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> "the Earth is a big place, it was here long before us and will be long after" and "it is a self-healing organism, we can't really be harming it!" Both of the

by NhanH 12y ago

> "the Earth is a big place, it was here long before us and will be long after" and "it is a self-healing organism, we can't really be harming it!" Both of them are true, the missing part is whether human is any part of either of those processes. I've been wondering for a while that whether the common slogan of "save the Earth" would have served better had it been "save the Human". Yes, it's just semantic, but it's the same as the change to calling "climate change" rather than "global warming" - human easily get caught up in language, most of the time probably just subconsciously. It also helped with not being on the extreme: it's also bad if the changes wipe out 50% of the human being on earth, which is probably magnitude more likely than wiping out 100% of us. Even if we literally nuke ourselves out of existence, chance are something will still be leftover on the Earth (unless we can actually blow up the planet into pieces, which I don't think we are capable yet). Cockroaches are damn resilient.

masklinn 12y ago
Exactly. Carlin (George, not Dan) put it nicely in one of his last standups: > The planet is fine. The people are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doin’ great! It’s been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what? A hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand and we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids, and meteors, world-wide floods, tidal waves, world-wide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? > The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, Folks, we’re goin’ away. We won’t leave much of a trace either, thank god for that. Maybe a little styrofoam, maybe, little styrofoam. Planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake, an evolutionary cul de sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance. You wanna know how the planet’s doin’? Ask those people at Pompeii, who were frozen into position from volcanic ash. How the planet’s doin’. Wanna know if the planet’s alright, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia, or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. How about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii who built their homes right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room. The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we’re gone and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself ’cuz that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allows us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it, needed us. > unless we can actually blow up the planet into pieces, which I don't think we are capable yet We are very, very, very, very much unable to do that. We can fuck up the surface a bit but that's about it. Consider: the Chicxulub impactor delivered an estimated 100 teratons of equivalent TNT. And it didn't come close to blowing up the planet. How To Destroy The Earth[0] estimates that we'd need 25,000 gigatonnes of antimatter to blast the planet to pieces. [0] http://qntm.org/destroy http://qntm.org/destroy

by NhanH 12y ago

masklinn 12y ago

Exactly. Carlin (George, not Dan) put it nicely in one of his last standups: > The planet is fine. The people are fucked. Difference. Difference. The planet is fine. Compared to the people, the planet is doin’ great! It’s been here four and a half billion years. Did you ever think about the arithmetic? The planet has been here four and a half billion years. We’ve been here, what? A hundred thousand? Maybe two hundred thousand and we’ve only been engaged in heavy industry for a little over two hundred years. Two hundred years versus four and a half billion. And we have the conceit to think that somehow we’re a threat? That somehow we’re gonna put in jeopardy this beautiful little blue-green ball that’s just a floatin’ around the sun? The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sunspots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids, and meteors, world-wide floods, tidal waves, world-wide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages, and we think some plastic bags and some aluminum cans are going to make a difference? > The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are! We’re goin’ away. Pack your shit, Folks, we’re goin’ away. We won’t leave much of a trace either, thank god for that. Maybe a little styrofoam, maybe, little styrofoam. Planet’ll be here and we’ll be long gone. Just another failed mutation. Just another closed-end biological mistake, an evolutionary cul de sac. The planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas, a surface nuisance. You wanna know how the planet’s doin’? Ask those people at Pompeii, who were frozen into position from volcanic ash. How the planet’s doin’. Wanna know if the planet’s alright, ask those people in Mexico City or Armenia, or a hundred other places buried under thousands of tons of earthquake rubble if they feel like a threat to the planet this week. How about those people in Kilauea, Hawaii who built their homes right next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room. The planet will be here for a long, long, long time after we’re gone and it will heal itself, it will cleanse itself ’cuz that’s what it does. It’s a self-correcting system. The air and the water will recover, the earth will be renewed, and if it’s true that plastic is not degradable well, the planet will simply incorporate plastic into a new paradigm: the earth plus plastic. The earth doesn’t share our prejudice towards plastic. Plastic came out of the earth. The earth probably sees plastic as just another one of its children. Could be the only reason the earth allows us to be spawned from it in the first place: it wanted plastic for itself. Didn’t know how to make it, needed us. > unless we can actually blow up the planet into pieces, which I don't think we are capable yet We are very, very, very, very much unable to do that. We can fuck up the surface a bit but that's about it. Consider: the Chicxulub impactor delivered an estimated 100 teratons of equivalent TNT. And it didn't come close to blowing up the planet. How To Destroy The Earth[0] estimates that we'd need 25,000 gigatonnes of antimatter to blast the planet to pieces. [0] http://qntm.org/destroy http://qntm.org/destroy