Will the earth recover after the disappearance of man, following an ecological disaster? The answer to this is positive, says journalist Alan Wiseman in his book "The World Without Us"
Millions of gallons of oil that bleed into the Gulf of Mexico every day are a reminder of the ways in which humanity pollutes the world.
The following are a few lines from the book of the journalist Alan Weisman "The World Without Us": "When forests are cut down, cities and suburbs grow and expand around asphalt lots, when the air and the sea are heated and become saturated with carcinogens, when the seas are filled with garbage and Animals are dying and dropping like flies, the health of the globe is being challenged in ways that haven't existed in its 4.5 billion years of existence. Can the bullet survive?”
"The resounding simple answer is yes!".
"According to the evidence of the fossil findings, the time will come and humanity will disappear, so when the polluting factor is no longer there, the earth will be cleansed and will "put on" a new face, just like it happened many times in the past, in many different ways. The existence of the land faced more difficult and dramatic tests than anything that humanity has caused, starting with a ball of hot lava, through snow cover at a great depth, and (according to scientists...) a certain period when the land was... virtuous."
Richard Carson, who serves as a geochemist at the Carnegie Institution, says: "It is highly doubtful that the earth "cares" about life, therefore volcanoes, earthquakes, shifting continental plates, etc. will continue and exist as always." "The country "doesn't care" but it is certain that it is important and correct for humanity how it will be possible to survive the changes, natural changes or those caused by man."
(And again from Wiseman's book): "After the hot ball cooled and the Earth was formed, there were phases of collisions and activities that gave the Earth its dimensions and dismembered it into continents and oceans, volcanic activities on a huge scale created islands and caused extinctions.
"The end of the world has not come". About 700 million years ago the entire globe was covered in ice up to the equator, a period known as the "snowball" that dwarfs and shames every ice age. Despite all the vicissitudes, life developed and survived. A thick haze layer of organic matter, methane and nitrogen helped to thaw a few areas and keep life alive.
The formation of life on the globe did not cause geological changes but changed the terrestrial chemistry, now, humanity is changing the balance between life and chemistry on earth, a change that occurs in the short time of our existence, a short time by any standard."
According to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, species are becoming extinct at a rate 1000 to 10.000 times higher than the expected natural rate (according to information from fossil finds). Groves and forests that covered continents like Europe today look like a poor shadow of their past, this is because of hundreds of years of cutting down and burning. The destruction of forests slowed down at the end of the 20th century, but despite the slowdown, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that every year about 20 thousand square kilometers of forest areas disappear - (the size of Israel). All the fishing grounds are collapsing due to wild fishing as well as due to the increase in ocean acidity, (a situation that existed in the distant past of the globe).
Man is changing the composition of the atmosphere, see the damage caused by CFCs and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) to the ozone layer. Without the Montreal Protocol, a situation would have arisen in which the hole in the ozone would have opened up and caused sunburn within minutes, a change that could have been devastating to humanity,
(And Wiseman again): "Haaretz would "shrug her shoulders" and continue to exist. If the chemical changes in the atmosphere were large enough to destroy humanity, it must be assumed that the atmosphere would have regenerated relatively quickly, at least on a geological scale. In a similar way, the country (in "Equality of Soul") went through climate changes above and beyond anything known in human history, (except that the changes were over time). The same history that shows humanity's vulnerability even to tiny climatic changes. For example: the cooling of the Pacific Ocean is linked to periods of drought that caused famine throughout the continent of Europe and possibly the disappearance of the "cliff dwellers" in Western America.
Global warming driven by greenhouse gases will cause fluctuations and climatic changes around the world. According to the Ocean Carbon & Biogeochemistry website, the HTP concentrations have reached levels 100 times higher than they were in geological periods. If humanity chooses to deal with greenhouse gases (or not), the history of the country shows that we are facing a battle with climate change. In the past, species that failed to adapt... became extinct, the odds show that humanity's time (to become extinct) is approaching.
(Wiseman's story:) "What will be left after humanity? Tiny traces will remain, but most of the signs that say "we were here" will be buried by the geological activity of the sphere, many of the human achievements will disappear quickly: buildings will crumble and disappear in about 10,000 years, metal sculptures will survive for about a million years. Other factors will have an impact over time: leaks of chemical substances and nano particles, plastic remains and artificial products. These too will find their place in the system by bacteria that will "learn to treat" them.
