No

by Joseph Whalen

Created on: April 03, 2008

Given the almost infantile understanding that the human race has of the overall workings of our planet there isn't a single person or group of people in existence today who is qualified to diagnose the current health of our planet, let alone determine if it is dying. The Earth is a far more complicated entity that we tend to give it credit for. Our modern day scientists are deluded into thinking they have an understanding of how the planet's ecosystems truly work and interact with each other. We hear of new breakthroughs in science and understanding in how the world works, with many of these discoveries contradicting equally certain understandings previously established, clearly demonstrating our lack of knowledge of how the planet works.

If we are to believe the science of the day then we are persuaded to think that the Earth has died many times before. Long before man ever walked the Earth, cataclysmic events reshaped the globe and wiped out all life on the planet. Whether these events were triggered by asteroid impacts, the shifting of the magnetic poles, or climate change due and ice ages matter little. These simply demonstrate that the planet is capable of enduring unimaginable catastrophe while still surviving and preserving life. Perhaps that is what we are seeing today with the observed effects of global warming, the melting of the icecaps, milder winters and more violent ocean born storm systems.

Like most scientists who look at data from modern sensing equipment and detailed observations of the world we can speculate on the impact that we as human beings have had on the environment. It would be foolish of us to look at the industrial pollution and other effects that man has had on the environment and discount such scarring as insignificant. Conversely it is difficult to believe that given the history of the Earth's expunging of dominant beings from its surface that human beings are to be blamed entirely for the current environmental changes seen on a planetary scale. Despite the apparent human disposition to kill and destroy that is inherent in us as a species, it is equally difficult to believe that the human race even has the ability to "kill" the planet.

Like the dinosaurs before us, human beings are but an infestation on the surface of the planet. While technology has allowed us to do more harm to the planet in modern times than at any other point in history or pre-history, we are still only a smudge on the planet when looked at in the grand scale. If the Earth was able to survive the cataclysmic arrival of asteroids, the orbit shaping union of the earth and the moon and the terrain scarring arrival and recession of continent sized glaciers it can surely survive the infestation that is mankind. Whether or not humans will be able to survive our own gluttonous excesses is another matter entirely.

While the dinosaurs were not responsible for the arrival of their harbinger of death that shrouded the Earth in a blanket of cloud and reshaped the worlds climate, they were unable to adapt to the changes associated with the alleged asteroid impact in the Yucatan. The inability to adapt to the changing world led to their ultimate destruction and allowed for the rise to dominance of lesser species that were able to survive the eternal winter and poisoning of the atmosphere that followed. It was this adaptability that ultimately led to the rise of man millions of years later.

Experts would have us believe that we are on the verge of another climate changing event. Perhaps not as catastrophic as that which claimed the mighty dinosaurs, it may be a change that human beings may not be able to adapt to. Ultimately it may be a fate that we have thrust upon ourselves with our inability to control industrial pollution, our willingness to destroy the natural habitats that sustain our temperate climate and our continued reliance on fossil fuels. While our impact on the environment is clearly undeniable, it is entirely possible that our overall environmental disaster is being helped along by Earth itself as it works to rid itself of the vile infestation that we have become on its skin. What we may see in the near future is a confluence of our destructive practices along with the Earth's natural defense mechanism working in concert to make for an environment that is too caustic for human beings to survive.

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