Can Earth Survive?

[jdmidwest]

I read an interesting article from Livescience today and thought I would share it with you. The Earth will still be around after man is long gone. The demise of Earth will be when the Sun starts to burn out and turn into a red giant, consuming earth as it grows. While we may scar it and pollute it, it will continue on. Interesting part about the Natural Nuclear Reactors in Africa, I thought we made nuclear fission, not nature.

Can Earth Survive?

By Jeremy Hsu, LiveScience Senior Writer

posted: 21 June 2010 10:27 am ET

The millions upon millions of gallons of oil hemorrhaging into the Gulf of Mexico every day is a crude reminder of the many ways humans are fouling the planet. As forests are cleared, cities and suburbs paved and expanded, as the air and sea warm and become increasingly polluted with cancer-causing chemicals and garbage, and with species dropping like flies, the planet’s health is being challenged in ways that have not occurred in its entire 4.5-billion-year existence.

Can Earth survive?

The simple answer is a resounding "yes."

When humans are gone, as the fossil record suggests will happen eventually, Earth will clean itself up and take on yet another new look,just as it has done many times in the past. In many ways, Earth’s existence has been tested far more dramatically in the past than by anything humans have thrown at it. From its origins as a giant lava ball to an epoch that engulfed the entire planet in ice a mile deep, this planet has seen it all. Our planet was even purple for awhile, scientists say.

"As far as the solid Earth, I doubt if it cares much about life on Earth," said Richard Carlson, a geochemist at the CarnegieInstitution of Washington in D.C. "So volcanoes, plate tectonics,earthquakes, etc. likely would go on as before."

The Earth may care little, but humans certainly have reason to figure out how to better survive the planet's changes, whether natural or caused by people.

Some like it hot

Earth is thought to have formed from protoplanetary bodies colliding during the chaotic early days of the solar system. Barely 30 million to 50 million years later, a catastrophic smashup took place between the young planet and a smaller Mars-sized object, reshaping the world dramatically around 4.5 billion years ago.

That early violence helped spawn the moon. More giant impacts between 4.1 billion and 3.9 billion years ago may have shaped the continents and possibly even re-melted the solidifying planetary crust, scientists say.

More recently, supervolcanoes that dwarf anything seen in recorded history wreaked additional havoc. One series of eruptions around 65 million years ago spewed lava across an area more than twice the size of Texas.

But the world has not ended in fire just yet, and it even survived a "snowball Earth" period between 710 million and 640 million years ago that put ordinary ice ages to shame. Geologists have found evidence that sea ice and glaciers reached all the way to the equator during that period.

Despite all the upheaval, life managed to not only survive but thrive. A thick organic haze of methane and nitrogen may have helped out by keeping the planet unfrozen early on,scientists suggest.

The rise of life on Earth may not have shaken things up in a geological sense, but it did give a makeover to the planet's chemistry. Now humans represent the latest to alter the balance of life and chemistry on the planet during our relatively short existence.

Turn and face the strain

Species are going extinct at a rate between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the expected natural extinction rate based on the fossil record, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, which is charged with officially declaring endangered or extinct species.

Forests that once covered continents such as Europe now look like shadows of their former selves after hundreds of years of land clearing. Deforestation has begun to slow in the last decade, but an area of forest the size of Vermont and New Hampshire combined is still destroyed each year, said a recent report by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

All major fisheries have collapsed due to overfishing, and rising carbon dioxide levels raise the specter of moremass extinction among marine life due to ocean acidification – not unlike what has happened previously during the Earth's history.

Humans have even changed the atmosphere, as in the case of chlorofluorocarbons(CFCs) used as refrigerants. The ozone-destroying chemicals could have created a world where a permanent ozone layer hole yawned above Antarctica and people sunburned within minutes, if not for the Montreal Protocol that banned CFCs in 1989.

Such changes may have proved ruinous for humans, but Earth itself would have shrugged them off.

"If these [major chemical changes in the atmosphere] were big enough to kill off humanity, the atmosphere likely would recover pretty quickly, at least on geologic time scales," Carlson told LiveScience.

Similarly, the Earth has stoically endured climate changefar beyond anything experienced by humans. But history shows that humancivilization remains vulnerable to even minorshifts in climate patterns.

For instance, a cooler Pacific Ocean has been connected with drier climate and drought conditions that led to famines in Medieval Europe, and perhaps the disappearance of cliff-dwelling natives of the American West.

Now global warming driven by greenhouse gases may lead to even wilder climate fluctuations in different parts of the world. Rates of increasing carbon dioxide areapproximately 100 times greater than most changes previously seen during geologic time, according to researchers on the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry website.

