Comments on: A walk in the woods. https://habitablezone.com/2018/05/26/a-walk-in-the-woods/ Sun, 19 Apr 2026 17:51:50 -0700 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: ER https://habitablezone.com/2018/05/26/a-walk-in-the-woods/#comment-41522 ER Sun, 27 May 2018 13:54:08 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=71078#comment-41522 But I must confess I'm a tiny bit more optimistic than you are. I doubt we will devastate the solar system, and I even doubt we will succeed at making the earth uninhabitable (by say, pollution, nuclear war, or climate change). Long before we succeed in burning down the house, we will damage it too much for it to shelter and protect us any longer. If we don't wise up, we will befoul our nest and those very activities that have made that befouling possible will simply be impossible to carry out any longer. We may poison ourselves, but we won't poison the world. We simply aren't powerful or smart enough to do that. Our greed and selfishness will take care of us before the planet itself can intervene. Earth abides, it has been altered severely but it is also quite resilient, and it has survived greater catastrophes than any we can devise: asteroid strikes, ice ages, volcanic episodes, continental drift. A billion years from now, we will only be just one more mass extinction recorded in the geologic strata. None of our works will survive, perhaps a few of our bones or a few impressions of our domesticated plants and animals will dot the fossil record. Past history has shown us leaves and bones are more likely to be preserved than our cities and machines. We like to fantasize our species scattering across the Galaxy, an expanding empire of thousands of worlds. But that may be much more a consequence of our pride and sense of self-importance than of any true strength or ability on our part. But I must confess I’m a tiny bit more optimistic than you are.
I doubt we will devastate the solar system, and I even doubt we will succeed at making the earth uninhabitable (by say, pollution, nuclear war, or climate change). Long before we succeed in burning down the house, we will damage it too much for it to shelter and protect us any longer. If we don’t wise up, we will befoul our nest and those very activities that have made that befouling possible will simply be impossible to carry out any longer. We may poison ourselves, but we won’t poison the world. We simply aren’t powerful or smart enough to do that. Our greed and selfishness will take care of us before the planet itself can intervene.

Earth abides, it has been altered severely but it is also quite resilient, and it has survived greater catastrophes than any we can devise: asteroid strikes, ice ages, volcanic episodes, continental drift. A billion years from now, we will only be just one more mass extinction recorded in the geologic strata. None of our works will survive, perhaps a few of our bones or a few impressions of our domesticated plants and animals will dot the fossil record. Past history has shown us leaves and bones are more likely to be preserved than our cities and machines.

We like to fantasize our species scattering across the Galaxy, an expanding empire of thousands of worlds. But that may be much more a consequence of our pride and sense of self-importance than of any true strength or ability on our part.

]]> By: BuckGalaxy https://habitablezone.com/2018/05/26/a-walk-in-the-woods/#comment-41521 BuckGalaxy Sun, 27 May 2018 06:24:46 +0000 https://www.habitablezone.com/?p=71078#comment-41521 Your contributions to this site are always outstanding. The fate of all human knowledge, and our pride in it, is the hot and devastating fire that will one day burn down the forest of our solar system. Sterilizing the universe of our existence. And then something new will come in. Your contributions to this site are always outstanding.

The fate of all human knowledge, and our pride in it, is the hot and devastating fire that will one day burn down the forest of our solar system. Sterilizing the universe of our existence. And then something new will come in.

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