A deadly legacy will be more than 450 nuclear reactors, some of them will explode due to overheating, others will melt down, these will also spread radioactive sprays into the air and water, "hundreds of Chernobyl microns" will cause a dramatic evolution.
Still, the country has already experienced nuclear events according to uranium deposits found in Oklo in the Republic of Gabon (Africa), deposits that show that there was natural activity of nuclear fission for hundreds of thousands of years. The ball also experienced oil leaks, leaks that led to the development of bacteria that "know" how to break down the oil.
"All those events that for humanity constitute terrible disasters, will be recorded in the history of our planet as a "blip", but in relation to the short time in which humanity has existed, the significance of the "blip" is great."
I have more to add: Weissman describes a complete destruction, following which humanity will disappear. It is possible, one hopes, that he is wrong, but even if humanity survives the destruction of the natural environment, the survivors will live in a world devoid of nature. We have all seen movies and read science fiction literature that describes the survivors in an age full of technology devoid of any natural sign, it turns out that the authors of the MDB know how to prophesy, from Leonardo da Vinci through Jules Warren to Asimov, they all describe prophecies that have come true.
Until the prophecy about the "conquest" of other worlds is fulfilled, will we "succeed" in destroying our world? Do we want to live in a "technological" world, or leave such a life to those who come after us?
Following responses (to other lists) some of which were along the lines of "I and nothing more" or "after the flood", or along the lines of "we will overcome" by building a new environment. It would be right if the readers stop and understand that the success of a (biological) species is also measured by the length of the period in which it exists. According to this index, compared to other species and the fossil record, the human race (Homo species) which has existed for less than 100 thousand years is not one of the successful ones. If humanity does not correct its ways as predicted by the predictions of self-extinction, considering the predictions of the chances of the human race to survive... it can be stated with confidence that the human race is not successful!
And so the question arises, where does a self-aware species, a species with superior technological skills, a species that is aware of its environment (?), where does a failed species derive the arrogance and audacity to drag its entire environment into destruction and extinction?
After the gloomy forecast, the questions are asked, do we have a moral right to cause so much damage in the world we are just passing through? Is it possible and in our power not to leave such an ugly legacy? Wouldn't it be right to stop the negative process?
When I write the last paragraph, among other things and not in secret, there is the intention that it is necessary to stop the explosion of the population, that is, to control the birth, before being attacked with definitions and nicknames, I will be allowed to explain, most of the large ("superior") mammals "control" the birth. When conditions are bad, few offspring are produced, i.e. adjust the size of the population to the carrying capacity of the environment, what allowed the explosion of the population are the technological skills of the human society, skills that allowed reproduction far above the natural.
What was supposed to balance the development of technological skills are instincts, but the technological skills precede the cultural / social skills or the human instincts by about 100 thousand years. That is why there is a need for an artificial technological adjustment between the carrying capacity of our planet and the size of the population, in the most blunt terms: limiting the number of births. In practice, such a process takes place in the Western world for various reasons. In two sectors, multiple births are common: in those who still fulfill the commandment to "produce and multiply" to them... it is worth reading the continuation of the verse that says "and fill the earth", to read and understand that "the earth is full" and therefore the commandment is fulfilled.
The second sector is the poor of the "Third World" (without geographic limitation), therefore, in order for the "Third World" to enter into a similar process, the standard of living must be raised, raising the standard of living in the "Third World" is possible when the West recognizes its duty to return (mainly to Africa) You are the equivalent of what was robbed and plundered for hundreds of years under colonialism, a return that will allow for an increase in the standard of living of the robbed and subsequently a reduction in the birth rate.
Because as our readers already know by heart: in order for us and future generations to be able to live in a world where there is a balance between human needs and the ability of the globe to satisfy these needs, the time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there should be control of the human population for the sake of the environment!
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I have been thinking about the issue for a long time, and it seems to me that every day it is more essential to establish a group that will carry the idea of birth control among the Harem beyond the barriers of "political correctness"...
I invite anyone who is interested to join the group I set up on Facebook, which deals with birth control to prevent human suffering as a result of the warming of the planet and the elimination of resources.
http://www.facebook.com/?tid=1485895520484&sk=messages#!/group.php?gid=118162041562313
religion. A good idea that went wrong and today it causes so many problems.
