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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.

James Lovelock

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James Lovelock
Age: 105
Beekeeper
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More quotes by James Lovelock

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We live at a time when emotions and feelings count more than truth, and there is a vast ignorance of science
James Lovelock
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An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.
James Lovelock
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I'm not a pessimist, even though I do think awful things are going to happen.
James Lovelock
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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.
James Lovelock
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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
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Civilization in its present form hasn't got long.
James Lovelock
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There is little evidence that our individual intelligence has improved through recorded history.
James Lovelock
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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
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Science always uses metaphor.
James Lovelock
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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.
James Lovelock
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The Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes - Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.
James Lovelock
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By the end of this century, climate change will reduce the human population to a few breeding pairs surviving near the Arctic.
James Lovelock
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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
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I know that to personalize the Earth System as Gaia, as I have often done and continue to do in this book, irritates the scientifically correct, but I am unrepentant because metaphors are more than ever needed for a widespread comprehension of the true nature of the Earth and an understanding of the lethal dangers that lie ahead.
James Lovelock
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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.
James Lovelock
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If it hadn't been for the Cold War, neither Russia nor America would have been sending people into space.
James Lovelock
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I have heard that the Saudi Arabians are paying Greenpeace to campaign against Nuclear Power. It wouldn't surprise me at all.
James Lovelock
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So-called 'sustainable development' is meaningless drivel.
James Lovelock
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We need a more authoritative world...What's the alternative to democracy? There isn't one. But even the best democracies agree that when a major war approaches, democracy must be put on hold for the time being. I have a feeling that climate change may be an issue as severe as war. It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.
James Lovelock
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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.
James Lovelock