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-   -   A wild theory on this climate change thing. (https://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=239409)

mapuc 12-16-18 05:19 PM

A wild theory on this climate change thing.
 
This is a theory which I can't prove, so it stay as a theory

Many years ago I read in a science article, that there are people who believe our earth is one big living thinking organisme. If I remember correctly they call it Gaia.

If I'm not wrong the fever in a human body indicate there's a fight against a virus or a bacteria.
I can't remember if the fever is an indication that there is a fight or if it's the body who is raising the temperature to fight the virus or the bacteria.

Now to this way-out theory.

What if our earth is one big living and a thinking organisme
And what if it is earth itself who are raising the temperature in the preparation to fight the virus or bacteria-which means us the human

As mentioned at start I can't prove this so it's nothing more than a theory.

Markus

Catfish 12-16-18 05:26 PM

Yes, earth has a parasite called humans.
Good news: It will get over it. :03:

August 12-16-18 05:49 PM

Not if we blow it up first!

u crank 12-16-18 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by August (Post 2581859)
Not if we blow it up first!

:o

:D

:har:

Platapus 12-16-18 06:40 PM

Well our earth is a large living organism in the same way that a coral reef is considered a large living organism. I think it would be more accurate to consider the earth to be a large collection of living organisms all supporting/fighting each other.

As to whether the earth is a thinking organism, that might be difficult to prove. I have not seen any evidence of any consciousness

mapuc 12-16-18 07:06 PM

I think August is right.

The path we are on-we are slowly on our way to blow it up.

Markus

Skybird 12-16-18 07:30 PM

Mapuc refers to James Lovelock, and the so-called Gaia-hypothesis.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock

A stupid he is not.

I read one of his books back then, "Gaia - The practical science of planetary medicine" (German: Die Erde ist ein Lebewesen. Anatomie und Physiologie des Organismus Erde). If taking it literally, it did not really convince me, sounded even a bit infantile like a biology explanation book for grammar school. The Gaia model as a supra-levelled planetary organism is metaphorically more useful, in my opinion, understood as an analogy it then is capable to illustrate quite some critical links and symptoms of global warming. Like the man himself, this way the idea is not stupid either. Taking it literally, only will foster sentimentalism and esoteric cultism, and in the end people try saving the polar ice by sitting down after drinking a blessed tea mixture, and starting to collectively hum. Man, I shudder myself in disgust when seeing such sit-ins. Humming to save the earth by good vibes, becasue atoms swing and the cosmus is music. Hummmmmm.

As Einstein once should have said: "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Well, I certainly wpould insist that this quote must be used in some certain contexts, but then it is useful as well. He hardly wanted to say that people should give up learning and scientifically researching.

Sean C 12-17-18 01:42 AM

There is a tendency for people to think of what humans make and do as being somehow "unnatural". This is really quite absurd when you think about it. It implies that we are somehow transcendent.

Fact is: we are a product of our environment - and at the same time, a part of it. We are made of the same elements that comprise the Earth and the stars and everything in between. We evolved naturally on this planet (as far as we can tell). Humans - and everything we do - are a natural result of the evolution of this planet, this solar system and this universe.

Sure, there are things we are capable of which would not be possible without us. But then, without bees there would be no honey. Beavers cut down trees and dam rivers and change their course, sometimes dramatically altering the landscape*. The dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to alter the global climate. But do we consider any of these things "unnatural"?

In other words: there is no "Earth vs. humans". We are just as much a part of this ecosystem as every other plant, animal and mineral. Granted, we are unique in the extent of our abilities to alter our environment and to think and plan far into the future. But that still doesn't completely separate us from everything else. It just puts us at the top of the evolutionary and food chains. (Or so we like to think.)

However, even taking all of that into consideration: we are ultimately still left with the same dilemma. We can view our impact on this ecosystem as the result of a natural progression and believe that "what will be will be", or we can choose to alter our behavior to try and produce a different desired outcome. There is a very fine line between the preceding view and the current debate between whether or not our impact on the Earth is even meaningful in terms of long term climate change. But, perhaps if we view ourselves more as a part of our environment than somehow separate from it, we will feel more obliged to take care of it - and put less of an emphasis on our own selfish desires.

