is a meteorologist James Lovelock, environmentalist and English atmospheric chemist, Nobel Prize in 1995 and all as an octogenarian, who was the first to detect and warn of the presence of CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons) in the atmosphere and warn about its deadly contribution to the rapid destruction of the ozone layer. Thanks to him and his invention, the electron capture detector, demonstrated the danger, with the booming industry of the 70 was forced to drastically reduce their production processes using these devastating chemical components. This scientific name
so poetic, who worked actively for NASA in the best years of this agency and who has researched for the most prestigious universities such as Harvard or Yale, is today best known for the formulation of a hypothesis and brave in time-fetched, the theory that life is not limited to adapt to certain physical conditions, existing on our planet, but has produced the most favorable conditions to perpetuate itself by changing the chemistry of the atmosphere, surface temperature, salinity of the seas. That is, "according to this hypothesis, since life arose on Earth, life itself was responsible for controlling a system that would otherwise have evolved, as in other planets that were once so much like ours (Mars or Venus), to a state of equilibrium and maximum entropy, rather than stay in the fragile and dynamic current imbalance. And therefore, is not that our planet has just the right conditions for accepting life, "the strange and miraculous coincidence that seems to lie only been given on this third planet to 8 minutes of sunlight, but has been biosphere responsible for creating, over millions of years, full of wonderful ecosystem biodiversity we see today. It is life that has designed the world and not vice versa. Lovelock thought the Earth-is a self-regulating, self-adjusting, as a living being, a super-born and evolves in a geological time scale to provide for itself the best chance of survival. Lovelock
When working on this idea, it told another British Nobel prize, this time for literature, William Golding, the late author of "The Lord of the Flies" and he suggested she call his hypothesis as Greek goddess representing the earth mother. Since then, the hypothesis is named as primitive and colossal Gaia.
Well, all this leads me to the book I'm reading now is not Lovelock, but Eduard Punset, that disheveled old man talking slow and deliberate that once played politics (during the transition and the years 80) and now runs the popular science program most watched and followed by the English viewers from "Man and Earth", the late Felix Rodriguez de la Fuente. And in this book, Punset, which has the unique privilege to meet the highest scientific personalities and current culture, interview with James Lovelock and asks not only for his famous Gaia hypothesis, but also for his opinion on the change climate and its future, if even possible resolution. Lovelock's response is overwhelming: climate change is a reality, a shock that men have made in just 150 years against a system used to slow changes lasting hundreds of thousands of years. And then Lovelock, is perceived in the interview, it becomes dark and apocalyptic to explain that this disturbance, we have released this beast is called carbon dioxide, and our only opportunity to re-enclose, or - let devour whatever you want fill and return to their lair, "is to plunge into the only clean energy and harmful emissions that is both capable of supplying the needs world population still huge and growing: nuclear energy!. 
Contrary to what many might have expected from this "old green" environmentalist through and through with his Gaia hypothesis and its ozone layer, the Lovelock lawyers are probably the last years of his life by massive use of nuclear energy to halt the biggest threat now looms over us, the carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas and warming it produces an increasing rate in the world. Punset following question is obvious: "Nuclear energy?, What about nuclear waste, of radioactive waste? ". But Lovelock, of course, is clear. His perspective, perhaps because of his age and experience, is more comprehensive and broader than that promote traditional environmentalists, going further, were concerned not only with the effects on humans but on the whole environment, and responds: " Nuclear power is good: it is the only energy source that does not damage the atmosphere. It does not cause damage. Only poses a threat to humans, but not for Earth. Just think of humanity. When we begin to think of Earth as a living place, we will find you can not think only of humanity. We live in a century that human rights have been at the center of all concerns. We continue to believe that the most important is to benefit humanity. I say that this is the wrong approach: first we should worry about the Earth because we depend entirely on it. And if we do, all humanity will suffer. "
What Lovelock is trying to tell us, we listen or not, is that nuclear energy is not, as we have been led to believe from all sides, a choice with terrible consequences for the planet that can actually assume perfectly waste generated and maintain all its biodiversity intact, "is only a problem for humanity, but much less than what is already -And still can be, climate change. Again, Lovelock, James Lovelock ... :-) explains it vehemently in a translation that I would make of his words in English:
" A television reporter once asked me: ' But what about nuclear waste, is it not poison the whole biosphere and persist for millions of years? " I knew this was only an invention, a fantastic and apocalyptic nightmare with absolutely no substance in the real world ... One of the things that attracts the attention of those places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclei is the tremendous wealth of its natural life. This is true in the areas around Chernobyl, in the area of \u200b\u200bnuclear weapons testing in the Pacific or in areas near the plant was manufacturing nuclear bombs, in Savannah River, during the Second World War. The wild plants and animals do not perceive as dangerous radioactivity, and any slight reduction in the duration of their lives is a much smaller problem for them than the presence of humans and their pets. It seemed so sad, though I suppose fully human, that is vast bureaucracies concerned about nuclear waste, huge organizations involved in nuclear decommissioning, and nothing comparable instead to consider the waste that is truly the most evil by far, the carbon dioxide. "Lovelock
Any day disappear from our lives, its particles will again be integrated into Gaia and source of new life, but his words must take them into account those who continue stepping on this planet, because our survival and our future children depend on them. We are part of an ecosystem on which we depend entirely despite the fact that we have such a powerful influence on him. As they say, with great power comes great responsibility. And we must begin by demanding that our governments a rigorous analysis of the energy situation completely independent of the influence of those powers that currently get all their wealth to the massive use of fossil fuels and who want to squeeze the most of their black gold to continue enriching the short period of their lives. Measures must leave us short, very short range, such as reducing the speed limit on highways or installing light bulbs in government, and demand of our governments to change course, clear and sharp, which effectively solve The biggest problem we have today. And that is where the clean energy and so often reviled, nuclear fission, clean and accessible for 60 years, which should enable further progress to beat the current rate to the other knowledge, that of nuclear fusion, the primary energy, perfect power, that of the stars, that will solve both problems of supply and those of human contamination of this planet, the only planet we have, the only place, fragile and finite, where humanity can live: the earth goddess Gaia.
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