Would the planet be better off without people? (171)

I'm saying that I don't think the Earth cares. It could be nothing BUT oil and could still be full of bacterial life. Yes, bacteria can thrive in oil and some feed on oil. And Earth doesn't really care what form of life is dominant. Remember that, according to our own science, the Earth was once nothing but molten rock and so irradiated that life as we know it couldn't possibly have existed. Life at one time, according to science, consisted only of single cell organisms. The Earth is utterly unemotional and plant and animal life thrives only based on it's ability to survive in available habitats. If the habitats change and the life is snuffed out, it's meaningless to nature. Whatever is most fit for whatever the conditions may be will thrive. Whatever isn't will perish and that's how nature deals with life. It doesn't have any preference and doesn't care what turns out to have the most effective survival strategy.

We, however, do care. What we do a lot is project our own feelings as those of "nature". IT's what WE want that we claim "nature" wants. So we end up deceiving ourselves in doing so. The truth is that it's what WE want the Earth to be like that is of greatest concern to us, not what the Earth wants. In that, we're probably no different than any other species - everything does whatever it can to survive. So far, we've proven to be very, very effective at survival adaptations and so we dominate and we will continue to dominate until something else becomes more effective at survival than we are.

I know that, but the Spanish influence in Mexico is inextricable and the blood of the Spanish Europeans flows through today's Mexican citizens. There may be some people with 100% indigenous genetics in Mexico, but I presume they'd be the exception rather than the rule. That's all I was saying.

That's interesting. I haven't found anything yet through Google that can either confirm or refute that, but it's very interesting. I'd have thought that the Spanish dominance in Mexico for such a long time (the 1500's) would have resulted in at least a majority of Mexicans having some Spanish ancestry even in trace amounts.

I'm not arguing that pollution is good or that I would like to see the Earth devoid of all life, although it would be irrelevant since I wouldn't have an opinion (none of us would be here to have an opinion on it).

What I think you may have misunderstood, however, is our potential to "destroy the ocean and fresh water with polluting it". Honestly, I don't believe it's physically possible for us to alter the Earth to such a degree that nothing could utilize the water here. The water is constantly recycled and cleansed through natural processes. We could do extensive short term damage, though.

Does that mean CS would shut down, or would it be the last "specimen" to survive?


I tend to believe the earth is more resiliant than what we believe. The gulf oil spill was supposed to haunt us for 20-50 years. Sure, there are after effects, but nothing that we were led to believe. The earth naturally "burps" oil. No news flash there. (I think I'm agreeing w/you?)

I know it's a very recent and short period relatively speaking, but the period of time the indigenous people lived in Mexico prior to the Spanish invasion can't be used as a value to calculate the results of Spanish/Native breeding and the saturation of Spanish genes. It's a geometric progression unless there has been a very strong tendency to avoid interracial breeding in Mexico. That's why I would assume that at least traces of Spanish DNA would be highly prevalent throughout the population. Any ancestor going back to the 1500's that was Spanish would get you there.

It's in a video format somewhere as I've hear him read it:

CHARLTON HESTON: You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity.

Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multi-cellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away — all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval.

Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us.

If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice.

Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It’s powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that’s happened?

Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being, a hundred years is a long time.

A hundred years ago we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers, or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try.

We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.