... Or not. :hmmm:


*They may even indirectly help control the population of wolves in Yellowstone.

Jimbuna 12-17-18 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Catfish (Post 2581856)
Yes, earth has a parasite called humans.
Good news: It will get over it. :03:

:yep:

:hmmm:

STEED 12-17-18 10:17 AM

OK we Nuke the planet and kill all life on it, problem sorted. :03: :haha:

Catfish 12-19-18 08:33 AM

^ we cannot blow up the earth as a planet yet. We can make the surface uninhabitable and kill every living thing on it, but we cannot destroy the planet Earth itself. Yet. :03:

Reece 12-19-18 06:23 PM

Quote:

It’s hard to imagine something as small as we humans being able to shift something as massive as our whole planet.
From 1982 to 2005, scientists found that the North Pole was drifting slowly south towards Labrador, about six to seven centimetres each year. But in 2005, the motions of the North Pole suddenly flipped in three unexpected ways.
First, the North Pole chucked a leftie and started heading east, parallel to the equator. It’s still heading east. Second, the North Pole more than tripled its drift speed to about 24 or so centimetres per year. It’s still drifting at this speed. Third, the Chandler Wobble changed phase, and so far, scientists have no explanation for why.
But they do have a good answer for the tipping of the spin axis. Rapid melting of ice on land has made the drift velocity of the North Pole accelerate, and has changed its direction of travel to the east. This solid ice is now liquid water spread across the planet. We know where the ice was, we know where it’s gone – and the maths all fit with the observed changes to motions of the North Pole.
Since the mid-1900s, we’ve used satellites to accurately measure these land ice changes many tens of millions of times. Recent analysis shows that between 2011 and 2014, Greenland, Antarctica and mountain glaciers were losing about 600 billion tonnes of ice per year. (Most of the ice came from Greenland.) This was an increase of two to three times the loss rate between 2003 and 2009.
It’s hard to imagine something as small as we humans being able to shift something as massive as our whole planet. But we used global warming as a force multiplier.
We dumped billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, heating it along with the oceans. The combination of hotter atmosphere and ocean water then melted over half a trillion tonnes of ice, which flowed into the oceans. This redistribution of water shifted the north-south spin axis.
Why did both the Chandler Wobble and the spin axis shift suddenly, instead of gradually? We don’t know – yet. Perhaps it’s like slowly pushing a pencil towards the edge of a table. You push and you push and you push, and it’s still on the table. But then you give it just one more tiny push. The table no longer supports its centre of gravity, and it suddenly falls to the floor.
So if we push and push at the balance of our planet, it may well respond by throwing a real wobbly of its own.
From: https://cosmosmagazine.com/geoscienc...-axis-shifting

Skybird 12-19-18 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nathaniel B. (Post 2581909)
There is a tendency for people to think of what humans make and do as being somehow "unnatural". This is really quite absurd when you think about it. It implies that we are somehow transcendent.

Fact is: we are a product of our environment - and at the same time, a part of it. We are made of the same elements that comprise the Earth and the stars and everything in between. We evolved naturally on this planet (as far as we can tell). Humans - and everything we do - are a natural result of the evolution of this planet, this solar system and this universe.

Sure, there are things we are capable of which would not be possible without us. But then, without bees there would be no honey. Beavers cut down trees and dam rivers and change their course, sometimes dramatically altering the landscape*. The dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to alter the global climate. But do we consider any of these things "unnatural"?

In other words: there is no "Earth vs. humans". We are just as much a part of this ecosystem as every other plant, animal and mineral. Granted, we are unique in the extent of our abilities to alter our environment and to think and plan far into the future. But that still doesn't completely separate us from everything else. It just puts us at the top of the evolutionary and food chains. (Or so we like to think.)

However, even taking all of that into consideration: we are ultimately still left with the same dilemma. We can view our impact on this ecosystem as the result of a natural progression and believe that "what will be will be", or we can choose to alter our behavior to try and produce a different desired outcome. There is a very fine line between the preceding view and the current debate between whether or not our impact on the Earth is even meaningful in terms of long term climate change. But, perhaps if we view ourselves more as a part of our environment than somehow separate from it, we will feel more obliged to take care of it - and put less of an emphasis on our own selfish desires.


As someone once said: environment protection is people protection.


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