James Lovelock - Overview

I am a huge fan of Lovelock. He is one of those inventive (as you said) guys whose ideas are great at the root of them, but which have been taken over and transformed into something else entirely by corporate and moral interests. You should definitely read his wiki entry to get an overall view of his philosophies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock

He is one of those rare breed of people who can actually re-evaluate their previous stands on issues and adapt them once new data has come in. For example he used to believe that global warming was a huge problem. He has since said that overall, it will not be the huge catastrophe that some predict.

He believes in nuclear power, and he believes in recycling and reusing as good ideas, not because of some moral imperative.

The interesting thing is that I first came across Lovelock as a reference to him in a sci-fi book called "Lovelock" which had nothing to do with him, but rather a colonization ship sent out by Earth to find another planet to settle on. The main character was named "Lovelock" after James Lovelock. The main character being a hyper-intelligent capuchin monkey who was a "witness" to his scientist owner, who recorded everything that the scientist did for future generations to view.

The author of the book is Orson Scott Card, who has written some very good sci-fi (Ender's Game being my favorite book). He is a Mormon, but is not preachy about it. He tackles some very interesting topics in his writings.

Lovelock book:
http://astore.amazon.com/jacksbookshack-20/detail/0312857322