The Secret Affair that Bloomed Gaia Theory Mother Jones [Video]

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Love rarely gets the credit it deserves for the advancement of science. Nor, for that matter, does hatred, greed, envy or any other emotion. Instead, this realm of knowledge tends to be idealized as something cold, hard, rational, neutral, and objective, dictated by data rather than feelings. The life and work of James Lovelock is proof that this is neither possible nor desirable. In his work, he helped us understand that humans can never completely divorce ourselves from any living subject because we are interconnected and interdependent, all part of the same Earth system, which he called Gaia.

Our planet, he argued, behaves like a giant organism—regulating its temperature, discharging waste and cycling chemicals to maintain a healthy balance. Although highly controversial among scientists in the 1970s and 80s, this holistic view of the world had mass appeal, …