Hiking with his father on Leith Hill, young James Lovelock
would admire the view across to the South Downs. Years later, in the 1960s, the
view did not seem as clear. There was a haze. Was it man made? Where did it
come from? The answer would introduce a precision instrument for measuring air
pollution, both help to start the environmental movement and avert a
catastrophe.
Inspired by visits to the Science Museum, impoverished
James Lovelock self funded his ambition to become a scientist. Frustrated with
university authority he did his science independently as a 'maverick'. Among
his discoveries and inventions is the Electron Capture Detector (ECD). This is an instrument so sensitive it can
detect airborne particles in parts per trillion (1 in 1000,000,000,000). The
ECD works by ionising a gas then passing an electrical current through it.
Specific atoms or molecules introduced to the gas can be identified by changes
in the current.
He used his ECD on the North Downs air. Testing for man
made chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), used for aerosols and refrigerants, he
discovered them in the wind from London. Was CFC dispersal wider? He part
funded joining British research ship Shackleton on it's 1972 Antarctic voyage.
His resulting paper and lectures on global dispersal alerted other scientists.
Alarmingly they found CFC action was destroying the earth's ozone layer. Ozone
protects life from the harmful effects of the sun's Ultra Violet radiation. In
1987 the Montreal Protocol, to control CFCs, was agreed by 197 UN countries and
is the first worldwide agreement to protect the Earth's environment.
After a distinguished science career, at 96, James
Lovelock now writes on the environment. He is most famous for the Gaia
hypothesis developed while consulting NASA on how landers might test for the
presence of life on Mars. Gaia proposes the Earth's environment is self
regulating, where life maintains the balance of nature. Living processes, for
example, coordinate to maintain the air's oxygen level at 21%, the exact
proportion in air needed by our biosphere to survive.
Recognising Science Museum influences, in 2015, he
donated his fascinating and important archive to it. It includes the ECD, built
in his garden shed laboratory! See the link below...
There are many anecdotes from him and one that impresses
me is his response during the war to using shaved rabbits to categorise degrees
of skin burn. He refused to harm innocent animals and successfully conducted
the tests on himself which he described as 'exquisitely painful'!
- John Faulkner, SATRO Volunteer
- John Faulkner, SATRO Volunteer
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