La Jornada – British scientist James Lovelock, ‘climate prophet’ dies

London. British scientist James Lovelock, known for his early warnings about the climate crisis and the “Gaia hypothesis,” which sees the Earth as a self-regulating organism, has died at the age of 103, his family said on Wednesday.

“James Lovelock died yesterday (Tuesday) in his home surrounded by his family on his 103rd birthday,” relatives of the scientist said in a statement.

“To the world, he was known as a pioneer, weather prophet and inventor of Gaia theory,” his family said, adding that his health deteriorated after his recent fall.

Lovelock, who has presented himself throughout his career as an “independent scientist,” sparked controversy with a harrowing vision of the climate crisis.

“It is too late to save the planet as we know it,” he said. Afp In 2009, a few months before the Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15), which ended in failure.

“Get ready for a huge loss of life,” he would say, a position then in the minority in the scientific world.

Born in 1919, Lovelock grew up in South London between the wars and worked at the British Institute for Medical Research for 20 years.

In the early 1960s, he was hired by NASA and he moved to California to work on the possibility of life on Mars.

He is known to have formulated in 1970 the “Gaia hypothesis”, which presents the Earth as a living organism capable of self-regulation, a theory criticized by his colleagues at the time.