When will people realize that religion's entire function is to make people live in peace with others? After all, from the beginning the whole idea of God is to bring order in a world where there is no police or government (the biblical world). But today, this whole idea has been taken to a completely different and delusional place where people believe that in order for their God to love them, they have to sanctify His name. I don't see myself as a religious person but nevertheless, it is said that there is some kind of being that created the world, why would it care if we light a fire on Shabbat or say a few words from a book at a specific time of the day. And wouldn't it be more important to her that all her creations, whether they belong to a certain "religion" or not live in peace with each other? And anyway, why would she watch over us? A sufficiently intelligent person can conclude that if humans or at least the earth was really created by a super being, that being has created countless other such earths and why would it have sentiments towards one that it created? And even if she created the entire universe and that's the end of her involvement, it's likely that she created more.
The problem is that today there are religions like Islam that simply preach to their devout believers to hate other religions. And this, in my opinion, is humanity's greatest obstacle to the future.
And how does all this relate to the article? After all, we are all divided into groups. The thing that defines a group today, mainly is religion. And religion is what suffocates this world and so many resources, not necessarily material, are wasted on it.
When the world stops with this nonsense and realizes that we are all brothers, then there will be a change. The point is that such a change will undoubtedly require the erasure of the legacy of the past as it is also divisive and causes hatred. Like a legacy of wars, etc."
First of all, surely "the ball does not care" about all of its processes, fate, transformations and ways of the image of life as it occurs on its surface due to being an inanimate object.
Second, it is difficult to ignore the smell of misanthropy that arises from the content of the article, and if I am not mistaken, this is not the first time I have noticed this in the author's articles.
My review is simplistic since it is the result of a process of reduction required in order not to add too much text but still convey the main idea of my point of view:
The nature of the animal (and man as a special case of that) is utilitarian and at its core is the need to remove as much as possible from the inconvenience that comes its way. As an extension of this, the animal seeks to maximize its pleasure. For a particularly large human mass, this nature translates into the general satisfaction of pleasures with a "physical" orientation (not that I am implying by this my belief in dualism). Therefore, it should not be surprising that humanity pollutes the planet and its resources, since it serves the highest interests of those masses of individuals that make it up. This is what any other animal would do if it passed the threshold of intelligence required for this.
As for "moral right" - do you understand that morality is a tool intended to allow social animals of a certain intellectual level and above to conduct themselves in a group? Outside the social space, morality has no right to exist. This is why we have no problem with not applying it to details of the "opposing group", members of our own kind, on the battlefield for example. She is the giver when we slaughter other species to satisfy our hunger for meat. Even in this case, morality disappears as if it had never existed, because it should not be applied to any conduct other than between two or more individuals belonging to the same group. Another example: the dog, as a pet in many families, is elevated to the status of a family member. If the family is defined as a social group, the life of the dog and the enforcement of the rules of internal group morality towards it are of much greater importance than that of a stranger to this group.
There is no need to worry about the large population. As shocking as it is to express it this way, natural selection, which exerts evolutionary pressure on a certain species by "interfering" in the fate of the individuals that make it up at any given moment, will "make sure" to exterminate those who are not brought food to their mouths - like countless others in Africa, whose fate we do not care at all because Because they are not part of our social group (citizens of the state). This huge group does not apply moral rules in its dealings with other groups (countries) for the reason that there is no threatening factor above the political space that requires a group union of countries working for the interest of the entire species. This illustrates that morality is a necessary necessity for a group to be able to maintain its integrity and as soon as there is no need to "get along" in the group structure, it is forgotten as if it did not exist. Morality is also a utilitarian discovery, below the surface.
For all of man's achievements, which seem to blur and suppress the animal within him or even allow us to "take our destiny into our own hands", the end will come if natural selection "decides" that we are not the most suitable for our environment. To teach you that these achievements do not exist outside the "animal context" - they are a derivative of our higher intelligence, which does not exist in isolation from the body. You have nothing to regret about it, and on the other hand there is nothing to be happy about.
Hypocrisy in its embodiment. It's a shame that the writer puts his personal opinions into the article. The Western world, after it has sated and plundered and infected the whole world with its lust for war and lived a life fueled by pleasure at the expense of the cheap manpower and resources of the third world, and also needs like a pig, will now come and preach morals to the hungry and the backward which he himself created.
Besides, those who believe in "Pro and Rebo", number a few millions. It is not from them that the population will explode. What is more, history shows that humanity tends to thin them out regularly. It is interesting that the world that is actually responsible for this, that has all the resources to engage in progress and research and science, but chooses and advocates In religious extremism, terrorism, ignorance and backwardness and spends all his wealth on a life of lavish luxury, marriage to 4 women and dizzying reproduction rates, which he chooses not to mention.