Whether or not humans choose to deal with greenhouse gases, Earth's history shows that they inevitably face a running battle with climate change. Species that couldn't adapt in the past have died, and odds are that humanity's number will be up at some point.

The things we leave behind

"There will definitely be minute traces of us around, but I suspect most of the stuff that says we were here will be buried by geology," said Alan Weisman, a journalist and author of the book "The World Without Us" (Thomas Dunne Books, 2007).

Many of humanity's most visible achievements would vanish quickly. Buildings would crumble and decay within just 10,000 to 15,000 years. A bronze bust could survive for millions of years, Weisman said, even if it toppled and ended up buried, as would be likely.

Some more lasting effects on the Earth might come from the chemicals that would leak from their tanks within decades, or nanoparticles being engineered every day inside labs.

"We've created some chemical molecules that nothing in nature knows how to break down yet," Weisman pointed out. "Some, nature will figure out. Microbes will figure out how to do plastic."

A more deadly legacy for life after humans comes from more than 440 nuclear power plants. Overheating would cause about half to burn and the rest to suffer meltdowns, releasing radioactivity into the air and nearby water. Unattended refineries and chemical plants could also start burning and in turn releasing chemicals.

The equivalent of hundreds of Chernobyl disasters "would probably start forcing evolution in pretty dramatic ways," Weisman said.

Still, the Earth had already experienced nuclear fission almost 2 billion years ago. Several uranium deposits at Oklo in the Republic of Gabon, a southwestern region of Africa, showed evidence of having operated as natural nuclear reactors for several hundred thousand years.

Earth also has experience dealing with oil spills, given along history of natural oil seepage in places such as the Gulf of Mexico. Wild microbes that have evolved to break down oil no doubt found an unusually bountiful feast in recent months because of the Gulf oil gusher from the BP oil rig disaster.

That "horrifying" event may register as just a blip on the Earth's radar. But it still seems like a very long-term mess for the humans who have to live with it, Weisman noted.

"The oil sucks," Weisman said. "You can quote me on that."

[KCRIVERRAT]

JD.............. go fishing my friend.

[Trout Commander]

Now global warming driven by greenhouse gases may lead to even wilder climate fluctuations in different parts of the world. Rates of increasing carbon dioxide areapproximately 100 times greater than most changes previously seen during geologic time, according to researchers on the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry website.

Makes you wonder how many other fallacies and falsehoods are strewn throughout this article.

[eric1978]

Makes you wonder how many other fallacies and falsehoods are strewn throughout this article.

Oh boy, another denier. You might want to pull your head out of the sand...there are tar balls in there.

Of course the earth will survive. But it would be nice if we could survive with it. It's going to take lots of innovation and sacrifices...and birth control pills.

[Trout Commander]

Oh boy, another denier. You might want to pull your head out of the sand...there are tar balls in there. Of course the earth will survive. But it would be nice if we could survive with it. It's going to take lots of innovation and sacrifices...and birth control pills.

Wow are you really that brainwashed?

Rates of increasing carbon dioxide areapproximately 100 times greater than most changes previously seen during geologic time, according to researchers on the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry website.

Now without even going into how all of Al Gore's BS was made up, it is an irrefutable fact that the Mt. Saint Helens eruption of 1980 made more of an impact on the Earth than all of human-kind has, and undoubtedly ever will. (*EDIT DUE TO POOR WORDING: The Mt. Saint Helen's Eruption made more of an impact on the atmosphere and temperature, not appearance etc.)

Of course the Earth was warming ever so slightly we (the planet Earth) were still in all technicalities emerging from an ice age.

Al Gore lied to profit from his own vested interest (and finances) in alternative energy.

I am not a denier, Al Gore is a liar!

This is not to say that I do not feel that change is needed in our fossil fuel usage etc.

[eric1978]

This is not to say that I do not feel that change is needed in our fossil fuel usage etc.

Why? According to your analysis, it doesn't cause any environmental problems. Might as well just keep doing what we're doing, since we don't really have any impact on the planet anyway.

And just in case you don't know, scientists were warning us about the effects of greenhouse gases much longer ago than Al Gore made Inconvenient Truth. Scientists. The VAST majority of scientists. You probably argue with your doctor when he diagnoses you when you're sick. Stupid doctor and his worthless medical training. You know better.

A little tip for you: Your arguments will always suffer from a lack of credibility when you regurgitate Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck talking points.

[Al Agnew]

And you better check your "facts". The Mt. St. Helens assertion has been floating around the internet for a while, but it is flat out wrong.

There are a few reputable scientists in relevant fields who actually know what they are talking about who question various aspects of human induced climate change. They have some decent arguments, and maybe a few of them have not been satisfactorily refuted by the vast majority of climate scientists who are "on the other side". But a lot of those arguments question either the extent of climate change to be expected, the ways in which it would manifest itself, or the percentage of climate change that is caused by CO2. VERY few question the basic premise that greenhouse gases can heat up the planet. And that vast majority is definitely on the "side" of human induced climate change.

