vibrant biosphere
oxygen decline
biosphere news
references
predictions
invitation
biosphere links
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A Vibrant Biosphere - cont'd:
Some people may ask, why are these natural forces going against us all of a sudden? They are not. These are forces and factors - a powerful hot star, and a close planet - which are 'standard' throughout the universe. Indeed, it is highly probable that the powerful, unshielded radiation from our sun provided the ambient energy (a very warm ocean) to link common chemicals into progressively more complex configurations - until the first ephemeral stirring of Life on an originally barren and inhospitable planet emerged. |
Primitive photosynthesizing bacteria then laboured for the inconceivable immensity of 3.5 billion years to create an oxygenated atmosphere and hence, an ozone shield which trapped the worst of the hard radiation from the sun, and made the migration of oxygen-breathing Life first into the surface waters, and 200 million years later - due to higher ozone levels - onto land, possible. So, these conditions have always existed, and still exist, outside of the Earth's protective ozone shield.
Take away the hard-won ozone, as we are doing right now, and the Earth simply reverts to the unprotected 'outside' conditions - to a barren desert planet fried by hard radiation from the sun. And it will be a violent planet; the temperature differential between the day- and night-sides will be about 150 degrees C. causing never-ending sand storms the likes of which we cannot even imagine. We are well on our way to create a brand-new 'Stratum of Stability' of our biosphere - a 'Desert Age' - which however, will last for hundreds of millions of years.
Yes, there still will be life on the Earth; but only in deep UVB sheltered places far from the surface of the Earth. And because of the lack of free oxygen it will consist almost entirely of primitive fermenting organisms - as it did for so inconceivably long in the now long distant past. To illustrate:
The evolution of our biosphere, and its 'Strata of Progressive Complexity" - as driven by the fundamental universal law of Progressive Complexity.
With the large scale decimation of terrestrial forests and plant life - by far the major producers of oxygen and ozone - we have decimated the foundation of the existence of all other Strata of Progressive Complexity above it (here shown in grey). Moreover, the resulting climatic extremes, desertification, and increasing hard UVB radiation due to ozone loss, are now powerfully reinforcing - in a rapidly escalating feedback cycle - what we have initiated. If we persist in what we are doing now, all plant life on the surface of the Earth - and this includes the plankton of the seas - will be wiped out within the next 20 to 30 years, and consequently, all the levels of complexity above it will perish. It is that simple and straightforward.
Still, there is a bit of hope. As long as plants can still grow on the surface of the Earth - for another 10 to 15 years - we can restore the ozone shield to its historic level by greening every possible inch of surface of the Earth. But trees will not do; they take far too long to come into their full photosynthetic capacity in the short time remaining to us. Only the most hardy, aggressive and explosively rampant kinds of plants - hardy weeds are prime candidates - will do the job in the few years while this is possible, and before the current dynamics become permanently irreversible. Ironically perhaps, we need every last ounce of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere we can possibly produce to achieve this.
In other words, it can be done. Hardy and explosively rampant plants are readily available, the 70% of nitrogen in our atmosphere provides more than enough fertilizer for leguminous plants, we now have lots of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and dense plants such as the Kudzu vine retain most of the moisture they need in the ground they shade. As described here in STABLE CLIMATES, the explosive Kudzu vine is an ideal candidate. In a way, it is almost as easy as getting such plants started, and then standing back and letting them grow. And in a few years we will have a dense and safe ozone shield, and a rich, stable, vibrant and rather pleasant planetary biosphere.
We have become a planetary species, and so numerous that our activities now affect the planet. As long as there were only a relatively small number of people, a billion or less, thinly scattered over a relatively large planet, whatever we did had no lasting impact upon our planetary biosphere. As long as we were few, the natural forces and dynamics of our biosphere were of such comparative magnitude that any of our activities were readily compensated for by its natural forces and dynamics. Whatever we did, we could not hurt our biosphere.
