James Lovelock, creator of Gaia hypothesis, dies on 103rd birthday

James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, has died on his 103rd birthday. The climate scientist died at home on Tuesday surrounded by loved ones, his family said.

Known as something of a maverick, he had been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory since the mid-1960s, and in his old age he continued to work.

His Gaia hypothesis posits that life on Earth is a self-regulating community of organisms interacting with each other and their surroundings. He said two years ago that the biosphere was in the last 1% of its life.

Lovelock spent his life advocating for climate measures, starting decades before many others started to take notice of the crisis. By the time he died he did not believe there was hope of avoiding some of the worst impacts of the climate crisis.

Lovelock was passionate about, and committed to, his work as he felt it imperative to warn humanity of the incoming climate catastrophe. He said in a lecture in 2011 that he had no plans for a comfortable retirement because of this.

Another notable invention by Lovelock was a device that detected CFCs, which are damaging to the ozone layer.

He is survived by his wife, Sandra, his daughters Christine and Jane and his sons Andrew and John.