James Lovelock

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety one.

Speaker 20:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:31

My Castaway this week is a scientist. He was brought up in comparatively poor circumstances in Brixton in South London, where his father was a gas man. He hated school, but he knew he wanted to be a scientist, and eventually got a degree.

Presenter0:45

He worked first with the Medical Research Council and later on the American Space Programme. It was a distinguished career, but in the mid sixties he broke free in order to develop his own ideas. Chief among these is the Gaia theory. This states that the world resembles a living organism which knows how to regulate itself. The human race is simply a part of that organism, but not necessarily vital to it. If man misbehaves, he may ultimately be rejected and will perish.

Presenter1:15

Some say this theory is metaphysical nonsense others call it a brilliant analytical vision of our future. Either way, it's turned its author into a celebrity. He is James Lovelock.

Presenter1:27

It's it's a very romantic name, Gaia, to give to a a scientific theory, the mythological goddess of the earth. Why did you choose it?

James Lovelock1:35

Well, I didn't choose it. It was William Golding, the novelist, who chose it. He was a near neighbour of mine and a friend when I lived in Wiltshire at a village called Bowerchalk. And I just had the idea. It was in the early seventies. And I was discussing it with him, trying to tell him about it. And he seemed impressed, and said to me, Well, Jim, if you're going to make a theory as big as that, you'd better give it a proper name. And so I said, Well, what? and he said, I'd call it Gaia.

James Lovelock2:05

So for a little while I thought he meant Gaia, G Y R E, one of those great worlds that goes round in the ocean, and we walked on for at least ten minutes talking at cross purposes, and only then I realized he meant the Greek goddess Gaia.

Presenter2:20

But if you'd called it Lovelock's biogeochemical theory of the earth or something, maybe nobody would ever have caught on to it.

James Lovelock2:26

The scientists might have, but not not anybody else.

Presenter2:30

So in that sense it did the trick, didn't it? It's it's caught on, if one can put it crudely, and it's inspired.

Presenter2:35

Poems and cults and brought people, pilgrims, to your door in deepest Devon. That's presumably a bit that you didn't bargain for.

James Lovelock2:43

It is indeed, yes, and perhaps it's just as well it wasn't copyrightable, otherwise we'd have been outrageously wealthy by now.

Presenter2:52

Well, no, here we offer you an escape, certainly from the rest of the human race, if not from.

James Lovelock2:55

Yeah.

Presenter2:57

Atmospheric pollution. Do you like the idea of going to a desert island?

James Lovelock3:01

When I was young I would have loved it and probably would have gone in the course of monitoring things. In fact, I have been on in uninhabited islands, but now I think I would regard it as almost like a bereavement. There would be a sense of loss.

James Lovelock3:16

Gradually that would go and

Presenter3:19

And then what

James Lovelock3:20

On the island well, being an inventor, I think the first thing I'd do will be to try and build a radio transmitter from the bits and pieces that were lying around on the island. It would be quite a challenge, but I'd have a go.

Presenter3:32

It might be possible.

Presenter3:33

And uh what part though in your life does does music play? I mean, would it help you on the island? Is it important to you?

James Lovelock3:39

It is important. When when one's feeling somewhat depressed, it goes a long way to lifting one's mood and returning the optimism that one loses.

Presenter3:52

So what's the first record that you'd put on to uh this one would make you optimistic, wouldn't it?

James Lovelock3:56

That's right, it's an ideal cheer you up record and that's why I chose it. It's uh Steely Dan in Haitian Divorce.

Speaker 44:18

Dads and Clean Willie were in love based.

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So

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In love.

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The preacher's face turned red.

Speaker 44:31

Soon everybody

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Was bad

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He shouts.

Speaker 44:38

She bites!

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They're window through the night, yeah

Speaker 44:44

She go cravy.

Speaker 44:46

Got to make a getaway papers fit

Speaker 44:53

No hesitation.

Speaker 44:56

No tears and no hearts bring him, no re

Speaker 45:06

Congratulations.

Speaker 45:09

This is your Haitian

Speaker 45:12

The advice

Presenter5:16

Steely Dan and Haitian divorce. Um you called yourself an inventor just now, Jim Lovelock. Didn't you at one point invent the microwave oven, but omitted to tell anybody you'd done it?

James Lovelock5:26

Oh, that was entirely by accident. Let no one blame it on me.

Presenter5:30

Audio detect

James Lovelock5:30

Yeah. Well, it was in the early fifties and I was working with some colleagues at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill.

