Frankly, the world as we know it is going away, soon.

[johnlucas]

253. Trust me, the Earth has seen worse

Last edited Sun Sep 30, 2012, 07:01 PM - Edit history (1)

Meteors used to crash into this planet & heatwaves ignited unchecked forest fires that produced similar smoggy effects as that 2nd pic of yours showed.

What's bad about the smog picture is HUMAN safety & longevity.
We should eliminate pollution like that for OUR sake.
But we aren't hurting the Earth itself.
The Earth will balance that out in time & refresh itself.

I have no problem with controlling emissions & reducing pollution of the water, land, & air.
But it is ONLY for OUR benefit. For the benefit of our civilizations.
Our civilizations are as fragile as our lives so we have to make sure we protect ourselves from ourselves.
We learned how to build big machines & factories. Now we should learn to build better machines & factories that don't pollute as much.

Americans have little room for talking about protecting the environment.
Our general technology-filled lifestyles make a lot of waste.
And just existing helps contaminate the atmosphere.
Imagine 311 million humans farting.
Now imagine 7 billion humans farting.
Methane & sulfur. That's an emission. Wanna reduce the number of humans on the planet? Of COURSE not!

The Earth can handle anything we put out.
BUT our civilizations CAN'T.
We built our civilizations upon what we thought was a solid bedrock.
We built them off of an ecology that had to be 'just so'.
But ecology changes & when it does we are ill-prepared to deal with those changes.
THAT is where our focus should be.
In the short-term we can futilely try to maintain the ecological conditions we built our civilizations on.
But in the long-term we must build more flexible civilizations that can handle the Earth's natural changes.
It's like people in California building more earthquake-proof houses.
Or the Japanese building paper houses instead of stone houses in the wake of their historic tsunamis & earthquakes.

What we think of as normal climate may just be a phase of Earth's varying climactic changes.
We may not be able to stop Global Warming. We may be overstating our effect on the planet.
We are CORRECT in pointing how our pollution affects our human lives & civilizations.
We may be INCORRECT in saying our pollution is vastly changing the planet.

I understand the fallibility of human systems.
We can only create them from stable elements.
If the sun & moon didn't go across our horizons in the pattern they did, we could never come up with the Concept of Time.
Time is fake. It's a human system. It is only a Measurement of Change.
And change doesn't follow the pattern our limited human brains may seek out.
It's easy to go back in time. All you gotta do is take the minute hand & rotate it counter-clockwise. Violá!

I'm a musician & recognize the irregularity in music theory—AKA the theory of sounds.
We named 7 tones A, B, C, D, E, F, G then called the next A an Octave since it was number 8 (octopus–8 arms, octagon–8 sides).
But later found 5 more tones & didn't know what to name them so we named them according to how they juxtapose our traditional 7 tones.
If it's behind one of the tones it's a Flat (b). If it's ahead of one of the tone it's a Sharp (#).
So we get confusing names like C#/Db, D#/Eb, F#/Gb, G#/Ab, A#/Bb.
But when we listened to the sound of those "new" tones compared to the "old" ones, we understood that C to C# seems to be the same sonic distance as B to C & E to F.
So does that mean B is Cb (C-Flat) & C is B# (B-Sharp)? Does that also mean that E is Fb (F-Flat) & F is E# (E-Sharp)?

Doesn't this mess up our neat little system, all these "new" sounds?
And wait if there are 5 other tones why do we still call the distance from A to the next A an Octave?
We recognize 12 notes so shouldn't this be a Duodecive?
But wait there are tones in between our "old" tones—the "Naturals" & our "new" tones—the "Sharps & Flats".
Some music systems separate sounds into 19 equally separate tones. Some into 57 equally separate tones.
What do we name all of them & how can we keep our little system intact by adding these even "newer" tones?
There's nothing "new" ABOUT the tones. They were already there. Our feeble systems just couldn't handle the complexity.

It's the same reason why Americans hold onto the English measuring system instead of switching to Metric.
The same reason why we STILL call September, October, November, December the 9th month, 10th month, 11th month, & 12th month when the names of the month actually say (sept) 7th, (oct) 8th, (nov) 9th, & (dec) 10th.
It's the same reason why we don't recognize the inherent insolvency of the Money System which is by design Zero-Sum.
You can't help The Poor without taking from The Rich one way or another.
Whether you have The Rich give their money DIRECTLY to The Poor through charity, taxes, funding programs, etc...
Or INDIRECTLY by creating more money for The Poor to use which reduces the value of the money The Rich already have (AKA Inflation).
You can't really fix economies. You can only suspend their inevitable collapses.
The national debt & deficit can NEVER be repaid. Not as long as Rich people want to remain rich.

Human beings are slaves to our symbols & our systems.
We built settlements around rivers & never thought about the consequences of having children for generations at those rivers.
We never thought about what happens if we take too many trees to build houses, make tools, create paper.
We never thought about how the habitat could support our need to eat & drink the more people we had in these ever-advancing settlements.
Technology was the response to drying habitats.
The Sahara Desert was once the Sahara Forest & the Egyptians (the Kemet folks) were desperately trying to prolong & sustain their established way of life.
So they found ways to channel water in a method called Irrigation.
They came up all kinds of systems to measure climate & stars to better know how to prepare sustenance.
Still the Sahara ended up being a desert. So they had to adapt & change course to survive.

The same is true for us. Our civilization systems are not etched in stone 'cause even stone turns to mush on this planet.
Human beings have a nasty habit trying to manipulate their surroundings into their favor.
But ultimately we cannot manipulate the Earth & its changes.
One day the American Heartland will be barren. One day the swampy South will dry up.
One day the icy Arctic will thaw out. One day the Western desert will grow vegetation.
One day the Caribbean islands will be underwater. One day the Windy City may not be so windy.
One day the Sunshine State may be cold. One day the Sahara Desert will once again become the Sahara Forest.

All of our 1000s of years on this planet have been just a short time.
The Earth has changed many times before we were here & will change many times after we are gone.
John Lucas