Mishiro

Is man a species gone wrong that will eventually kill the planet, much like cells that have developed cancer to kill the person? Are we, despite our best intentions, as one whole organism (as we are all essentially derivatives of the first person), just bad for the planet? Will the planet repair itself by getting rid of us, or perhaps just pushing our population down by about 99.99% (new ice age, nuclear chaos, etc.) which would give it time to heal itself until we screw up again, so on until the planet finally runs its course and dies of old age?


I SUPPORT NEW FUEL RESOURCES

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Buzzby

If the earth can survive getting hit by a meteorite the size of Mt. Everest moving at 25,000 mph it can survive us. We're not the derivatives of the first person, we're derivatives of the ongoing evolutionary process that has produced all species on this planet. It's not The Earth vs. The Humans. We're part of the same process. All species live for a time, while the conditions are right, and then pass on. Our species is no different. We may well create conditions that will no longer favor the survival of our species. C'est la vie! Life goes on.

If intelligence is a survival trait (which I doubt), perhaps the next line to develop it will do better than we have. Or maybe we'll clean up our act. Isn't it exciting?

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DonkeyPunch

Agreed with Buzzby. While I assume it is possible for us to make the Earth inhabitable by any other living organisms, I think the Earth will long outlive our sorry asses. I think we can put a good few billion years worth of a stamp on here, but I think it hubris to assume we will live as long as the land that got us here.

I think George Carlin did a bit on how the Earth will outlive us, also. Worth a look...

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hauptmann

Well besides destroying the ozone and massive drilling projects we are just messing up our ecosystem and not the planet. I think we are giving our current and past ecosystems a kick in the ass, but we adapt to what we got whether we like it or not. We are changing our society to slow our destruction but I think we could be doing a hell of alot more....

Not to sound like a nerd but I like this quote from the matrix....

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Zilos

Damn, beat me to it!

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Mamabudz

...take a cookie ...

I garunty...by the time you finish it...you'll feel right as Rain....

Higher Logic

Moving topic.

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sideoftheroad

I think waste is something that is inherent in all species, its just the scale and detrimental affects of human waste is pretty big compared to other organisms.

A lot of trees drop leaves/give off substances which inhibit growth of other plants around it, basically poisoning the soil. This isn't "bad", it's just the way they evolved.

During spawning season, bears will kill way more salmon than they can eat. A lot is wasted, however it was discovered that where the wasted salmon decompose, the growth of trees/plants was much higher - a fertilizing affect.

I think that's where we gotta get to - instead of the byproducts of our actions being toxic, they should be inherently 'good' for the earth.

A cherry tree produces thousands of blossoms when all it really needs is one cherry to survive and grow up and carry on its genetic information. We don't see this as waste, but beauty. All these unfertilized cherry blossoms that fall to the ground go back into the soil and don't have a really detrimental affect.

But again, it's the scale of the human race that is the problem. Phosphorous used to be in detergent, which is also a key element found in fertilizer which enhances plant growth. Sounds like a good thing, but when all the detergent ends up in the water it would cause algae blooms and too MUCH plant growth, having a detrimental affect.

If we are too big for the planet, nature will be the first one to let us know... by food shortages, massive pollution, loss of habitat, etc. So don't worry

Buzzby

Animals do not "instinctively" develop a natural equilibrium with their environment. It's forced upon them by their limitations in exploiting the resources around them.

Wolves don't avoid eating all the deer because wolves are devoted environmentalists. Deer and wolves co-evolved so it isn't a problem. If wolves were capable of catching any deer they set their hearts on, the wolf population would explode and the deer would become extinct, leaving the wolves to starve. Such events do occur in nature but are rarely seen because they are anti-survival: species that are too good at exploiting their environments tend to die out. We should take a lesson from that.

Think about lemmings. They're small mammals that are very good at exploiting their environment. For a period of time they do just that and their population expands exponentially. At some point they reach saturation and there's nothing left to eat. This triggers mass migrations, looking for new food sources. Unfortunately (or fortunately) this sometimes leads them over cliffs into the ocean. The population stabilizes at a lower level and the cycle starts all over again. If they didn't migrate, most of them would starve and the same effect would take place, but probably with a less healthy population base.

We (I'm assuming that most of you are humans) are simply too good at exploiting our environment. We've removed most of the limiting factors that once controlled our population. Technology can (temporarily) create food supplies to feed huge populations. Technology has conquered most of the diseases that used to keep us in check when our aggregations of people got to be too dense. War can't keep up with birth rates in controlling populations (so far). It's inevitable that at some point we'll reach saturation and there will be a population collapse. There will be a new disease (natural or manmade) that will spread too fast because of easy worldwide travel. There will be a huge war over dwindling resources. There won't be enough fossil fuel to continue high-tech farming. Something...

Unless we make a conscious effort to control the natural urge to be fruitful and multiply. Other animals don't have to. Their balance is already controlled by traditional forces. We have overcome most of them.

Ultimately, though, we're just another species. If we don't achieve balance and die out it's just another species extinction. They happen all the time. It won't be the end of life on Earth and the universe will continue to roll along without even a blip.

Zilos

Comforting...

Atleast we are starting to make efforts at preventing our own extiction, and preventing the extinction of other animals. Got protected parks all around the world. Hydro electric cars are being manufactured and will be used by more and more people as they become better and cheaper. And many other things...

Lots of countries, except the US, have joined the Kyoto Accord to reduce green house gasses. And Canada has the One Tonne Challenge, which even if you aren't Canadian, you can still use there Calculator to figure out how much emissions you produce, and ways to lower them. (Just choose a random province)

So were getting close to saving our own asses, it's just a very slow process.