James Lovelock - Planetary Quotes

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We are the intelligent elite among animal life on earth and whatever our mistakes, [Earth] needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way 20th century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken [Earth] 2.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct she has little chance of evolving another.

James Lovelock

Life has to be a planetary phenomenon. You could no more have a partially occupied planet than you could half a cat or half a dog.

James Lovelock

Neither Lynn Margulis nor I have ever proposed a teleological hypothesis. Nowhere in our writing do we express the idea that planetary self-regulation is purposeful, or involves planetary foresight or planning by the biota.... Yet we met persistent, almost dogmatic, criticism that our hypothesis is teleological.

James Lovelock