James Lovelock5:40

On the What Happened To

James Lovelock5:42

Cells and tissues when they were frozen.

James Lovelock5:45

And uh my colleagues got a little bit how can I put ambitious, and they decided the ultimate aim was to freeze a whole animal alive and bring it back to life.

James Lovelock5:56

And they succeeded with hamsters. But the process of bringing the animals back was rather brutal. They held hot metal spoons on their chests in order to warm up their hearts, so they sawed first and started pumping blood around.

James Lovelock6:12

from a warm heart. And this worked, but the animals were rather badly burnt. It was rather horrible. But that was back in the days when biology, I think, was less sensitive than it is now. Well, I knew there was a better way of doing it, and that was to use diathermy.

James Lovelock6:26

and radio frequency heating. And I managed to borrow from the Navy a continuous wave magnetron. I think it was even then still on the secret list. And we used it to reanimate these animals by heating them from the inside. And this was done without causing them any harm at all. And it worked very well.

Presenter6:50

And that is the principle o of a microwave oven, is it?

James Lovelock6:53

Well, in a way, yes. But what happened was I realized you could use it for heating all sorts of things, and I used to bring my lunch along, some potatoes and whatnot, and cook it in it.

Presenter7:01

That's fine.

Speaker 47:04

Uh

Presenter7:06

Yeah.

James Lovelock7:06

But thi you obviously didn't spot the commercial potential in it. Nobody did then. I mean, w not only that, but it was a different world in those days. Scientists and inventors, we invented dozens of things. But you had the kind of feeling there was something deplorable about making money out of an invention. It was a dreamland world we lived in in those days.

Presenter7:25

What you did invent, though, in the late fifties was a a revolutionary instrument for measuring poisons in the air and and in water, which arguably was was the origin of the Green movement.

Presenter7:35

How did that come about?

James Lovelock7:37

I think it really was the origin of the green movement. It was a device called the electron capture detector. I won't go into scientific details, but it's a very strange device and it's more sensitive than almost any other analytical method available to science, even today. And it's got the very strange property it only detects sensitively poisonous things, carcinogens and uh anything that's environmentally bad.

Presenter8:05

So people started measuring C F C s in the atmosphere and all the ways in which we were poisoning ourselves suddenly became obvious.

James Lovelock8:13

That's right. It well, first of all, they measured the pesticides. They used it to find pesticides in penguin fat, in mother's milk in Finland, and obviously the the darn things were distributed right around the world. And it was this that gave the base data that Rachel Carson used in that wonderful book of hers, The Silent Spring, which was the start of the environmental movement. So you could say I was a kind of stage manager that set up the props for Rae Rachel Carson.

Presenter8:41

So the Lovelock ECD is responsible for setting up really quite a chain of events and.

James Lovelock8:46

That's right.

Presenter8:46

Not least, giving you the evidence for your theories on our planet.

James Lovelock8:49

That's true.

Presenter8:52

Let's pause there for some more music.

James Lovelock8:54

Yes, my my next record is uh uh an aria from Mozart's Don Giovanni, and uh I can't think really why I've chosen this, other than that I love Mozart above all composers, and I was tempted to have eight Mozart records and had to curb my obsession that a little bit. But this is one that I'm very fond of indeed. Need I say more than that?

Speaker 49:29

God in this

Speaker 49:45

Yeah.

Presenter9:56

Yeah.

Speaker 410:02

Oh burnarmion

Presenter10:46

Samuel Ramey and Kathleen Battle singing part of the aria L'Accci darem la Mano from Act One of Mozart's Don Giovanni, with the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Herbert von Carrion.

Presenter10:58

Well, now, how does the son of a Brixton gas man, a boy who loathes school, end up as an eminent scientist? That that's the conundrum you present, James Lovelock. Did either of your parents have a scientific bent or an inquisitive mind?

Speaker 411:03

Uh

James Lovelock11:12

Quite the reverse. I think they had hopes that I might go into the arts in some way or other, and perhaps not anything as grand as being an artist, but at least in that direction.

Presenter11:21

So where does it come from, then?

James Lovelock11:23

Oh, I think it's just chance. Um I think it was my father's responsibility when I was four years old'cause that was an awfully long time ago it'd be nineteen twenty four, I suppose.