By and large, beautiful. But the penultimate paragraph requires massive correction or perhaps deletion, for several reasons:
1) There is a contradiction between the statement "...when conditions are bad, few offspring are produced..." in the fourth paragraph from the end and the idea expressed in the penultimate paragraph regarding the third world population being a poor population that does not control birth and contributes to the population explosion.
2) Those people you mentioned in the penultimate paragraph who fill in after "Pro Verbo" constitute (all over the world) a few millions if at all. I was sure that next to them, instead of mentioning Africa/the third world/the world's poor, you came to mention the second religion in general, which happens to belong to the north of the failed continent, but not only, and is about a fifth of the world's population - these are also just following their own practice that corresponds to "Peru" And many."
And regardless, if you haven't noticed, humans are ultimately a living organism and have impulses just like any other organism, impulses that only thanks to them the organism continues to exist generation after generation. Among other things, it is about survival at the expense of other individuals from a group as distant as possible in its definition. Since as humans at the present time we do not consider the animal species as some group that must be fought against for resources in order to survive, then a more or less distant group would simply be a group of other humans. then what? There are wars between different groups of people (countries/cultures). One of the more effective ways of war is probably to increase the birth rate and thereby numerically take over the environment. This is in connection with that group you didn't mention. In the end, if they do not one day limit the birth rate due to the preservation of their heritage (even after the end of the takeover), a situation will arise in which a renewed competition will arise for the environmental resources and once again new defined groups will be formed to compete with each other. (These apparently already exist today in the form of different countries with different dialects and customs that belong to the great mother group). That's how it is in nature.
And one more thing - after the disappearance of man, the drastic changes he caused, in total will bring the sphere to a new state of equilibrium. Bullet he will stay anyway. What will happen to him is another story.
The author presents a mixture of views that are partly contradictory and this is based on a stereotypical and unsystematic view. It is certainly not imaginative to equate the beam before our eyes [and under our responsibility] with the end of the destruction of the human race and a catastrophe for the rest of the species. However, it is impossible to ignore the fact that technology is not a substitute for life and there is no future for such a synthetic world. But The proposal to inject a level of "advanced" materialism into Africa and in general into the third world means reducing the carrying capacity of the earth. Because more users with a high level of exploitation and material use = loss of carrying capacity of the country's resources and their loss. What's more, the allusions to the 'successful' process in which the Chinese castrated and murdered populations, are cynical and cruel. In my opinion, the defect is in the culture of consumption and advertising [and again consumption] and momentary hedonism at the expense of our future. The correction of sin should therefore be done in its place, i.e. the correction of culture. Apparently there is no 'just society', but if we develop a correct model of righteousness that considers the environment and educate many such righteous people there is a chance prevent catastrophism.
And most importantly - keep Shabbat!
or not..
We need to start consuming what we really need and nothing more and recycle everything possible which will also lead to research and development of new methods and we need to think long term and not thinking of the here and now and most importantly education education and education and enforcement if necessary
Since it is impossible to trust each person on his own to take care of the environment, there is a need for a government policy in protecting the environment, recycling, regulations regarding pollution and more - otherwise, this article will not be only theoretical...
I am a passionate supporter of Assaf's ideas. It creates awareness. Even in our tiny country. Everything starts with education, and proper education comes from awareness of the problems.
In the 90s when I was first exposed to the extensive media campaign about the water shortage, I changed my consumption habits. Before that I was not aware of the severity of the problem. The case taught me an important lesson. Education is the key to everything. That is why Dr. Rosenthal's articles are essential, even if they are not realistic. So maybe not today we will solve all the problems, but there is no doubt that we are going in the right direction.
The sentence "The time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there will be control of the human population for the sake of the environment!" Just infuriating and annoying and does not help advance the agenda of your articles. It is not realistic to demand that the West materially return what was taken from its colonies, what is realistic is to demand that it share with the third world the technologies it possesses that will help it develop and grow as Israel is doing and the UN has even praised it for this in the past. Regarding birth control in failing countries, we see the success of this move in China, which is the only country that takes this approach. It is impossible to force any country in any way to undertake to adopt this move in a similar way, what can be done is to point to the success of the move in China as an example and thereby convince countries that fail to adopt this method.