The Planet, a reprise

 

OK, so I sometimes I try to clarify previous posts. This might be one of those occasions and then again it might just be one of those occasions where I muddy the water, not the singer the post, a little bit more!

If human beings manage to destroy the biosphere such that all human life, or indeed all life as we know it, can no longer exist. Then that is a bad thing. But it is a bad thing for all living things on earth and we, human beings, have a choice about whether that happens or not.

The planet, however, will continue to exist. Indeed, depending on just how bad human beings destroy the biosphere will depend on two things. One is, whether the planet reverts to planet 0 or planet 1.0 or indeed planet 0.150. The second key thing is whether you believe in the hypothesis that all life on earth started with simple chemical reactions that, over billions of years, resulted in the complexities that are today's living breathing array of things!

Granted, this hypothesis is, to quote someone or other, a bit of a mind fuck! Mainly because it is so simply complex spread over billions of years of tiny changes and happenstances that most people can't quite get to grips with it.

If you can hold those two things I stated to be true, and keep them in your head for a minute then... don't worry about the planet, the planet will be absolutely fine once all life is extinguished because it, the planet, isn't destroyed, it is simply reset back to manufacturer factory settings (and I bit my tongue adding that line as it simply gets a certain group of people all excited about the manufacturer!) 

All of the basic necessities for life on this planet will still exist and the planet will have the luxury of trying all over again over a number of billion more years, the exact number of billions will depend upon exactly how much of the biosphere and all living things are destroyed and how much you believe in this form of evolution! 

However, it does not matter whether you believe or not because neither you or I will be here for you to tell me how wrong I was or for me to listen to your bleat on. Nobody will, possibly ever, be here and do that to anybody ever! For a start, dinosaurs might evolve again only this time with no devastating blackout and ice age generating meteor strike, they might just rule the planet, or at least the new improved biosphere 2.0 on the planet, forever. 

And the good thing about that is, they are unlikely to come up with ever increasing ways to destroy it again, the biosphere, not the planet! Although the biosphere will one day die once the star it circulates dies and the planet might, depending upon your view of the big bang theories, not the tv show, stop moving apart and start moving back together until all matter and energy in the universe collapses in on itself before exploding into big bang 2.0, or for all we know 55.0, 76.0 210000.0 etc, and starting again. In that sense, then the planet will die, and be reborn, sort of!

So, as for the biosphere. I care about that because I live in it. But I have a sense of hopelessness that human being will be unable to control themselves sufficiently to save the biosphere. They, we, just can't help ourselves. And the point at which we can help ourselves is generally the day after the last possible day to do something about it. Sooooo....

Of course, I will be happy to be proved wrong although for me personally you should hurry.