James Lovelock11:35

He gave me for Christmas a collection of bits and pieces. That was long before they had kits, of bits of wire and batteries and uh an electric bell and lights and things, and said there you are, just try playing with those, which I did, and I thought this was a splendid Christmas present and had a lot of fun. And I recall asking people, pestering them, why was it that you had to have two wires to send electricity down? Why wasn't it like something water or gas that would go along one pipe? And I never had a satisfactory answer, but I wanted one, and I guess that really turned me on, and from then on science was interesting.

Presenter12:17

Did did your parents encourage this interest that you had in perhaps the natural world or scientific things?

James Lovelock12:25

They did, without knowing it. My father, who was originally a countryman, used to love to go in the country. Now, although he was untrained in fact, he couldn't even read and write when he was young, he learnt

James Lovelock12:39

sort of primary schooling at a polytechnic in in London in his twenties. But he knew the names of every wildflower and uh almost every animal. He was a great countryman, and he would show me endless things as we walked, and I think I learnt more from him about the natural world, strangely, than I learnt ever from professionals later.

Presenter13:02

Let's have some more music.

James Lovelock13:03

Oh, my third record is uh an another aria, this time from Puccini, Soi Angelica. And I've chosen this because, like the first one, Steely Dad, it it's a gorgeous piece of sound, a lovely piece of music that would really lift my mood if by then I was getting into a despondent state wandering on the sh shore at sunset.

Speaker 413:42

Yeah.

Speaker 413:44

Only for those life.

Speaker 413:47

Or

Speaker 413:50

Lift there up the lost hands, I watch.

Speaker 413:59

School.

Speaker 414:42

God bless the Lord.

Speaker 414:46

Uh

Presenter15:15

Bernato Scotto singing part of the Aria Senza Mamma from Puccini's Soi Angelica, with the new Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Lorin Marzell.

Presenter15:25

During the war, James Lovelock, you worked at the National Institute for Medical Research.

Presenter15:30

Was the work that you were doing there relevant to the war and its effects?

James Lovelock15:34

It was in many ways, although much of the work that the Medical Research Council done was more on the what you might call the d the truly defensive side. We worked on the the the protection against flash and flame and also on cross infection in all sorts of places. For example, it was terribly important that bomber crew didn't have colds. And uh

Presenter15:56

And and you worked on the effects of burns, and you experimented on each other, I read.

James Lovelock16:01

That's right. A colleague of mine and I we these were way back in the days before the animal rights or anything like that existed, and even the anti-vivisection societies weren't very strong. And it was commonplace in medical research to do pretty awful things to animals. And uh we were expected to burn shaved rabbits for as test animals. They would have been anaesthetized, of course, but they would certainly have suffered the pain of the burns afterwards. And uh we couldn't do it. And we just looked at each other, my colleague and I, and said, Well, there's nothing for it, we'll have to burn ourselves. And the weird thing was, it was very painful for the first week, but then quite suddenly both of us found that the pain of burning vanished and that we could continue the experiments without any sense of pain of burning. And that's persisted with me ever since. It doesn't work for toothache, though.

James Lovelock16:50

Or anything else?

Presenter16:50

But do you still have the scars?

James Lovelock16:53

Uh quite a few, yes.

Presenter16:54

What over your hands and arms?

James Lovelock16:55

Mostly arms, yes.

Presenter16:57

What was the atmosphere like among scientists at the time during the war? Did the war have an effect on attitudes as well as the nature of the work?

James Lovelock17:06

Well, of course, I'd know nothing about science before that, because I'd just been a graduate uh and a schoolboy, and and only knew science from outside, so I didn't know anything about what pre-war science was like. But my seniors were always telling me, Oh, wait till the war's over, my boy. You'll see what real science is about now then. What we're doing now is just a lot of ad hoc stuff, answering questions that are short term, that uh you've got to invent something, preferably yesterday. And uh so I grew up in that atmosphere and I loved it.

Presenter17:40

Do you think that though they had an instinct to impart their knowledge there while there was still time, that war had that effect on them?

James Lovelock17:46

Well, at the Institute we used to fire watch, of course, and uh when um the action got somewhat close and bombs were dropping nearby, it was amazing how distinguished Nobel Prize winners would suddenly do a mind dump and tell you everything. They felt the need to pass on to the younger generation. Why they thought that I should survive rather than them, I don't know, but there was that kind of instinct I think old people have to pass on the knowledge that they've gathered gathered over a lifetime. What a precious gift that was for a young person.

Presenter18:20

Your next record.

