – Warning on climate change and tipping points.
- The Vanishing Face of Gaia (2009) – Urgent update on planetary crisis.
- A Rough Ride to the Future (2014) – Reflections on science, aging, and uncertainty.
- Novacene (2019, with Bryan Appleyard) – Speculation on hyperintelligent successors to humans.
