SAve Planet Earth (SAPE)

A)    Which are the oldest living organisms on our planet?

1.      Here are the seven oldest trees in the world*:

-          The Senator. Age: estimated to be 3,500 years.

-          Gran Abuelo. Age: 3,646 years.

-          Sarv-e Abarkuh. Age: estimated to be between 4,000- 5,000 years old.

-          Llangernyw Yew. Age: estimated to be between 4,000 – 5,000 years.

-          Methuselah. Age: 4,849 years.

-          Prometheus. Age: 4,862 years.

-          Unnamed Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. Age: 5,067 years.

2.      The same article says:

Although humanity is destroying the planet quicker than Mother Nature can recover, fortunately there are still natural wonders in this world that have survived for thousands of years. All of the trees on this list are/were at least 3,500 years old- unfortunately a few of these ancient giants were destroyed by human hands. The rest of the surviving trees on this list are protected to prevent their destruction and one of the oldest even has a secret location not disclosed to the public. With continued conservation efforts, hopefully these trees will live for thousands of years more. [1]

B)    The 6^th mass extinction (Anthropocene extinction)

3.      According to Wikipedia, The Holocene extinction, otherwise referred to as the Sixth extinction or Anthropocene extinction, is the ongoing extinction event of species during the present Holocene epoch, mainly as a result of human activity… ‘Anthropocene’ is a term introduced in 2000. Some now postulate that a new geological epoch has begun, with the most abrupt and widespread extinction of species since the Cretaceous- Paleogene extinction event (concerning the dinosaurs) 66 million years ago. [2]

4.      It is said that the (next to) last mass extinction (that of the dinosaurs) was caused either by a meteorite or by volcanic eruptions, or by both of these factors. However it is very likely that the dinosaurs had driven themselves to extinction by eating away the planet. At the end of their era, dinosaurs became so large and numerous that they probably exhausted the natural resources. If this is true then it would have been a matter of time before a natural catastrophe occurred (not even the greatest one), forcing the dinosaurs to starve. This could also be why after the disappearance of the dinosaurs most of the species which survived were small- sized.

C)    SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence)

5.      The SETI institute needs no special introduction, since it is famous for its searches for aliens, as well as its failure to find any of them. Thus the character of this organization has two aspects. On one hand, it is searching the wrong way (advanced extraterrestrial civilizations are supposedly sufficiently advanced so that they cannot be traced). On the other hand, they don’t really care if they discover any alien at all, since they are only interested in spending their leisure time without meaning (and advanced civilizations would not care communicating with SETI either). 

D)    The New Middle Ages

6.      In the past, environmental and humanitarian crises have been treated with new growth. However, this time, there is no margin for such growth. There is no space left for agricultural exploitation (and the few remaining rain forests are now protected), while natural resources have been exhausted (oil is running out, while we need a couple of centuries to fully harness nuclear fusion). While it took us just 150 years (since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution) to destroy the environment, it would take us much more to recover (both us and the environment).

7.      This is not a prediction but reality. This is an example:

How long does it take for a new species to form? Not so fast- researchers find that lasting evolutionary change takes about one million years. [3]

8.      Thus, even if we stopped destroying our planet right now, it would take thousands of years for pristine forests with ancient trees to recover, and millions of years for extinct species (in the form of new species) to appear. We have already caused such a large damage to the environment that we will have to be patient enough to wait not only for some thousand years for the recovery of forests with ancient trees, but also for a couple of million years for new species to appear.

9.      Apparently, during the same timespan (given that we will still be here), we will have evolved enough to have become a ‘green’ (ecological) civilization. But when and if we reach such a stage, what would we think about our dark past? How would we then treat other alien civilizations (that we will presumably have discovered), doing to their planet what we used to do to our own planet in the past? Would there be any point coming in contact with them? If not then this is the explanation why no advanced civilization has ever bothered to contact us, or let us know about their existence till now.

E)     Do we know more about the universe than about our own planet?

10.  This is a related article:

Considering that we don’t know how big space is (or even if there’s just one universe), we can say with reasonable certainty that we probably know more about the ocean than we do about the cosmos.

But don’t click away yet, because that doesn’t really get to the point at hand: Our knowledge of the ocean- when compared to our knowledge of the space we know and can explore- is shockingly thin. Consider that we’ve sent 12 people to the moon since 1969 over a handful of missions; only three people have descended to the deepest part of the ocean in the Marianas Trench. Even more shocking? The ocean takes up about 71 percent of Earth’s space, yet a whopping 95 percent of that ocean is completely unexplored. [4]

11.  Why don’t we know more about the oceans? This is an explanation:

It’s really a hard place to work. In many ways, it’s easier to put a person into space than it is to send a person down to the bottom of the ocean. For one thing, the pressure exerted by the water above is enormous. It’s the equivalent of one person trying to support 50 jumbo jets. It’s also dark and cold. Unlike space where you can see forever, once you’re down in the ocean you can’t see anything because your light can’t shine very far. It’s a challenging place to study. Satellites are great for giving us that broad picture of the surface of the ocean. We can measure temperature. We can measure ocean color. We can measure the winds, the waves and sea level. But what we currently can’t do from space is look down into the depths of the ocean. [5]

12.  Is, therefore, the search for UFOs and aliens a byproduct of our own ignorance and imagination, a projection of our own xenophobia (fear of the unknown), or the result of our own need to find some new gods we could lean on?