James Lovelock18:22

My next record is from Thomas Talis's Sperminalium, and it's sung by the Talis scholars. Um this is a a type of music, it's not everybody's cup of tea, but

James Lovelock18:34

Although by now I suppose I call myself an agnostic now, I'm not a r um religious person, I'm certainly not an atheist, I I do like the kind of music that I associate with churches and cathedrals. Uh there there's something about the atmosphere of it that that moves me quite a bit, and maybe this is enough in itself, and I think this is a splendid example of that type of music.

Presenter20:21

Thomas Talis's Spem in Allium, sung by the Talis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips. It's become a much more competitive and jealous world since those days when ideas and findings were pooled for the common good the s the world of science. You don't approve of the change, do you?

James Lovelock20:38

Well, no, I don't. I suppose it was partly due to the the upbringing that I explained a little earlier. After the war, um I suddenly was confronted with the need to publish, publish or perish, as they say in science, whereas during the war one had only been interested in gathering the results and finding out and drawing up series and so on. And everybody worked together. And suddenly I found everybody was clamouring for who should be first author on a paper or or for credit and so on. And it was a very, very different world.

Presenter21:09

But before you went freelance, as it were, you were lured to the United States to work on the space programme there. What exactly did you do?

James Lovelock21:17

NASA asked me to join them because they wanted to use these gadgets like the electron capture detector for looking for uh things in the soil of the moon or uh m more importantly looking for life on Mars because that was their great quest they had to do.

Presenter21:33

So they wanted your gadget, not you, did they?

James Lovelock21:35

That's right. But they got both, whether they liked it or not. And I got very interested in the sort of proposals of the NASA biologists for finding life on Mars, and I found them very funny, almost absurd.

Presenter21:50

Why?

James Lovelock21:51

Well, you see, like any other big organization, NASA had the kind of idea at the beginning: so we're going to find life on Mars. Okay, let's go out and hire fifty biologists. Just like that. We're bound to get some good ideas. They hired fifty biologists and they got fifty different experiments, so to speak, to find life on Mars. And all these chaps really invented were ways of finding the life they were familiar with in their own laboratory.

Presenter22:20

So are they still looking for life on Mars?

James Lovelock22:23

I think so, but I think most scientists are now fairly sure there's none.

Presenter22:26

Let's have your next record.

James Lovelock22:28

Yes, my next record is a second uh Mozart record I I've chosen, and that's the clarinet concerto in A major. And again it's one of these very cheery pieces of music, one I think one of the cheeriest of Mozart, although the the actual section I've chosen perhaps is not as cheery as most, but it I lo I love it.

Presenter24:15

Part of Mozart's clarinet concerto in A major, played by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, with clarinet soloist Alfred Prince, conducted by Carl Berm.

Presenter24:24

It it was your work on Mars, uh, wasn't it, that gave you a a new view of the Earth. What what did you see?

James Lovelock24:31

Well, there I think I'd sort of better preface it. We've all of us seen that gorgeous uh picture of the earth from space. It's become almost a visual cliché by now, although sometimes I think it might become a sign as significant as the cross. But what what is less known is that the view of the earth seen through scientific instruments, infra-red analyzers and things like that, is just as startling a revelation uh as was that one we we saw vicariously through the eyes of the astronauts.

Presenter25:02

So what was it that struck you in the first instance? Was it its beauty?

James Lovelock25:07

Uh that, of course, did, yes. But the scientific view showed an extraordinary atmosphere. It showed a planet uh with gases like oxygen and hydrocarbons like methane mixed. Now what's extraordinary about that is it's a mixture rather like that that goes into the intake manifold of a car, hydrocarbons and oxygen, a potentially explosive, combustible mixture. Of course the the proportions are such that the atmosphere we're breathing won't explode, but if they were different it would. It's reactive, in other words.

Presenter25:41

How then, in your view, in in your theory of Gaia, does the planet operate itself, then?

James Lovelock25:47

I i i see it uh i that it just the whole planet.

James Lovelock25:51

regulates itself much in the same way as your refrigerator at home regulates itself. It keeps its temperature constant. It doesn't know how it's doing it, but it just does it. It's a regu a self regulating mechanism.

Presenter26:05

So everything is tied into that, is it? Not just life, that's to say man and plants and animals, but also boulders, rocks, the sea, everything is tied into that self regulating system.

James Lovelock26:18

You're so right, Sue. That's exactly it. And this is the confusion that most of my colleagues have with it. It isn't life that does the regulating, not life alone. It's life combined with the atmosphere, the rocks, the oceans, the whole dancing. It's a s what what the scientists call a system.

