---
title: "James Lovelock"
chunk: 4/5
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:07:09.585027+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

=== Climate ===
Writing in The Independent in 2006, Lovelock argued that, as a result of global warming, "billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable" by the end of the 21st century. The same year he suggested that "we have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He further predicted in 2007 that the temperature increase would leave much of the world's land uninhabitable and unsuitable for farming, with northerly migrations and new cities created in the Arctic; furthermore, he added that much of Europe will have turned to desert and Britain will have become Europe's "life-raft" due to its stable temperature caused by being surrounded by the ocean.  He was quoted in The Guardian in 2008 that 80% of humans will perish by 2100, and this climate change will last 100,000 years.
In a 2010 interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said that democracy might have to be "put on hold" to prevent climate change. He argued that since war caused countries to halt the democratic process, climate change (which he likened in gravity to war) should as well.
Statements from 2012 portrayed Lovelock as continuing his concern over global warming while at the same time criticising extremism and suggesting alternatives to oil, coal and the green solutions he did not support.
In a 2012 interview aired on MSNBC, Lovelock stated that he had been "alarmist", using the words "All right, I made a mistake," about the timing of climate change and noted the documentary An Inconvenient Truth and the book The Weather Makers as examples of the same kind of alarmism. Lovelock still believed the climate to be warming, although not at the rate of change he once thought; he admitted that he had been "extrapolating too far." He believed that climate change was still happening, but it would be felt further in the future. He denied claims that the "science was settled" regarding climate change and stated that it was impossible for any scientist, including himself, to know the truth with certainty. He criticised environmentalists for treating environmentalism like a religion, and stated that guilting people for contributing to global warming did nothing to encourage them to become environmentalists.
In a 2012 MSNBC article, Lovelock stated that climate alarmism in the 1990s had resulted from scientists' overconfidence, during that decade, that global warming would occur at a high rate and result in a "frying world"; between 2000 and 2012 global temperatures stayed mostly the same, though carbon dioxide levels increased. In a follow-up interview also in 2012, Lovelock stated his support for natural gas; he favoured fracking as a low-polluting alternative to coal. He opposed the concept of "sustainable development", where modern economies might be powered by wind turbines, calling it meaningless drivel. He kept a poster of a wind turbine to remind himself how much he detested them.
In Novacene (2019), Lovelock proposed that benevolent superintelligence may take over and save the ecosystem and stated that the machines would need to keep organic life around to keep the planet's temperature habitable for electronic life. On the other hand, if instead life becomes entirely electronic, "so be it: we played our part and newer, younger actors are already appearing on stage".

==== Ocean fertilisation ====
In 2007, Lovelock and Chris Rapley proposed the construction of ocean pumps to pump water up from below the thermocline to "fertilize algae in the surface waters and encourage them to bloom". The basic idea was to accelerate the transfer of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to the ocean by increasing primary production and enhancing the export of organic carbon (as marine snow) to the deep ocean. A scheme similar to that proposed by Lovelock and Rapley was later developed independently by a commercial company.
The proposal attracted widespread media attention and criticism. Commenting on the proposal, Corinne Le Quéré, a University of East Anglia researcher, said "It doesn't make sense. There is absolutely no evidence that climate engineering options work or even go in the right direction. I'm astonished that they published this. Before any geoengineering is put to work a massive amount of research is needed – research which will take 20 to 30 years". Other researchers claimed that "this scheme would bring water with high natural pCO2 levels (associated with the nutrients) back to the surface, potentially causing exhalation of CO2". Lovelock subsequently said that his proposal was intended to stimulate interest and that research would be the next step, and several research studies were published in the wake of the original proposal. However, these estimated that the scheme would require a huge number of pipes, and that the main effect of the pipes may be on the land rather than in the ocean.

==== Sustainable retreat ====

Sustainable retreat is a concept developed by Lovelock to define the necessary changes to human settlement and dwelling at the global scale to adapt to global warming and prevent its expected negative consequences on humans.
Lovelock thought that people needed to retreat because development was no longer sustainable. He argued that people should be transported to Europe from low-lying areas, which he predicted would fare poorly in the future. He stated that the main point of sustainable retreat was everyone "absolutely doing their utmost to sustain civilization".
The concept of sustainable retreat emphasises a pattern of resource use that aims to meet human needs with lower levels or less environmentally harmful types of resources.