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James Lovelock [1919-0] English

Rank: 102
Scientist

James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the Earth functions as a self-regulating system.

Environmental, Space, Chance, Faith, History, Intelligence, Religion, Respect, Trust, War

Quote	Tags	Rank
One pound of uranium is worth about 3 million pounds worth of coal or oil.		101
An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.		102
There aren't just bad people that commit genocide; we are all capable of it. It's our evolutionary history.	History	103
Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest.	Environmental	104
Let's make hay while it lasts.		105
Civilization in its present form hasn't got long.		106
So-called 'sustainable development'... is meaningless drivel.		107
A billion could live off the earth; 6 billion living as we do is far too many, and you run out of planet in no time.		108
We rushed into renewable energy without any thought. The schemes are largely hopelessly inefficient and unpleasant. I personally can't stand windmills at any price.		109
The tropical rain forests are a telling example. Once cut down, they rarely recover. Rainfall drops, deserts spread, the climate warms.		110
China will soon emit more greenhouse gases than America, but its regime knows if it caps aspirations there will be a revolution.	Environmental	111
This programme to stop nuclear by 2020 is just crazy. If there were a nuclear war, and humanity were wiped out, the Earth would breathe a sigh of relief.	War	112
Esso has been the main one in America spreading the disinformation that there is no global warming problem.		113
We'd never have got a chance to go outside and look at the earth if it hadn't been for space exploration and NASA.	Chance, Space	114
Life does more than adapt to the Earth. It changes the Earth to its own purposes.		115
I suspect any worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary. Genetic mutations have always happened naturally, anyway.		116
Geological change usually takes thousands of years to happen but we are seeing the climate changing not just in our lifetimes but also year by year.		117
I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty. Revere and respect Gaia. Have trust in Gaia. But not faith.	Faith, Religion, Respect, Trust	118
Life clearly does more than adapt to the Earth. It changes the Earth to its own purposes. Evolution is a tightly coupled dance, with life and the material environment as partners. From the dance emerges the entity Gaia.		119
The oil companies regard nuclear power as their rival, who will reduce their profits, so they put out a lot of disinformation about nuclear power.		120
If it hadn't been for the Cold War, neither Russia nor America would have been sending people into space.	Space	121
Evolution is a tightly coupled dance, with life and the material environment as partners. From the dance emerges the entity Gaia.		122
If a power station were to be built down the road, I'd prefer a nuclear plant over an oil burner, and definitely over a coal burner. We simply have to lessen our consumption of fossil fuels.		123
Fudging the data in any way whatsoever is quite literally a sin against the holy ghost of science. I'm not religious, but I put it that way because I feel so strongly. It's the one thing you do not ever do. You've got to have standards.		124
I don't think we're yet evolved to the point where we're clever enough to handle a complex a situation as climate change. The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.		125
Nature favors those organisms which leave the environment in better shape for their progeny to survive.		126
If you start any large theory, such as quantum mechanics, plate tectonics, evolution, it takes about 40 years for mainstream science to come around. Gaia has been going for only 30 years or so.		201
For each of our actions there are only consequences.		202
NASA will send up a big sun shade that will be in orbit between the earth and sun and deflect 2 or 3 percent of the sunshine back into space. It would be cheaper than the international space station.		203
If we gave up eating beef we would have roughly 20 to 30 times more land for food than we have now.	Environmental	204
I have heard that the Saudi Arabians are paying Greenpeace to campaign against Nuclear Power. It wouldn't surprise me at all.		205
All the modelling we do shows that the climate is poised on the jump up to a new hot state. It is accelerating so fast that you could say that we are already in it.		206
It just so happens that the green religion is now taking over from the Christian religion. I don't think people have noticed that, but it's got all the sort of terms that religions use... The greens use guilt. That just shows how religious greens are. You can't win people round by saying they are guilty for putting (carbon dioxide) in the air.		207
I would only have been too pleased if someone had asked me for my data. If you really believed in your data, you wouldn't mind someone looking at it. You should be able to respond that if you don't believe me go out and do the measurements yourself.		208
You mustn't take what I say as gospel because no one can second-guess the future.		209
I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen.		210
I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty.		211
One thing that being a scientist has taught me is that you can never be certain about anything. You never know the truth. You can only approach it and hope to get a bit nearer to it each time. You iterate towards the truth. You don't know it.		212
What I like about sceptics is that in good science you need critics that make you think: 'Crumbs, have I made a mistake here?' If you don't have that continuously, you really are up the creek. The good sceptics have done a good service, but some of the mad ones I think have not done anyone any favours.		213
There is little evidence that our individual intelligence has improved through recorded history.	Intelligence	214
You never know with politicians what they are really saying. And I don't say that in a negative way-they have an appalling job.		215
Science always uses metaphor.		216
Just after World War II, this country led the world in science by every way you could measure it, yet the number of scientists was a tiny proportion of what it is now.		217
I've got personal views on the '60s. You can't have freedom without paying the price for it.		218
Florida will be gone altogether, the whole damned place, in not too long.		219
Climatologists are all agreed that we'd be lucky to see the end of this century without the world being a totally different place, and being 8 or 9 degrees hotter on average.		220
Gas is almost a give-away in the U.S. at the moment. They've gone for fracking in a big way. This is what makes me very cross with the greens for trying to knock it... Let's be pragmatic and sensible and get Britain to switch everything to methane. We should be going mad on it.		221
The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened.		222
The climate is doing its usual tricks. There's nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now.		223
The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium.		224
Nowadays if you're dependent on a grant - and 99% of them are - you can't make mistakes as you won't get another one if you do.		225

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