Presenter26:37

Let's pause there for your next record.

James Lovelock26:39

Yes. My next record is one of some birdsongs, some blackbird calls. I chose this rather than a piece of music because I've been in the Southern Hemisphere on expeditions and voyages, and there's two things wrong with the Southern Hemisphere. One is the sky is very miserable. There's none of the familiar constellations to see, in spite of the brilliantly clear air. It looks just a muddle. Even the Southern Cross isn't much of a constellation. And the other thing is the birdsong I've heard in the South it always seems a l a little bit weird to me and I thought the one thing I I would miss and would love to have would be the familiar songs of some of the birds of England and the blackbirds seem to be the best one to choose.

Presenter28:01

The Calls and Song of the Black Bird

Presenter28:04

Gaia, however, is sick, your theory goes on. She's uh stricken with a disease, a plague of humans, because we chop down her trees and pour noxious gases into her atmosphere. What are our worst crimes, do you think?

James Lovelock28:18

Well, I th I think I should first of all qualify that slightly. It's it's a pretty minor sickness as far as the system goes. It's not much worse than chicken pox in a child. Something that will be recovered from, because she's had some far worse rough times in the past and has got through those without any trouble at all.

Presenter28:38

So we're not behaving really as badly as as a lot of environmentalists would have us believe?

James Lovelock28:43

Oh, no, not a bit. I think there's a lot of hubris in humans and we like to think that we're so potent we can threaten all life on earth. I think this is a lot of nonsense. I d I think that the main thing we threaten is our own civilizations and ourselves.

Presenter28:58

But you were saying earlier that you don't like the idea that we regard ourselves as as stewards of the earth, that that somehow we should be a little more subservient to th than that, because, in fact, you imply the earth can do without us perfectly well.

James Lovelock29:13

The fact that it's lived for three and a half billion years, if lived is the right word, is, I think, ample proof that it can do without us, and run very well, and will do whatever we do.

James Lovelock29:26

I don't like the idea of stewardship as applied to humans, because I don't think we reach that state of grace where we're capable of being stewards. And the worst nightmare I can see will before the world in which my children and grandchildren will grow up in, is that we should become responsible for regulating the atmosphere, for keeping the oxygen at twenty one percent and the carbon dioxide at the right level for the climate, all of those things. Would one anyone really trust people?

James Lovelock30:00

To to to take on so important, so serious a task. I certainly wouldn't, not yet, anyway.

Presenter30:07

But conversely, um from not being in charge in that way, it would be possible, wouldn't it, for the whole planet Earth?

Presenter30:14

just to stop being um a place where man could live, to to slip into some other mode where it was too hot for him or too cold for him or too much water for him.

James Lovelock30:23

That's right. Well, the rules of the game are very like the rules of the old goddesses, uh Gaia and Kali. Uh they were feminine, nurturing and kind and all the rest of it. But if you broke the rules you were zapped without doubt and eliminated. And it's just the same with Gaia. Any species that adversely affects the environment uh will not succeed, it'll be eliminated. Whereas those that favour the environment, favour it for their progeny, will automatically be rewarded.

Presenter30:53

Record number seven.

James Lovelock30:54

Um, yes, my my seventh one is the last Mozart one, and uh there's quite a story hanging round this one. It's I think, although a mass, is a gorgeously romantic piece of music, very much a love song in a way, and uh f for me it has a uh a deep personal sense uh of meaning and uh would be treasured on the island. You see

James Lovelock31:23

The

James Lovelock31:24

First part of my life I had a a a very happy marriage, but sadly my first wife developed multiple sclerosis, and the last part of it was very dire, and I never expected, approaching seventy, that quite suddenly I would meet someone with whom I would

James Lovelock31:44

Become married, uh, just like almost a teenage love affair. And this this particular piece of music is.

James Lovelock31:52

uh are very much meaningful to my second wife Sandy and I and uh you know it's it's it's our song, so to speak. If Mozart will forgive us for being so.

Speaker 232:12

Yeah.

Speaker 432:12

Yeah.

Speaker 432:48

Take away.

Presenter33:28

Iliana Kotrabasch singing part of Et Incarnatus est from Mozart's Mass in C minor, played by the new Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Raymond Lepard.

Presenter33:38

You've described how in your life um you became disenchanted with the scientific establishment and how you

Presenter33:45

Have been a bit of a maverick, a bit of a freedance. What you've done, of course, in striking out on your own is.

