James Lovelock Quotes


"An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it."
- James Lovelock
"China will soon emit more greenhouse gases than America, but its regime knows if it caps aspirations there will be a revolution."
- James Lovelock
(Related: America, Aspirations, Revolution, Will)

"Civilization in its present form hasn't got long."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Civilization, Present)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Being, End, World)

"Esso has been the main one in America spreading the disinformation that there is no global warming problem."
- James Lovelock
(Related: America, Global warming)

"Evolution is a tightly coupled dance, with life and the material environment as partners. From the dance emerges the entity Gaia."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Life, Dance, Environment, Evolution)

"Florida will be gone altogether, the whole damned place, in not too long."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Will)

"For each of our actions there are only consequences."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Actions, Consequences)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Time, Earth, Living)

"Let's make hay while it lasts."
- James Lovelock
"I have heard that the Saudi Arabians are paying Greenpeace to campaign against Nuclear Power. It wouldn't surprise me at all."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Power)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: War, Earth, Humanity)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Chance, Earth, Exploration, Space)

"Science always uses metaphor."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Science, Metaphor)

"You mustn't take what I say as gospel because no one can second-guess the future."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Future)

"Life does more than adapt to the Earth. It changes the Earth to its own purposes."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Life, Earth)

"There aren't just bad people that commit genocide; we are all capable of it. It's our evolutionary history."
- James Lovelock
(Related: History, People, Genocide)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Power, Oil, Will)

"Nature favors those organisms which leave the environment in better shape for their progeny to survive."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Nature, Environment, Favors)

"One pound of uranium is worth about 3 million pounds worth of coal or oil."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Oil, Worth)

"There is little evidence that our individual intelligence has improved through recorded history."
- James Lovelock
(Related: History, Intelligence)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Change, Climate, Years)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Negative, Job, Politicians, Saying)

"I suspect any worries about genetic engineering may be unnecessary. Genetic mutations have always happened naturally, anyway."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Engineering, May)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Earth, Space, Sun, Will)

"I'm a scientist, not a theologian. I don't know if there is a God or not. Religion requires certainty."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Religion, God, Certainty)

"I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen."
- James Lovelock
"I've got personal views on the '60s. You can't have freedom without paying the price for it."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Freedom)

"If it hadn't been for the Cold War, neither Russia nor America would have been sending people into space."
- James Lovelock
(Related: War, People, America, Russia, Space)

"If we gave up eating beef we would have roughly 20 to 30 times more land for food than we have now."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Food, Eating, Land, Now)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Science, Evolution, Theory, Years)

"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."
- James Lovelock
(Related: Science, War, Country, Measure, Now, Scientists, World, World war)

"Sadly, it's much easier to create a desert than a forest."
- James Lovelock