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Western Morning News

WIND POWER JUST A GESTURE

11:22 - 03 February 2004

The inventor of the 'Gaia theory' and inspiration for the green movement,
Dr James Lovelock, tells Andrea Kuhn why windfarms do not address the
problems of global warming

The leading environmentalist and scientist who invented the "Gaia theory"
has told the Western Morning News that he now regrets his endorsement of
windfarms in the Westcountry.

Dr James Lovelock proposed the widely respected view that the earth is a
self-regulating, living system rather than the Darwinian theory of
competing physical, chemical and biological interests.

He also says the Government should "come clean" over its plans on wind
power for the region.

"I was asked to open the windfarm at Delabole," he said. "At that time
nobody was talking about a gigantic programme, getting 15 or 20 per cent of
the country's energy from wind turbines. It was a kind of nice green
gesture. I think, now that I know as much as I do, I wouldn't have touched
it with a bargepole."

He believes the actions by the Government have been reminiscent of
something out of the comic science fiction novel The Hitchhikers' Guide to
the Galaxy.

"It has stolen up on us without any of us being aware of it," he said. "The
Government really has not come clean on this. There has not been a general
public announcement. You cannot count the White Paper. How many people read
that?"

Dr Lovelock, 84, who in 2002 was made a Companion of Honour by the Queen
for his research, believes nuclear power is the only form of energy that
will not contribute to global warming and could supply enough power for the
planet.

He waves away the argument that wind is a natural form of energy. "Lots of
things are good in nature - like motherhood - but it can be an absolute
menace in certain circumstances," he says.

Dr Lovelock believes we face devastating consequences from climate change
and that putting up a few wind turbines will not address the problem.

He cites the example of the Danes, who have found turbines will only work
with conventional power stations to support them when there is no wind.

As such power stations cannot be fired up at will, they have to run
constantly, which defeats the "green" objective.

Dr Lovelock cannot emphasise enough how anxious he feels that time is
running out to address the issue of climate change. "Windfarms won't cut it
at all," he said. "It's better than doing nothing, but it's absurd, just
gestures. Time is of the essence."

It was over 40 years ago that Dr Lovelock, a Fellow of the Royal Society,
first put forward his Gaia theory, and he has become a respected authority
on the subject.

The research scientist coined the term Gaia, from the ancient Greek earth
mother goddess, while out walking with Lord of the Flies author William
Golding, his former neighbour in Wiltshire.

On his walls hang a number of plaques from his work with the American space
agency, NASA. He invented small devices designed to detect if there were
signs of life on Mars - a planet which he says is like a desert.

He thinks the Government has been surprised at the backlash against its
plans to install so many wind turbines. He wrote to Patricia Hewitt,
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, expressing his concern last year
and received a reply which he described as saying "everything and nothing".

"I don't think they expected any objections and the greens told them: 'It's
a wonderful idea, people will love this. It's getting energy without
polluting anything. We can put them up in various places in the
Westcountry.' They didn't think through the consequences."

He came to his house on the Devon/Cornwall border, which he shares with his
wife Sandy and their two cats, almost 30 years ago. Set in 35 acres, the
area is a carefully preserved "habitat" largely left to its own devices.

He continues his research and his work on a follow-up to his original book
on the Gaia theory, which attracted world-wide interest.

He chose to live in the Westcountry because it was one of the last
remaining places in England, with Northumberland, where the "old-style
countryside" still remained and appeared to have escaped the spread of
urbanisation elsewhere.

"England is becoming, in many ways, just one big town," he explains. "You
wouldn't put a sewage plant in Hyde Park and you shouldn't put great
industrial wind turbines here in the Westcountry, in some of the last
remaining bits of old-fashioned countryside where humans and wildlife live
together in a reasonable sort of way."

Dr Lovelock has been a lifelong environmentalist and member of the green
movement. He says the more "pragmatic" nations, such as France, Finland,
Sweden, Japan and China, are embracing nuclear power as they believe it is
the most viable and safe source of energy for the future.

So why are we scared of it? "I think the reason is just simple politics,"
he declares. "Our Government is persuaded that there are so many people in
Britain who are frightened off nuclear energy by fiction, mainly films. Bad
fiction written by good writers. It continues to pervade and give the
impression it is the most evil thing.

"I would take high-level waste if they would let me have it. I would have
it just over there," he says, pointing to the hedge visible from his
sitting room window.

"We could use it for home heating. They could put in a concrete pit and it
would stay hot. What a waste not to use it. People have got in mind great
big glowing slag heaps. It's all nonsense."

He dismisses Chernobyl as a "nasty accident that killed 45 people" saying
it was not comparable to the amount of people who die in an air crash or in
an industrial accident such as Bhopal in India, which killed 3,500 people
and maimed countless others.

He believes that if we are concerned about health risks we should consider
how many people are dying as a result of climate change. He estimates that
last summer's heatwave in Europe killed upwards of 20,000 people.

"The area around Chernobyl has been invaded by wildlife and allowed to
flourish as it has been left alone. It doesn't mind the radiation in the
least," he says.

"We have lived under a lot of absolute nonsense for years and years about
radiation. You can't live without breathing oxygen, but it's also the most
ubiquitous carcinogen of the lot. Just breathing daily is equivalent to
quite a hefty radiation dose." Where he does agree with the pro-wind energy
lobby is that climate change is an immediate and urgent threat. He recently
attended a lecture given by Government scientist Professor David King, who
discussed the Thames barrage, which was barely used initially when it was
built over a decade ago. Yet two years ago it was used 24 times.

He describes predictions made by The International Panel for Climate Change
as "awesome". It estimates a rise in temperature of anything between 1.5
and 6C in this century.

The average is the same as the jump in temperature between the last Ice Age
and before it began warming up, he says. "That produced gigantic changes.
At the end of the last Ice Age??? the sea was 120 metres lower to start with."

As one of the earliest members of the green movement he fears the arguments
are now becoming fractured as some people pursue the humanist cause above
the ecological one. He said they were more concerned about things such as
carcinogens in salmon than the bigger issue of the planet itself. "They
think the most noble thing is for the benefit of human kind. They don't
think beyond that. Because of the work I have done, I have become more and
more convinced that we live on a self-regulating planet which looks after
the environment and keeps it comfortable for all the living things on it,
including us.

"In a sense, the Earth should come first - ahead of the humans on it. If we
stop now, it will still get to warm up for 50 years to a very uncomfortable
state. If we don't, it is too awful to contemplate."

Homage to Gaia: The Life of an Independent Scientist' is published by
Oxford University Press 2000.