Earth as organism, humans as ?
From SolSeed
This was a session at Seed 2011.
Participants
Notes
- Neil deGrasse Tyson article in Parade, "Why America's future depends on space"
- Survey on Parade.com asked if we should spend more or less money on space, most respondents said more
- History of Earth
- Methanogens are still here and essential, though the oxygen-producing algae nearly wiped them out 2 billion years ago
- Microbes make up most of the biomass even today
- Mars's day and axial tilt are nearly identical to Earth's
- Though Mars's axis wobbles much more due to lack of a massive moon
- Lovelock and Margulis
- "Scientific tribalism": biologists don't study the physical or chemical environment, while geochemists/geophysicists ignore life
- Cyberneticists look at the big picture
- "Daisyworld" thought experiment shows how life can affect climate
- What is the human role in Gaia?
- Kurt Vonnegut: "We are a parasite on the planet. A virus..."
- But at least we're now aware of our detrimental role
- Gus sees cities as just as natural as coral, beehives, and birds' nests (inorganic structures built by living creatures)
- Mathew: All great apes build nests
- Fred Hoyle predicted images of Earth from space would have profound impact, which they have
- Earthrise photo was taken on Christmas Eve of 1968, a very turbulent year politically
- Any environmentalists opposed to the space program need to remember the impact of these photos in establishing the modern environmental movement!
- Peter Russell (and Howard Bloom), "The Global Brain" (central nervous system of Gaia)
- "Senses of Gaia" noe include Earth-focused satellites
- Extinction events
- Tunguska meteor detonation in 1908 was equal in force to 250 Hiroshima bombs
- If it had fallen on Oslo, Norway instead, we could have focused on that threat and avoided the World Wars
- Humans could be the antibodies of Gaia if we figure out how to deflect killer asteroids
- Tunguska meteor detonation in 1908 was equal in force to 250 Hiroshima bombs
- Are we an adolescent planet?
- If we can get through our adolescence without blowing ourselves up, we could become "the gonads of Gaia"
- Back to the "Is it worth the cost?" question
- One week of the Iraq war cost as much as 5 Phoenix Mars landers
- "Social tribalism": ties between military industrial complex and space make social progressives reject space program
- Space warfare could make orbital junk an unsolvable problem, trapping us on Earth?
- Ben: probably not, since we don't have to send humans into a super-dangerous orbital environment to solve the problem
- Mathew: but of course we still don't want satellites getting blown up and making potential space travelers' lives miserable
