The author and philosopher looks back on his friendship with the creator of the Gaia theory, who was ‘the closest to genius’ of anyone he has met
first met Jim Lovelock in 1994 when he was staying in Oxford with his devoted wife, Sandy. He was a visiting fellow at what was then Green College. We discussed a whole variety of things on that first meeting, including hisand I came away hugely impressed by the extraordinary fluidity of his mind, which ranged over many, many disciplines. I’ve met some very clever people, but I think he was closest to genius.
Jim attributed his great old age to long daily walks – he lived to 103 and right up to the end his mind was very vivid Jim was from a Quaker family and when war broke out he was a conscientious objector. However, when he saw the merchant marines risking their life to bring in food he felt that position was unsustainable. He was enlisted to work on inventions to help ships get through the German blockade more safely. Some of that was trying to make fires less likely to spread; he recalled how he put a lot of effort into that, though I remember him also saying, “wet blankets were pretty effective”.
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