Presenter33:52

aroused the wrath or certainly the criticism of many fellow scientists and they've accused you of heresy or perhaps even worse they've accused you of being a crank. Do you do you worry, does all of that worry you or do you feel you've risked your scientific reputation or are you safe in the knowledge that you've done the right thing and maintained your integrity?

James Lovelock34:12

Well, at the time when you read a bad review uh or something like that, it it can be hurtful. Uh but I think it would be quite wrong to suggest that my colleagues have rejected me or that I reject them. Uh quite the the reverse. It's only a small vociferous group, mainly biologists, I'm sorry to say, that uh go beyond ordinary scientific criticism and start becoming personal. And uh I think that many of my colleagues in regular science regard them with just as much uh disrespect as I do.

Presenter34:47

Your last record.

James Lovelock34:49

Oh, my last record is Morning Is Broken by Kat Stevens. It's a particularly pleasant uh uh rendering of that particular tune that I love. It has a story for me. The guy has ta taken me to some very strange places since I started, but perhaps the strangest of all was that when I published my first book, I was rather hoping it might be denounced from the pulpit, because that would really have got it on. Instead of which it was denounced by biologists, and to my amazement, I got a call one day.

James Lovelock35:21

from a man who said, I'm Jim Morton, you won't know me, but I'm Dean of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.

James Lovelock35:28

Well, I I didn't know him, and I I'm ashamed to say I didn't know, the cathedral, which I discovered later was is the largest in the world. It's an Anglican cathedral in in New York, Episcopalian, I think they call it there.

James Lovelock35:40

He'd read my book and he knew it was being uh launched in New York a bit later. He said, Would I mind coming and give a giving a talk to a small group there? And I said, No, of course I wouldn't. It it it's the kind of thing you always do at a book launch. And so I went over to New York and his small group turned out to be the communion service on Sunday morning in the cathedral, and I had to give the sermon.

James Lovelock36:03

I was never so terrified in my life.

James Lovelock36:06

I said, it's going to be a secular sermon. He said, Never mind, you give it.

James Lovelock36:11

And there I was, and the hymn that was played when I was at having maximum stage fright just before I got up into pulpit was Morning Has Broken. So it's a good reason for choosing it. It brings back a lot of memories.

Speaker 436:41

And spray

Speaker 436:42

Yeah

Speaker 436:44

Like the first morning.

Speaker 436:48

But has both

Speaker 436:51

Okay.

Speaker 436:52

Like the first bird.

Speaker 436:56

Praise for the scene.

Speaker 437:00

Praise for them all.

Speaker 437:03

Morning

Speaker 437:04

Pray for them springing.

Speaker 437:08

Fresh from the wild

Speaker 437:20

Sweet the rain's new

Speaker 437:23

Fall sunlit from heaven.

Speaker 437:29

Like the first cue

Speaker 437:32

Four

Speaker 437:33

On the first brand

James Lovelock37:35

Yeah.

Speaker 437:37

Praise for the sweetness of the let go Sprung incompleteness

Presenter37:49

Where is Peter Hannah?

Presenter37:53

Morning Has Broken, sung by Cat Stevens. Well now which of the eight records, James Lovelock, is the one that you would choose as more important to you than the others?

James Lovelock38:01

Oh, obviously number seven, et incarnatis est the Mozart Mass in C minor.

James Lovelock38:08

Without doubt.

Presenter38:09

And a book. You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare waiting for you.

James Lovelock38:14

What I would like is an anthology of poetry.

James Lovelock38:19

There would be ample time, really, to savour every word of it and to get to the real feeling of it. And

James Lovelock38:28

I'm not quite sure what anthology to choose. The problem is I'm very fond of Paul Grey's Golden Treasury, but it doesn't include some of the modern poets that I like. I would settle for that, but I would prefer one that had everybody in it. Maybe your researchers can find one for me.

Presenter38:46

I think we'll have it specially brought up to date for you. What about that?

James Lovelock38:49

That would be splendid, how kind of you.

Presenter38:52

And it sounds as if you're going to turn into more of a philosopher than a scientist on this island. Do you think that's right?

James Lovelock38:59

Well, I I guess it's about time I did, don't you?

Presenter39:03

Uh

James Lovelock39:03

Uh

Presenter39:04

And your luxury, what's that?

James Lovelock39:06

My luxury would be to have an ample supply of uh pencils and papers, or, if not pencils, whatever, uh is an everlasting writing instrument. I'm sure they exist.

Presenter39:18

James Lovelock, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

James Lovelock39:22

Thank you, Sue.