F)     Superorganisms

13.  Perhaps such advanced civilizations and societies (groups and colonies) have already existed on our own planet for hundreds of millions of years. They are called superorganisms. This is a description:

A superorganism is a group of synergistically interacting organisms of the same species. The term superorganism is used most often to describe a social unit of animals, where division of labor is highly specialized, and where individuals are not able to survive by themselves for extended periods. Ants (or bees) are examples of such a superorganism… The concept of a superorganism raises the question of what is to be considered an individual. Some scientists have suggested that individual human beings can be thought of as ‘superorganisms.’ [6]

14.  It is certainly erroneous that some people (who consider themselves scientists) do not realize that an individual human being is not a superorganism. A superorganism can be a society (a group) of human beings who work together for the common benefit. The notion of a superorganism has to include both biological and sociological criteria. Bees and ants for example are not just ‘a collection of microbes and genes referring to the same species,’ but individual entities of the same species which also exhibit social behavior (the ‘spirit of the hive’). Thus only an ignorant or egopath would consider himself a superorganism. And this is the biggest everlasting problem of humanity: we have been unable to learn how to live together as a species, and cooperate with nature for the sake not only of ourselves but also of any other species.

G)    The ‘spirit of the hive’

15.  This is an example. A bee colony may consist of 50,000 individuals (including the workers, the drones, and the queen.) Let’s call this number N. The average lifespan, which we may call L, of a summer bee is about 30 days. Thus for a population of N= 50,000 bees, the queen needs to lay 50,000 eggs in 30 days (about 1600 per day). Let’s call this rate R. Thus for a given population we have,

N=RL

16.  What matters in this equation is not how long an individual lives, but what the reproduction rate (R) of the colony is. In human terms, if we take a town of N= 50,000 people, and each person lives on average L= 80 years, then the town needs R= N/L= 625 newborn people per year to sustain its population. But the town could also sustain the same population with a number of about 1,600 new individuals per day, if the average lifespan of human beings was just 30 days (as in the case of bees).

17.  Someone now might argue that 30 days are not enough for a human being to acquire the necessary knowledge and dexterity which applies to an advanced and intelligent species. However the same knowledge and intelligence can be stored within the society (in analogy to the bee hive) instead of the mind of the individual member. In that sense while each member of that society would be totally dependent on its society in order to survive and learn new skills, the society as a superorganism will include all the necessary information on a collective level.

18.  It doesn’t really matter how much you live, as long as someone else takes your place, in terms both of biology and behavior. But we humans are too stubborn and self- oriented to realize and accept this truth. In few words, if the average human lifespan right now is about 80 years, while human beings above the age of 40 can be considered old, if we reduced the average lifespan to 40 years and doubled the reproduction rate, we would then have a much healthier and more active society. But how many of us would have their lives terminated at the age of 40 voluntarily? I didn’t…

H)    Saving planet Earth

19.  At this point of time where we have arrived as a species, the only thing which truly matters is the protection and conservation of the environment. The general attitude- that intervening in nature is necessary, is problematic and probably wrong altogether. While planting a new tree or managing which and how many trees we should cut is not a bad idea, trying to prevent major natural disasters (such as comet impacts or volcanic explosions) is difficult if not impossible. While our anthropic egoism does not let us realize that a species can neither exist for ever nor conquer the whole universe, natural evolution comes in cycles, which, no matter how long they may last, they finally end. How well therefore are we prepared or have realized that cosmic truth, so that we let ourselves live in harmony with nature, letting at the same time other species evolve, so that some of these species may be our own successor in the future?

20.  And by ‘successor’ I don’t mean computers and robots. Biological species are much more powerful and successful than artificial ones. Think for example how a robot could reproduce itself or heal its wounds and find food, while for living (biological) creatures these processes are self- sustained and occur naturally. If artificial intelligence were to prevail over natural intelligence, this would have already happened during the 13.8 billion years of evolution in the universe (an advanced alien civilization would have already conquered the galaxy with some kind of nanobots). This is why biological life and emotional intelligence are so important and unsurpassable. This is also why wisdom is an inescapable result of the evolution of intelligence, so that if a species reaches the stage of wisdom before it self- destructs, it will finally come to terms with physical reality (the circle of birth and death), and fully integrate itself with nature as an advanced superorganism (like ants or bees have already done).

I)       And to mention some sayings:

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

Arthur Clark

“Any sufficiently advanced civilization is indistinguishable from nature.”

(?)

“If the bee disappeared off the face of the Earth, man would only have four years left to live.”

Albert Einstein?

21.  Even if man finds an alternative procedure to pollination for producing food, a world without bees would be too colorless a place to live.

22.  This is happening right now….

J)       Who wants to live for a million years?...

[1]: [http://www.oldest.org/nature/trees/]

[2]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction]

[3]: [https://phys.org/news/2011-08-fast-evolutionary-million-years.html]

[4]: [https://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/deep-ocean-exploration.htm]

[5]: [https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/oceans-the-great-unknown-58.html]

[6]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superorganism]

9/19/2018

Image: [http://www.oldest.org/nature/trees/]

*The ages of the oldest trees refer to individual trees. Otherwise the age of the oldest clonal colony of trees, Pando, is estimated at 80,000, or even 1,000,000, years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees#Clonal_trees]

In the latter case, the time it will take for clonal colonies of trees to fully recover on the planet, is equal to the estimated time it takes for a new species to appear- 1,000,000 years.