This is not so anymore. But we still act as if we were few, and as if our biosphere were indestructible. If we persist in following only our own individual concerns - multiplied by 6 billion - the catastrophic collapse of our biosphere is just around the corner. Since we have become a global species, our survival now depends upon thinking and acting globally. We must now think and act in terms of the whole of humanity, and of our planet. If we don't, we are writing the death sentence for our kind, as well as for ourselves. It's that simple.
And if another incentive is required, here is perhaps the most convincing. Climatic extremes are horridly expensive (roads, bridges, buildings, houses, crops, power lines, public and private property, asf. asf.) The costs of last year's climatic extremes were around $8 billion - and greater than the total costs of the 10 previous years! And next year, it will be worse; and the year after, much worse.
On the other hand, once we have re-established the green cover of the continents to provide safe levels of oxygen and ozone - taking into account such natural disasters as forest fires, volcanic eruptions, land slides and meteor impacts - we can relax and take it easy. No sacrifices are required, neither is a drastic reduction in our numbers. And as a bonus, we will get to live on a green, abundantly rich and verdant planet with a very stable and pleasant planetary climate. It will be like living in a huge and very beautiful park, teeming with all kinds of life.
All that is required of us is to be aware of, and maintain the total planetary photosynthetic capacity of our planet; photosynthesis is, after all, the foundation of our existence. And this is easy; all of the immensely powerful forces of 'Nature' are in our favour; they have, after all, turned a once barren, life-less planet into the vast complexity of vibrantly rich and teeming biosphere - until we came along and started to mess things up. Moreover, we can engage and employ these immensely powerful natural forces to create and maintain a rich and stable biosphere which will easily sustain our present numbers indefinitely (see
ABUNDANT AGRICULTURE in these pages). Given the understanding of these laws, along with the powerful advantage of sharply directed focus of human intent, as compared to the slow and haphazard ways of nature, we can achieve in ten years what nature achieves in a thousand.
All of these dynamics arise out of the unification of Change and Stability into the new universal law of Change & Stability - Prigogine's "Threshold Dynamics", and the newly discovered law of Progressive Complexity. I had discovered items one and three in 1985. Ever since then, and long before any of this was apparent, I have made these predictions, many of them on public record, only to see them come true one by one, and in short order. At the same time, I had also predicted the sudden advent of new, mysterious, and ever more macabre diseases, and the rapid deterioration of our collective health. Of course, and as usual, nobody took any of my predictions seriously at the time.
Among many other things, I had also predicted the collapse of communism in 1985 - when this was 'unthinkable' - only to see it come true with the collapse of the former USSR and the East Block nations. The remaining communist systems will collapse as well, and within our time. This is inevitable. And so will capitalism, by the way. It will take another 300 years or so, but it will collapse. This is also inevitable. The only prediction that has not come true yet is that 'Mother Russia' and 'Uncle Sam' will get married. Made somewhat in jest, along with the prediction of the collapse of communism, this remains to be seen; it is more a possibility than a firm prediction. I am a bit aghast right now, actually. Having seen all my other predictions come true, I now worry that this prediction will come true as well.
The predictive power of these universal laws is awesome. This is natural though; once these universal laws and dynamics are understood, our futures are - depending upon what we do now - very much of any open book.
I have spoken here of both the staggering immensity of our future and of our ultimate destiny, as well as of the imminent catastrophic collapse of our planetary biosphere. This is the nature of futures; with the sole exception of natural forces and cataclysms, our futures crystallise out of our activities in the present. Had we not denuded the continents of their green cover and invented CFCs, the collapse of our biosphere would not have arisen. Similarly, had we not invented nuclear weapons, our present would be much different than it is now. Along the same lines, the presence of nuclear waste on our planet has already determined many aspects of our long-term future - just as Chernobyl has precipitated a totally different future for the lands around it.
In exactly the same way, which of the two futures outlined here becomes our reality depends entirely upon what we do now. Whether we will realize the immense potential and future of our kind - or become dust in the eternal winds of a forlorn and all but lifeless desert planet, in our time - is up to us. It is our choice - right now. Tomorrow is too late.
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