Famous for his Gaia theory, Lovelock is one of Britain's great outsiders and his South Bank audience this week contained another. Vivienne Westwood asked a pointed question at the end and Eco blogger Lucy Gilliam was there to see it all.

By Lucy Gilliam

After a speedy near death experience cycling across London I arrived to hear James Lovelock speak on the Vanishing face of Gaia. James Lovelock is truly a British icon. An interdisciplinary scientist and a prophet whose prophecies are coming true. Lovelock is best known as the 'father' of Gaia theory, which is now established as the most useful way of understanding the dramatic changes happening to the environment of the Earth. Although the concept of Gaia has been picked up as an almost religious concept James is clear that he is first and fore most a Scientist and his theory has a basis in observation and evidence gathering.

He has been right for all his working life and, although it is frightening for many of us to believe the scenario he describes in The Vanishing Face of Gaia, he is almost certainly right. The Vanishing Face of Gaia is James Lovelock's final word on the terrifying environmental problems we will confront in the twenty-first century. The earth as we know it is vanishing. It is moving inexorably to a new, hot state. The idea that we can "save the planet" by reducing carbon emissions is, Lovelock writes, nothing but a sales pitch. I totally agree! To focus solely on carbon emissions is overly simplistic and probably nothing more than a way to generate money for the few. As I often tell people it is about the other bio-geochemical cycles too.



We cannot possibly solve the GHG problem unless we also look at the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles. That means dealing with the problems of our fuel and the globalised industrialised food systems. Vivienne Westwood was in attendance and spoke of the challenge to environmental responsibility being the idea of continual growth of the economy. She spoke of the urgent need to challenge this idea and promote ideas of sustainability and resourcefulness. To measure other indicators of society. Of course to me this seems common sense. As there are only so many resources then the current measured growth comes at the price of the environment.

Instead measure different types of growth. Growth in eco-social capital and building a responsible free skilled population. Maybe in the sustainable future we will "Open source" humans able to dip in and out of tasks as necessary as a local need appears - open agents. Dissolving of the core work space, decentralisation and dissolution of hierarchies. The final message from James was that enjoy while you can and that female equality is key to survival of the survivor. Not rocket science!

The earth, as it always has done, will save itself. It is up to us to save our human race. I write this while listening to "its the end of the world as we know it" and my final thought is that we are a core PART of, not dominating over, the self regulating organism that is planet earth. Live it and love it.