Gaia is a thin spherical shell of matter that surrounds the incandescent interior; it begins where the crustal rocks meet the magma of the Earth’s hot interior, about 100 miles below the surface, and proceeds another 100 miles outwards through the ocean and air to the even hotter thermosphere at the edge of space. It includes the biosphere and is a dynamic physiological system that has kept our planet fit for life for over three billion years. I call Gaia a physiological system because it appears to have the unconscious goal of regulating the climate and the chemistry at a comfortable state for life. Its goals are not set points but adjustable for whatever is the current environment and adaptable to whatever forms of life it carries.

He found a concentration of 60 parts per trillion of CFC-11 over Ireland and in a partially self-funded research expedition in 1972 went on to measure the concentration of CFC-11 from the northern hemisphere to the Antarctic aboard the research vessel RRS Shackleton. In 2005 against the backdrop of renewed UK government interest in nuclear power Lovelock again publicly announced his support for nuclear energy stating "I am a Green and I entreat my friends in the movement to drop their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy". One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife.

James Ephraim Lovelock CH CBE FRS Ph. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling the chemical and physical environment.