Bøger af James Lovelock

James Lovelock described his previous book, The Revenge of Gaia, as 'a wake-up call for humanity'. Stark though it was in many respects, in The Vanishing Face of Gaia Lovelock says that even though the weather seems cooler and pollution lessens as the recession bites, the environmental problems we will face in the twenty-first century are even more terrifying than he previously realised. The Arctic and Antarctic ice-caps are melting very quickly, and water shortages and natural disasters are more common occurrences than at any time in recent history. The civilisations of many countries will be jeopardised and life as we know it severely disrupted.Almost all predictions of the likely rate of climate change have been based on estimates which professional observers in the real worldnow show are consistently underestimating the true rate of change. As a global community we continue to be fixated by conventional 'green' ideas which we believe will help save our world. Lovelock argues that only Gaia theory, which he originated over forty years ago, can really help us understand the crisis fully. The root problem is that there are too many people and animals for the Earth to carry. And there is in fact only one possible procedure which might bring a permanent cure for climate change, but we are unlikely to adopt it.'Our wish to continue business as usual will probably prevent us from saving ourselves' says Lovelock, so we must adapt as best we can and try to ensure that enough of us survive to allow a more capable species to evolve from us. There could hardly be a more important message for humankind. James Lovelock has been an active and accurate observer of the Earth environment since the 1960s and was the first to find CFCs and other gases accumulating in the air. His Gaia theory provides insight into climate change in the coming century.This is his final warning.

For millennia, humankind has exploited the Earth without counting the cost. Now, as the world warms and weather patterns dramatically change, the Earth is beginning to fight back. James Lovelock, one of the giants of environmental thinking, argues passionately and poetically that, although global warming is now inevitable, we are not yet too late to save at least part of human civilization. This short book, written at the age of eighty-six after a lifetime engaged in the science of the earth, is his testament.

James Lovelock proposes that all living species are components of that organism, as cells are components of the human body.

With over fifty patents to his name and a stream of awards--including one from the Queen of England--James Lovelock is a distinguished scientist who has been widely recognized by the international scientific community. In this inspiring autobiography, Lovelock tells the story of his life as an independent scientist--from his first job as a lab assistant to his energetic crusade to save the ozone layer. We see how Lovelock came to develop his inventions and theories--he recounts the history behind his famous Gaia theory and talks us through his many inventions. We learn about the electron capture detector, which was extremely important in the development of environmental awareness, revealing for the first time the ubiquitous distribution of pesticide residues in the environment and the global distribution of CFCs. He talks about his work with NASA, where his ideas were adopted in the program for planetary exploration. And he tells about the work he has done for organizations like the Ministry of Defence, The Marine Biological Association, and companies such as Shell and Hewlett Packard. Written in a sharp and energetic style, James Lovelock's book will entertain and inspire anyone interested in science or the creative spirit.

The global temperature is rising, the ice caps are melting, and levels of pollution across the world have reached unprecedented heights. According to eminent scientist James Lovelock, in order to survive an assault from her dependents, the Earth is lurching ever closer to a permanent "hot state." Within the next century, we will almost certainly be forced to give up many of the comforts of western living as supplies are threatened. Only the fittest -- and the smartest -- will survive. A reluctant jeremiad from one of the environmental movement's elder statesmen, The Vanishing Face of Gaia offers an essential wake-up call for the human race.

James Lovelock is a world-renowned scientist and inventor whose work on detecting CFC's (chlorofluorocarbons) in our environment led him to develop a new theory about our planet. The Gaia Hypothesis posits that the Earth is alive-a self regulating organism in its own right. In his two other books on the subject, Lovelock set the record straight on the damage that CFC'c have done to ourplanet and its delicate balance of the interaction between life-forms. His theory has generated much controversy as it proposes that evolution is far from over and that humankind is no longer the be-all and end-all of that process. In this latest volume on the subject, Lovelock examines the health and future prospects of our ailing planet. Beautifully illustrated and presented, Healing Gaia does justice to a theory of this magnitude, while making it accessible to a wide audience of scientists and non-scientists alike. It represents the most comprehensive analysis of our origins, our reasons for existence, and our likely future.

In The Revenge of Gaia, bestselling author James Lovelock- father of climate studies and originator of the influential Gaia theory which views the entire earth as a living meta-organism-provides a definitive look at our imminent global crisis. In this disturbing new book, Lovelock guides us toward a hard reality: soon, we may not be able to alter the oncoming climate crisis. Lovelock's influential Gaia theory, one of the building blocks of modern climate science, conceives of the Earth, including the atmosphere, oceans, biosphere and upper layers of rock, as a single living super-organism, regulating its internal environment much as an animal regulates its body temperature and chemical balance. But now, says Lovelock, that organism is sick. It is running a fever born of the combination of a sun whose intensity is slowly growing over millions of years, and an atmosphere whose greenhouse gases have recently spiked due to human activity. Earth will adjust to these stresses, but on time scales measured in the hundreds of millennia. It is already too late, Lovelock says, to prevent the global climate from "flipping" into an entirely new equilibrium state that will leave the tropics uninhabitable, and force migration to the poles. The Revenge of Gaia explains the stress the planetary system is under and how humans are contributing to it, what the consequences will be, and what humanity must do to rescue itself.

