Musta been their damn SUV's

skein · 03-13-2003, 08:07 PM

This just posted as breaking news on Yahoo:

A study of southern Caribbean sediments suggests that a centurylong dry trend may have been the killing blow in the demise of the Mayan civilization that once built pyramids and elaborate cities in Mexico. Konrad A. Hughen, a geochemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, said sediments from the Cariaco Basin in northern Venezuela clearly record a long dry siege that struck the entire Caribbean starting in about the seventh century and lasting more than 100 years.

I think we humans flatter ourselves when we think we are the major influence on earth's weather. Don't get me wrong - I think we need to stop our plundering and polluting, but we aren't the only factor causing droughts or floods or earthquakes, or....

Remember before you reply to this - the flames you ignite here can cause global warming. :grin:

Skein - who is being bad tonight.

Cool Texan · 03-13-2003, 08:29 PM

That is a good point....there are other influences.

However, dont be deceived. Human beings are the single most destructive force on the planet.

skein · 03-13-2003, 09:09 PM

I'm not so sure, Tex. Take the West Nile virus for example. That sub-microscopic denizen is going to (and has already) kill more birds than all the shotgun shooters currently alive today. Maybe for all time. And we're going to see it happen and stand by in complete futility.

Insects like grasshoppers (locusts) destroy huge amounts of vegetation yearly and would be hundreds of times more destructive (my guess) if we didn't keep them in check.

Volcanoes spew more dirt and ash into the air in one eruption, and alter the climate more than cities and traffic ever thought about.

Difference is, we're supposed to be smarter than bacteria or bugs or rocks, and as such, have an obligation not to destroy. As Straydog (I think) says, "No one can do everything, everyone can do something." I believe that, but I think man's natural vanity makes him want to be more omnipotent than he really is.

Interesting thoughts, though.

Skein

GutshotApe · 03-14-2003, 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by skein:
Volcanoes spew more dirt and ash into the air in one eruption, and alter the climate more than cities and traffic ever thought about.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">True enough Skein, but that's not all of the story.

I read recently that less than 1/3 of Americans believe in evolution, etc, but here goes anyway: billions of years ago the earth had no life and a toxic atmosphere. One celled plant life began and evolved over a couple billion years...each green plant producing biomass and emitting free oxygen as a waste product. When the plants died, an equal amount of oxygen to what they produced over their lifetimes was consumed in breaking down (rotting) their remains. However, over time...lots and lots of time...more of the dying plants (mostly single cell oceanic algae)...died and instead of decomposing, they sank into the ocean depths, were covered by sediment, and "stored". Over a lot more time these deposits turned into coal, oil and gas. So much of an imbalance occurred that our atmosphere is now 21% oxygen....used to be 0%.

Now, humanity is burning the stored hydrocarbons at a prodigious rate....in effect, we are rapidly reversing the cycle that took billions of years to create our breathable air. There is already a measureble increase in CO2....and I think a measureable decrease in O2....in the world's air.

THe question is if we continue burning oil, coal and gas, is it possible to burn enough of it to significantly reduce atmospheric oxygen? :whazzup:

Thumper · 03-14-2003, 07:59 AM

Humans have had an imperceptible effect on the earth. Our time here will be short, and we will go down in earth history as a species whose main contribution was the invention of plastics.

When we are gone, earth will rapidly erase any trace of our short presence here. And the cycles will go on as they have for billions of years.

All is well.......

FallRiverGuy · 03-14-2003, 08:31 AM

Yep,

Earth is nothing more than a big petri dish. If the cycles that keep resources in balance and renewed are gone, then we will find ourselves following the same fate as bacteria inoculated on a petri dish : exponential grow followed by a stationary phase, and ultimately... well you get the picture.

I think of the catastrophic events such as volcanoes, as acute pain, whereas human influences are akin to chronic pain. You get a bump on the knee and you limp for a while but soon are right again. Chronic pain over extended periods and soon other systems suffer and a downward spiral begins.

Cool Texan · 03-14-2003, 08:38 AM

Last I checked, volcanoes actually do a lot of good for the earth. West Nile screws birds...and some people, but not the earth itself. Chronic polution and the like actually destroys attributes needed to sustain life.

This topic is way too depressing for a Friday. Besides, I got bigger things to be concerned with right now....so I'd rather focus on my first time ever crabbing trip tomorrow.

Stratocaster · 03-14-2003, 02:21 PM

Let us know how you do crabbin. Hopefully the commercial guys left some males for yall.

Cool Texan · 03-14-2003, 02:57 PM

If not, I'll just have to glue some fake crab weenies to the girls. [img]graemlins/dork.gif[/img] Sure, the gamies will look...but how closely? :shocked:

:grin:

DanS · 03-14-2003, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Humans have had an imperceptible effect on the earth

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">Passenger pigeons, dodos, and Tasmanian wolves are probably not important enough for you to notice their absence, huh Thumper?

If we wipe out steelhead, do you think you'd notice that?

[ 03-14-2003, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: DanS ]

Silver Hilton · 03-14-2003, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by skein:
I'm not so sure, Tex. Take the West Nile virus for example. That sub-microscopic denizen is going to (and has already) kill more birds than all the shotgun shooters currently alive today. Maybe for all time. And we're going to see it happen and stand by in complete futility.

<font size="2" face="verdana,arial,helvetica">And how did the west nile virus get here? I'm betting human transport.

We've got the zebra mussel in the great lakes, and there is a snail that is now in the columbia basin which may well destroy salmon fishing as we know it by consuming all the food in the watershed. The snail, by the way, is transmitted via wading boots, as is, of course, whirling disease.

I'd have to conclude that we leave pretty big footprints.