More about the Earth that is "just right" but likely to expire soon...
Geological time is broken up into eons, eras, periods, epochs etc. generally based on significant changes to the status quo.
These changes are usually radical alterations to climate or other conditions that often have resulted in mass extinctions, or other major upheavals. These are generally global in impact and can be identified quite easily where they occur, documented in rock strata in suitable locations worldwide.
We live in one such subdivision of the Pleistocene epoch, the Holocene... that starts at the end of the Ice age that preceded it.
The Holocene is markedly different from the other epochs that precede it in that temperatures and sea levels have been remarkably stable (by geological standards) more especially so, for the last 5000 years. It is intriguing to note that it is specifically this stability that has allowed the emergence of agriculture and civilization as we know it.
A reasonably stable sea level resulted in the deposition of very large fertile deltas and other stable alluvial deposits. It is on these fertile patches that homo sapiens has been able to settle and develop agricultural practices.
This change from hunter gatherer and nomadic lifestyles to more fixed and increasingly populated environs is what led to the emergence of more stratified societies and the complex interactions we call civilization.
With civilization, mass food production and suitable technological advancement the human population has exploded.
It's intriguing and at the same time disconcerting to note that a large percentage of the human population still resides in these cradles of civilization and other low lying coastal areas.
The reason that this is disconcerting is that the "just right" or Goldilocks conditions that have brought about these relatively stable temperatures and sea levels are a geological rarity.
Even aside from or tinkering with the levels of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, from a geological perspective we are somewhat overdue for a climate swing and radical change in temperatures and sea levels.
It is precisely this stability that enabled modern society to emerge but it may be our over-reliance on and the breach of this stability that will bring about our demise on a large scale and usher in the next geological epoch.
Already there is movement afoot to recognize a new epoch "the Anthropocene" recognizing the radical effect the human species has had on the planet in the last couple of centuries.
I think the North American Bison ( or Buffalo) could ( if it were vocal) tell us quite a bit about mass extinction! ( and the causes thereof!)
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they say greed is good, it powered man's evolution. It may be so, but too much greed leads to nothing but corruption which turns to destruction.
The earth has a lot of versatility to balance itself out with its natural chemical reactions and weather shifts. What will kill the earth is the Sun which will happen about 4.5 billion years from now.
The planet itself will be fine and will always be able to maintain an equilibrium in a geological time frame.
However, many of the current occupants of the planet are under the threat of extinction as they will be unable to adapt to a rapidly changing climate.
As an environmental scientist, this concept of over-relying on parts of our planet that have seemingly been stable forever somewhat haunts me every day. It's just a question of when the inevitable will happen.
The irony of all of this however, is that we, the people of the developed world, will probably be just fine since we will have all the monetary and infrastructural means to bring ourselves and our beloved ones to safety. Yet it is most likely us, that are irreversibly destroying the stable planet as we know it. This means that ultimately the poor will be the ones that will be paying for the mess that we create.
Only if the leaders of the developed world saw it this way. The developing world will face the brunt of the destruction that is to come and yet they are the ones who contributed the least.
I think about the pacific islands or about the grim future that almost the entire nation of Bangladesh faces, and on the other hand the continuing delay in real investments and climate aid to the developing world promised by the rich nations....
I sometimes just feel it's all futile... We will never be able to pause or stop climate change on time.
I believe that if we keep on teaching the people about permaculture , and sustainable farming/ livestock rearing then we can stave off if not reverse the effects of the past few thousand years. The land recovers so quickly when given some love and attention. with the shortage of jobs in the world such endeavors and other mega projects will begin to arise especially since Crypto has made crowd-sourcing millions if not billions is possible.
Things like permaculture and sustainable farming sound very romantic but you must not forget the huge overpopulation. If you account for the amount of people living on this planet, there is no such thing as sustainable farming. You'll have to decide whether you want to decrease your crop yield by farming "sustainably" and protect the land, or farm in a non-sustainable way, just to be able to feed the world.
And the fertility of the soil isn't our only problem. The greenhouse effect, the overuse of antibiotics and the depletion of the planet's resources are just some of the problems. It's easy to throw glamorous words like crypto and crowd sourcing into the conversation but until some of the aforementioned problems are actually being solved, those terms remain nothing but a philosophy to me.
It's easy to make claims and I know that the internet is full of those, but sometimes it is important to do some "back-of-the-envelope" thinking to keep the conversation realistic.
That is very true it is far deeper than just changing farming practices but that is a start. From my standpoint the only way to really start fixing things is to first build the paradigms that will support an clean future.
Don't we need to build programs that fix the problem? That requires an approach built by both optimists and "back of the envelope thinkers".
Its about solution seeking through the means that are at our disposal. As an environmental scientist I am sure you do loads of things to that end. My point is that it is very possible to start crowdfunded projects that at least help change the paradigms of waste that we have as a "developed culture".
From an experts point of view what would be a realistic solution?
I agree. The current farming practices will have to be changed and you got to start somewhere. Crowdfunding is certainly a great way for small people to have a meaningful impact on the planet. But when I see how people throw their money at campaigns like solar roadways and self-refilling water bottles that suck moisture out of the air, it does make me wonder what could have been funded with that amount of money instead. (I'm not joking. Those are real things. If you're interested, I highly recommend watching the YouTube videos Thunderf00t and EEVblog made on those topics!)