"Wir sind unter schnell wachsenden Datenbergen begraben. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll das vorliegende Buch nicht zur Masse der Daten beitragen, sondern echtes Wissen bieten." -James Lovelock Wir Menschen sind außergewöhnliche Geschöpfe. Wir haben uns zur dominierenden Spezies auf dem Planeten entwickelt und ihn derart umgestaltet, dass viele schon von einem neuen Erdzeitalter sprechen, dem Anthropozän. Aber unser privilegierter Status eröffnet nicht nur immer neue Möglichkeiten, er nimmt uns auch in die Pflicht: Wie sollten wir durch das neue Erdzeitalter reisen? Welches Wissen sollten wir mitnehmen? Diese illustrierte Anthologie ist ein Reiseführer in die Zukunft für den Menschen des 21. Jahrhunderts. Nach einer Idee von James Lovelock (1919-2022), dem Urheber der Gaia-Theorie, ermuntert das Buch zu einem ganzheitlichen Verständnis unserer Lebenswirklichkeit. Ähnlich wie die Gaia-Theorie unsere Erde als lebendiges Ganzes betrachtet, so bringt Die Erde und ich eine Reihe renommierter Autoren aus dem gesamten Spektrum der Wissenschaft zusammen, um auf breiter Grundlage ein Verständnis davon zu vermitteln, wer wir sind und wo wir uns befinden. Wie alle guten Reiseführer zeigt Die Erde und ich sowohl komplexe Einzelheiten als auch übergeordnete Strukturen auf. In zwölf Kapiteln zoomen wir uns von Wissenschaft zu Wissenschaft aus unserem ewig expandierenden Universum hinein in unsere winzigen, aber mächtigen Zellen. Astronomie, Geologie, Neurowissenschaften und Wirtschaftstheorie: Wir sehen Sterne explodieren, betrachten die Schichten des Lebens unter unseren Füßen, rücken den Fakten hinter den Klimakontroversen zu Leibe und denken über unsere wachsende Vertrautheit mit der Technik. Zu unseren fachkundigen Reiseführern zählen die Quantenphysikerin Lisa Randall, der Astronom Martin Lord Rees, der mit dem Pulitzer-Preis ausgezeichnete Biologe Edward O. Wilson und der Nobelpreisträger und Neurowissenschaftler Eric Kandel. Ihre packenden Essays und Berichte geben - mit Werken des britischen Künstlers Jack Hudson anschaulich illustriert - neugierigen Lesern aller Altersgruppen einen Werkzeugkasten für eine aufgeklärte Zukunft an die Hand.

In A Rough Ride to the Future, James Lovelock - the great scientific visionary of our age - presents a radical vision of humanity's future as the thinking brain of our Earth-systemJames Lovelock, who has been hailed as 'the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on earth since Charles Darwin' (Independent) and 'the most profound scientific thinker of our time' (Literary Review) continues, in his 95th year, to be the great scientific visionary of our age. This book introduces two new Lovelockian ideas. The first is that three hundred years ago, when Thomas Newcomen invented the steam engine, he was unknowingly beginning what Lovelock calls 'accelerated evolution', a process which is bringing about change on our planet roughly a million times faster than Darwinian evolution. The second is that as part of this process, humanity has the capacity to become the intelligent part of Gaia, the self-regulating Earth system whose discovery Lovelock first announced nearly 50 years ago. In addition, Lovelock gives his reflections on how scientific advances are made, and his own remarkable life as a lone scientist.The contribution of human beings to our planet is, Lovelock contends, similar to that of the early photosynthesisers around 3.4 billion years ago, which made the Earth's atmosphere what it was until very recently. By our domination and our invention, we are now changing the atmosphere again. There is little that can be done about this, but instead of feeling guilty about it we should recognise what is happening, prepare for change, and ensure that we survive as a species so we can contribute to - perhaps even guide - the next evolution of Gaia. The road will be rough, but if we are smart enough life will continue on Earth in some form far into the future.Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1974, JAMES LOVELOCK is the author of more than 200 scientific papers and the originator of the Gaia Hypothesis (now Gaia Theory). His many books on the subject include Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979), The Revenge of Gaia (2006), and The Vanishing Face of Gaia (2009). In 2003 he was made a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen, in 2005 Prospect magazine named him one of the world's top 100 public intellectuals, and in 2006 he received the Wollaston Medal, the highest Award of the UK Geological Society.

De klimaforandringer, der længe har været forudsagt blandt verdens førende forskere på området, udvikler sig i dag hurtigere og endnu mere dramatisk, end det først blev stillet i udsigt. Så det er på tide at handle. Det mener også James Lovelock, der i 1970’erne fremsatte Gaia-teorien. I "Gaias forsvindende ansigt" kommer han med en sidste advarsel til Jordens befolkning. Planeten skal nok overleve, men hvis vi mennesker ønsker at være en del af dens fremtid, er vi nødt til at gøre noget nu.Den britiske forsker James Lovelock (f. 1919) har skrevet mere end 200 videnskabelige artikler. Mest kendt er han dog for Gaia-teorien, der blev præsenteret første gang på dansk i "Gaia – Et nyt syn på Jordens liv" i 1987. James Lovecock var gennem en lang karriere professor på Institut for kyberteknik ved Reading University. I 2005 kom han på top-hundrede over verdens intellektuelle.