Interviewing Jim for a biography revealed there was far more to him – and his influence on the modern world – than almost anyone realises
n science and life, the reward for a curious mind is to look for one thing and find another that is more interesting. That was how– conceiver of the Gaia theory – explained the outlook that made him one of the most influential thinkers of the past century, and he encouraged me to apply the same approach in interviewing him over the past two years for a biography.
Jim was also funnier, more charming and kinder than his maverick loner reputation suggested. I believe sympathy was part of the reason he agreed to let me write his biography. I had put in a pitch after meeting him for the first time in the summer of 2020 and was waiting months for a reply. Then, my life was turned upside down by a cardiac arrest and I needed three shocks to revive me.
I saw myself as part of that process, recording every word and scanning memories for locked-away details. A couple of times, I asked Jim how he saw himself being transmuted after death. On the first occasion, he replied: “To die is to be part of Gaia. All atoms mixed with the rest, except the hydrogen of course, which escapes into space.”
He was part of Nasa’s missions to find life on Mars, conducted atomic bomb fallout tests in California, issued some of the first warnings about climate disruption, and was the first to discover human-made gases were building up in the stratosphere, which led to a global debate about the ozone hole. He was also a dedicated father who entertained his children Gandalf-style with customised fireworks and homemade bombs.
This put him at loggerheads with many of his contemporaries in academia, who had built careers by specialising in ever more fragmented niches. “The trouble with science is that it is more and more about less and less,” Jim complained of his epic intellectual battles in the 1970s and 1980s with the likes of Richard Dawkins and Ford Doolittle.
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