I wish I had a realistic solution. There are promising experiments with growing algae to create fuel. Those algae could just as well be eaten by humans. They could be genetically modified to provide everything the human body needs, but I don't see earths population switching to an algae diet anytime soon...
Then there are of course insects which are already eaten in some parts of the world. They sound quite promising but they need to be fed with food that could have already been eaten by us in the first place. Probably the best solution, and the most controversial one, is restricting the amount of children people are allowed to have. I don't even want to go into the moral and social questions of that but fact is that the human race is the root of the problem and it could be an option to grab the problem by its roots before our environment grabs it by its roots and reduces the population in its own way.
I see your point crowdsourcing does have its pitfalls (mainly the ridiculous ideas that get supported and trust). You also make a good point on population control which is very do able. I read a UN article that did some surveys on the correlation between female education and the amount of children they have. It was pretty promising, in the aspect that it showed a clear correlation between the decline of the # of kids a woman has when her educational opportunities increase.
Shucks just having this conversation is a start to making a better world.
I appreciate you taking the time to Rap !
Greetings,
I have to disagree dercoco; they're not romantic at all, I also understand and know people from permaculture and I would like to believe it's possible; btw ,what's a realistic conversation? I don't find very useful when I dismiss any brainstorm about solutions just because I only see problems... "Things like" solutions are romantic, given the people we have to deal with everyday but that doesn't make them less real (both the solutions and the people), therefore to have a realistic conversation you have to acknowledge all aspects of reality, even those you can't grasp quite yet.
A realistic conversation, in my eyes, is a conversation where you don't come back to the same glorified solutions over and over again, which were already dismissed the first time they were mentioned. I'm not saying that coming up with crazy brainstorm solutions is a bad thing. It's not. It's a very good thing and it's the only way to come up with a valuable solution for a problem this big.
But if a solution is dismissed with proper reasoning, there is no reason to polish the turd any further.
And don't get me wrong; I love permaculture and I'm all about saving our soil. It's just that it's not a solution that will work globally.
In hindsight, my "Things like" intro isn't very professional. Thanks for pointing that out. English is not my native language 😇
nor mine. portuguese here :) but still; dismissed by who, and what proper reasoning could totally dismiss the idea, was the agro-forest concept dismissed too? Sorry if I'm being annoying... just want to get to the bottom of this...
Nice, I'm German! It's dismissed by the science community for being no viable solution to feed the world, simply because it takes up too much space. Or in different words: The yield per acre is not enough to feed the world in the long term. So we need to either increase the yield or decrease the population.
Agroforestry has a lot going for it in an ecological way but it's suffering the same problem of that the yield isn't very high. On the other hand wood is a valuable resource so it could make sense to use it in areas where wood is a main resource for heating or as a building material. On top of that, agroforestry is something that requires quite a lot of skill and knowledge. So it could be difficult to teach about this method in areas where it is not common to go to school. But that will probably be the same issue with any other solution; if farmers can't or don't want to learn about new techniques/ chemicals/ tools or whatever else is needed or don't have access to it, then that's the first problem that needs to be tackled.
So as you can hopefully see, I'm very torn on the subject of managing lands. On one hand you have people that preach to go "back to the roots" to save the soil, which is great for the soil and the ecology but not viable due to the small yield. On the other hand you have massive amounts of deforestation to farm genetically invariant coconut oil and corn which produces enough to feed the world but destroys the very land that we depend on.
and philosophy is the mother of realistic conversations.
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The earth is a raw source, each comes and refine his own to is taste
Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's needs, but not every man's greed.
For many of us who live in a land that is known for wealth, greed is not a sin, it is not even considered wrong, instead we now live in a world where we have idolized greed and used all kind of glamorous names that make it popular and alluring
Man makes use of everything in their reach to satisfy his greed. One of the thing that contributes to man’s wealth and power is Earth’s own natural resources. Unfortunately man has exploited these resources to the point of confinement.
now we are facing a real geological change.
the northern polar ice cap began to melt due to global warming.
let's prevent before it's too late. @gavvet
We should take care for what is, we should take care what will come. We are responsible for continieus care.
We tend to make a mess wherever we go. We use everything up and produce a lot of garbage. We need to get better at recycling and reusing our stuff.
@gavvet, I agreed your points. The planet given to the humanity great opportunity to stay live with all facilities. But humans made their death journey coz their own wrong activities. Planet destroying equal to the humans destroying. So we must take a actions to protect our golden earth.
With current Technology development and instant food production, started to expire our planet. Some technological methods not suitable to the Planet's life. We use anything and then created more garbage then it use against planet. Why peoples misbehavior in this problem?
So Humans need to take care Planet and take a responsibility.
I believe that we have already entered a new era. Man began to play such a significant role in the ecosystem of the Earth, which is quite clear, we entered the anthropocene era. And I think that we need to as little as possible interfere with the laws of nature (Test weapons, cut down the forest and destroy rare animals), otherwise we face catastrophe.