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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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James Lovelock
Age: 105
Beekeeper
Biochemist
Biologist
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Ecologist
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Meteorologist
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Science Fiction Writer
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James Ephraim Lovelock
James E. Lovelock
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Certain
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More quotes by James Lovelock

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The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time... it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising - carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that.
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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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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No one who has experienced the intense involvement of computer modeling would deny that the temptation exists to use any data input that will enable one to continue playing what is perhaps the ultimate game of solitaire.
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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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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The entire range of living matter on Earth from whales to viruses and from oaks to algae could be regarded as constituting a single living entity capable of maintaining the Earth's atmosphere to suit its overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those of its constituent parts.
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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All the modelling we do shows that the climate is poised on the jump up to a new hot state. It is accelerating so fast that you could say that we are already in it.
James Lovelock
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So-called 'sustainable development' is meaningless drivel.
James Lovelock
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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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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
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An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.
James Lovelock
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I've got personal views on the '60s. You can't have freedom without paying the price for it.
James Lovelock
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Science always uses metaphor.
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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The inertia of humans is so huge that you can't really do anything meaningful.
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 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
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I wouldn't be against them (large wind turbines) if they actually worked.
James Lovelock