SARASOTA, Fla., May 25, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- StockInterview.com, an Internet news website, interviewed leading environmental scientist James Lovelock, whose full interview can be found at http://www.stockinterview.com/lovelock.html. Best known for his Gaia Theory that Earth is a self-regulating system and author of the recently published The Revenge of Gaia (Penguin UK), he criticized the Navajo Nation's recent ban on uranium mining.
Lovelock told StockInterview.com, "Had there been no mining at all in the Navajo Nation, and they wanted to keep the deposits pristine as part of a natural ecosystem, I could understand their rejection to any mining. But if they allow coal mining, then it's absurd to reject uranium mining." The Navajo Nation reportedly receives about $100 million annually in coal mining royalties. In April 2005, Navajo Nation president Joe Shirley, Jr. led a vote to ban uranium mining on tribal reservation lands in the Four Corners four-state area of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado.
During his tape-recorded telephone interview with StockInterview.com, Lovelock also criticized some environmentalists for embracing renewable energy sources, such as wind or solar power, saying, "It's mostly made up of urban people, who know almost nothing about the countryside and still less about the ecosystem. Their solutions are basically urban-political solutions." Instead, Lovelock advocates nuclear energy as the most important solution to global warming and climate change, saying, "There is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain civilization."
Lovelock's featured articles in Reader's Digest (March 2005) and London's Independent newspaper have strongly urged other environmentalists to follow his lead in endorsing nuclear power, saying, "Nuclear energy is safe, clean and effective." His recent book, which discusses the current energy crisis, has caused a stir in the British Isles. While discussing his book with StockInterview.com, Lovelock remarked, "By the end of this century, there is a high probability that the bulk of our species on the planet will be eliminated. There may be something, plus or minus, on the order of a billion left."
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To read James Finch's interview with James Lovelock, please visit the Internet news website, StockInterview.com. Entitled, "Earth's Population to Drop by 80 Percent," this feature can be found on this webpage: http://www.stockinterview.com/lovelock.html