Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever existed on earth have gone extinct. If homo sapiens were to go extinct today—despite that we chose to call ourselves “the wise one” —we will have been, under our own scientific definitions, an index fossil: a widely distributed fossil, of narrow range in time, regarded as characteristic of a given geological formation. In fact, our species, two million years old, could exist for hundreds of millions of more years and still be considered fleeting by the standards of geological time.
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Ninety-nine percent of all species that have ever existed on earth have gone extinct. If homo sapiens were to go extinct today—despite that we chose to call ourselves “the wise one” —we will have been, under our own scientific definitions, an index fossil: a widely distributed fossil, of narrow range in time, regarded as characteristic of a given geological formation.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, our species, two million years old, could exist for hundreds of millions of more years and still be considered fleeting by the standards of geological time. However, we must not go so far as brooding our own extinction to encounter the possible fates which await us, for a number of bottlenecks in the history of our species enlighten us to what are, admittedly, far more likely calamities (from most of our perspectives, at least, for such die-downs are posited by the universe as neutral).
Currently, our species—the foremost keystone species on the planet—faces a serious crisis within an ecological niche crafted sufficiently by us. An ecological niche that is greatly an extension of us, thanks to human ingenuity: eyeglasses as eyeballs, automobiles that far outpace our own tottery legs, televisions that see distances far removed from our actual locations and a culture of make-believe, as opposed to the sober, although potentially still party filled, alternative. Humans, in our current expression, survive in a multi-dimensional environment that spans ages, layers of the earth and a multitude of spaces, some with, and others without, a physical place. How ancient earth lubes up and greases the mechanisms of modern society is by way of oil: the sole spring from which urbanization, globalization and its mono-network accompaniment—that is, world institutions, multinationals, governments, etc.—manifests.
How crucial this single resource is cannot be understated, for the ramifications of its use crop up in the ways we relate to one another and even cognize; that is, the complete constitution of human social patterns. By using the remains of organisms and plants from the Carboniferous era—a period around 360 million years ago of glaciations, low sea level, mountain building, as well as a minor marine extinction event—we gained the capacity to harness ancient solar energy, and manipulate its use. Some observers have noted the parallels between modern humans and detritivores (like millipedes, woodlice, dung flies, worms, beetles, etc.), as we, like the detritivores, survive on decomposing organic matter. Though this serves us best as a metaphor, it does, in any case, work as an example of the situation in which we find ourselves.
Much like a historian might be able to predict politics, a person with an ecological understanding can predict changes in ecosystems. There are many sorts of alterations, be they non-directional changes—that is, daily or annual—occurring more or less constantly through fluctuations and rhythms or tangential transformations, which take place over the span of years or centuries. Winemaking vats are an excellent habitat for a multitude of micro-organisms. By fermenting the juice of crushed fruit, the organisms explode at first before depleting the once abundant nutrients needed for survival. They eventually die from the accrual of alcohol and carbon dioxide they themselves produced.
We choke just the same on our industrial discharge, especially in agglomerations such as Southern California and BosWash on the eastern seaboard. By making our communities self-sustainable with clean energy such as solar, magnetic, wind, geothermal, generally more natural—forever replacing the obsolete 80 year long enterprise known as the combustible engine—we make ourselves and our families less dependent on the broken state-enterprise apparatus. Not to mention less toxic.