Life & Death on Planet Earth
Ted Folkert
“ …… I’ve seen the future and it is murder” – Leonard Cohen
Do we know how we fit into the universal picture? No, not Universal Studios, which is exciting, but the universe of celestial bodies wherein we reside, which is not very exciting. And, do we know where we stand with the ability of the resources of the planet to sustain the population we have amassed and the way of life we have created with our ability to invent, design, and manufacture comfort, pleasure, and longevity?
I don’t think so!
The scientists tell us that Earth is a little over 4.5 billion years old. That cannot be confirmed by any living humans. Not only is no one that old, not even Methuselah, but we are told that there was no life on the planet initially and that life on Earth began about 3.8 billion years ago, initially with single-celled creatures, such as bacteria. Later, over a billion years later, multicellular life evolved.
All the evidence upon which we rely in this aging process is derived by carbon dating of fossils found in archeological and anthropological explorations.
It is only in the last 570 million years that the kind of life forms we are familiar with began to evolve, starting with arthropods, followed by fish 530 million years ago, land plants 475 million years ago, and forests 385 million years ago. Mammals didn’t evolve until 200 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the planet. Our own species, homo sapiens, evolved only 200,000 years ago. So, we humanoids haven’t been around for very long. 200,000 years out of 4,800,000,000 years. Merely a tiny fraction of the age of the planet.
Estimates from our scientific community for the evolution of the planet:
- 4.5 billion years ago – Age of Earth
- 3.8 billion years ago – Life on Earth
- 570 million years ago – Familiar life forms
- 530 million years ago – Fish
- 475 million years ago – Plants
- 385 million years ago – Forests
- 50 million years ago – Lemur fossil
- 30 million years ago – Ape-like fossil
- 20 million years ago – Anthropoid apes
- 14 million years ago – Fossil with flat teeth
- 5 million years ago – Relatives of man
- 200 thousand years ago – Homo sapiens
Note: These estimated ages may differ with different sources, however, they serve to support the context of this discussion.
If you drew a line 12” long representing the age of the Earth, early life forms would have taken place about 2 inches from the start of the line and all other life forms would have taken place in the last inch of the line, with homo sapiens showing up at the very end of the 12” line. So, although we have been around for 200,000 years, it is an infinitesimal fraction of the existence of the planet.
It seems that establishing exact ages of evolutionary events is not crucial to an understanding of what transpired in the evolution of humans, but the time from the existence of the planet until the existence of humans emphasizes the thousands of archeological and chemical events that led to our existence.
So, if these figures are correct, the planet was here 4,799,800,000 years before we showed up to rule the world and consume all the life-sustaining minerals and natural resources created during these billions of years. And to do it in slightly more than 200,000 years is quite an impressive feat in the world of planetary achievements.
So, the Earth survived almost 4.8 billion years without humans and since then we have grown from a few migratory hunters and gatherers to more than 7 billion people all looking for a better life. We have gone from a land area of millions of acres per person to probably less than 5 acres per person. Considering that much of the land on Earth is not arable land, we have less than 8 billion acres, little more than one acre per person of arable land. Considering that perhaps half of that acreage is used for roads, highways, airports, railroads, parks, cemeteries, commercial buildings, factories, homes, golf courses, etc., then we probably have one-half acre per person to use for producing enough food required for adequate nourishment. That amounts to about 20,000 square feet each.
Can you raise enough crops and animals on one-half acre to provide adequate nourishment for one person? Two or three meals per day, 365 days per year?
I don’t think so!
Maybe people who live near to ocean could live on fish for their protein but still it seems like a stretch to feed everyone on Earth on a few billion acres of arable land. And the problem with that scenario is that the oceans are being over-fished at a faster depletion rate than the repletion rate.
And a further problem with this exercise is that the world population is still growing. In 1800 we had 1 billion people on Earth. By 2000, 200 years later, it was 6 billion. Now it is 7 billion. And it is projected to reach 8 billion people by 2030, 14 years from now, and 9 billion by 2050, just 34 years from now.
So, this causes a problem that perhaps Leonard Cohen was contemplating in a poetic comment in one of his songs: “….. I’ve seen the future and it is murder.”
There is little solace to be offered in this dilemma. We just elected a president who thinks this is all a hoax. Why does he think that?
Answer: probably because he fears the adverse effect on his business enterprises if we believe this stuff and demand action to change course, which is probably the only logical reason that he and other supposedly intelligent people subscribe to climate change denial. No concern for the future, which would seem to some of us our duty. The climate change deniers only concern is for the here and now and sustaining personal pleasure and comfort.
How much personal pleasure can one absorb? Therein lies the hoax.
Think about it!