Ok, I’ll take this on.
The planet is a cooling lumpy mass of minerals and chemicals, hot since the moment of its creation. As such, the heated matter is still partly in fluid form and it is still rearranging as portions cool. We note this as volcanoes, earthquakes and continental shifts. The rotation AND wobbly orbit around the sun, which averages out the heating/cooling annually, causes the oceanic currents, winds, weather.
It is covered WITH life in a vast array of forms, but there is no evidence that the planet itself is ‘alive’.
Now on a personal and un-scientific note: We have been given residence on an amazing and perhaps unique planet to live on, which includes numerous bio-diverse systems. Those systems have the ability to absorb or alter what is put into them AND maintain a specific ‘balance’. What mankind has done over the centuries pushes that balancing ability to its limit. The good news is that we’ve learned (and continue to learn) how to not challenge our environment.
There is also no evidence that humankind has or is capable of significant and permanent damage to this environment. Temporary and local? Empathically yes; but global and permanent? We’re just not that capable without concerted effort (nuclear winter scenarios). The ‘systems’ put in place LONG before we came along keep us in balance too, if we’re smart enough to pay attention. Fleas don’t tell the dog what to do; they just irritate it to the point of reaction (scratching). (It’s a good thing the planet isn’t alive, it’d be P/O’ed at us).
Without wanting a lengthy discussion on the matter; this viewpoint recognizes that we’ve damaged our home. Some may view it as casual to global warming, but there is VAST evidence that the warming/cooling trends of the planet have and will occur repeatedly over the millennia (well before we happened). Frankly, the cause doesn’t matter; we have to learn how best to adapt ourselves to the changes and how to minimize our impact (to reduce the damage). Failure to do that means an end to much of the life on this rock.
Extending that slightly (if you REALLY want something to worry about), what will more than likely happen first is that fresh water and food will become scarce. We’re over utilizing available resources (fish for example) without allowing recovery time (forcing that system to be out of balance; reducing life). Some of the species are ‘cornerstone’ species; kill enough salmon for example, the eagles and bears die off. Without their spreading the pieces around, the plants that get nourished from the remains or waste, also die off. Then the deer, cattle and pretty soon we’ll all be hungry, dusty and dying. It’s conceivable that it can happen in a few generations; that’s QUICK.
So minimize what you take (take only what you need); stop pooping in the nest (even birds know that) and clean up after yourself. That gives everything on this rock the best chance of survival.
That’s the way I see it.
Rick
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I think there is a lot to this. How can earth not be a living organism, albeit a giant one. We have the earth consuming in continental collisions where one plate is subsumed under another ( there is a technical word for that but I cannot think of it at the moment). We have the earth spewing in volcanism. We have all sorts of interactions with temperature and currents in the ocean and continental drift. And finally we have the ability as human viruses to attack and change weather patterns in global warming and to affect the oceans with garbage. Allison
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