Now...you can believe that those few on the more or less "anti-global warming" side are all upstanding, honest, competent scientists with no monetary or reputation stake in the matter (none of them are being paid by companies that stand to lose money with carbon reductions, of course), and all that mass of scientists on the other side are either incompetent, deluded, easily led, or lying and only in it for government grants. Or you can use some common sense and figure that about the same small percentage on both sides are incompetent or dishonest, which still leaves the vast majority of good scientists on the side of human-induced climate change.

Even though the majority of TV weather forecasters are on your side. And we know how right they always are.

As to the original post...

It always drives me nuts when ignorant but earnest so-called environmentalists talk about "saving the planet". Earth will survive with or without us. What real environmentalists are concerned about is preserving some semblance of LIFE on earth as we have known it. In a geologic time frame, most species and most ecosystems don't last for eons. The climate doesn't stay the same, either. But on a human time frame, one lifetime of 70 years or so on our "short term" or seven generations (150 years or so), about the longest term humans ever consider seriously, climate shouldn't change much naturally, and species shouldn't go extinct at anything near the rate we're seeing.

Life will survive on Earth past our time here, too. I doubt if there's much we could do to eradicate all life. What we've shown ourselves to be really good at is wiping out diversity of life and wrecking ecosystems. We are very efficient at wiping out species specialized for natural environments, leaving the relatively few critters that are good at living just about anywhere under any conditions. It'll be some of those creatures, like cockroaches and coyotes, that will outlive US.

[jdmidwest]

JD.............. go fishing my friend.

Hey, I did that after I electrified the garden last night to keep the squirrels out of the corn. And I read it while eating lunch at work, so it really did not interfere with my fishing habits.

[Trout Commander]

Why? According to your analysis, it doesn't cause any environmental problems.

So you are not brainwashed, just stupid? Or are you blind? Please point out to me where I ever stated that the consumption of fossil fuels didn't cause any environmental problems.

Not that I have to explain anything to you anyway, but, I feel we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels because our gov't is so corrupt that it cannot regulate oil companies to a point in which they can safely drill on our own soil. Read as they would rather cater to lobbyists rather than prevent situations such as in the Gulf and then play golf instead of address serious issues as they arise. Until we can tap in to our own supply safely,and to a degree where we can cut most of our dependence on other countries (the oil is there) we will continue to feed families in those country's instead of our own as well as paying higher prices at the pump. Additionally we need to cut down our dependence due to the fact that fossil fuels are a non renewable resource and there are some applications in which if there ever is an alternative fuel source developed it is still centuries away. If we cut our usage down now it ensures us the resource will be around longer for those applications.

And Eric I LOVE how anyone who ever makes a point to a leftist such as yourself that is a valid point, you people always play the lack of credibility card due to the fact that (insert Fox News show host here) said it, when in fact you have no retort or anything to refute my claims. You will be happy to know that I haven't ever once watched either Limbaugh or Beck's shows. I do not follow them by watching or reading online and I do not have cable and they aren't on any of the five channels I get.

And you better check your "facts". The Mt. St. Helens assertion has been floating around the internet for a while, but it is flat out wrong.There are a few reputable scientists in relevant fields who actually know what they are talking about who question various aspects of human induced climate change.

Al, my sources are a Geological professor at the oh so liberal Missouri State University and (I believe) Nova (some show on PBS, one of my five channels). It is beyond me as to what an admittedly liberal professor at a liberal state school would ever make such a well grounded case against global warming if the science wasn't there. I do not recall his talking points after regurgitating it back out on his test but I will see if I still have the lecture on a flash drive or my external hard drive anywhere. Also on the Mt. Saint Helens topic, even IF I am flat out wrong, what about this catastrophic twice the size of Texas volcano referenced in the original article, what impacts did that have?

The both of you (sorry Al, I only classify you with Eric this one time temporarily) seem to talk a lot of smack to me about how I am so wrong but I don't see anything to back it up aside from Al's explanation of why people would dash global warming. This is not a call out by any means, I am looking to further educate myself.

Have a good morning.

-Jason

[Al Agnew]

Basically I agree with you on your reasoning why we need to drastically reduce our use of fossil fuels. And as for the volcano twice the size of Texas, WHEN that happens again--Yellowstone is one of the best candidates for where it will happen--we're screwed from a lot more than just CO2. Yellowstone has done it in the geological past and it could do it again tomorrow--or in 100,000 years.

Give me a little time and I'll find the refutations of the volcano thing.