Why
Are We Here?
My purpose in
writing this essay is to express thoughts which appear to make as much
sense as any other philosophy or religious belief which attempts to
explain our purpose for being here. The presentation is simple
and should be easy to follow. Mankind has evolved to a species
capable of using higher technology. This was made possible by the
collective consciousness of the Earth's plant life as a means of
liberating the carbon currently locked up in hydrocarbons and mineral
deposits and making this carbon available for re-use by plant life.
This is not
easily accepted by people of any faith or belief as it minimizes man's
purpose to a level found uncomfortable by most religious
believers. Most faiths put mankind into a higher plane or at
least make the higher plane or existence in some way obtainable by true
believers plus providing a purpose for life. Most of what we
accept as religious text today was produced by what we would consider
by today’s standards as mentally ill individuals. All truly
observable indications put mankind into the "we are merely mammals
seeking to survive and procreate and thus allow continuation of the
genetic line in the survival of the fittest contest". Universally
societies reject all man’s link to his animal past. Mankind
totally disregards the possibility of Earth's plant life having any
sort of consciousness and thus any sort of bearing on the fate of the
planet and its various life forms.
For those of you
in the West Christianity has numbed your senses to the environment
around you as it is there for your benefit and there are no limits to
possible exploitation. Western native cultures tend to group
mankind as part of the environment and stressed the need for man to be
a good steward of the environment with responsibilities to the
ecosystem. In Westernized societies there is a consideration of
the environment taking root in the hearts and minds of the more mature
societies. Unfortunately most of the current crop of
environmentalists and Greens are just another variety of closet
environmental Nazis with little clear understanding of what is required
to sustain our present level of civilization and with a primitive
attitude toward what constitutes exploitation of the environment.
The first
atmosphere of Earth had a high content of carbon dioxide (CO2) and very
little free oxygen (O2). Significant free O2 is probably not
likely to be a common component of planetary atmospheres as it is prone
to reacting with other molecules to form other compounds. O2 is
highly reactive and O2 levels in a planetary atmosphere would probably
approach zero unless there was a mechanism for recycling oxygen from
various compounds back into free O2.
At an early
stage of Earth's history a form of plant life evolved, cyanobacteria,
which used CO2 in a photosynthesis reaction with the carbon being
locked up in mineral deposits (carbonates, ie - stromatolites) and the
oxygen component being released as atmospheric O2. This form of
plant life thrived for a very long time decreasing atmospheric CO2 and
increasing atmospheric O2 to levels somewhat near to present
levels. This form of plant life polluted its environment,
changing it so significantly that it was no longer able to thrive even
though a distant relative exists today in environments where
competition is limited by the hostility of that environment. All
plant life today requires CO2 to exist and most plant life would
benefit from small to moderate increases in atmospheric CO2 levels.
Later forms of
plant life used the carbon derived from CO2 to build its leaves, stalks
or what could be called vegetable matter. When these plants died
some of the vegetable matter decomposed, with the carbon recombining
with atmospheric O2 to form atmospheric CO2. Some of this
vegetable matter would eventually form what is now called
hydrocarbons. All oil, natural gas and coal deposits were formed
in this manner. Later forms of animal life also succeeded in
locking up significant amounts of CO2 in various carbonate
mineral deposits.
In the past
Earth's atmospheric CO2 levels were significantly higher than current
levels and plant life thrived, as can be seen from the abundance of
hydrocarbon deposits. While plant life created a self-sustaining
environment for itself the system was not complete as at some point
most atmospheric CO2 would be locked up in mineral deposits,
hydrocarbons or in a process which would not adequately recycle carbon
into a form which could be used by plant life. Most plants can
only get significant amounts of carbon from atmospheric CO2.
Something must
be added to Earth's biosystem to ensure significant quantities of
carbon would be recycled and available for re-use by plant life.
Adding animals to the system would help but animals without technology
are limited in their ability to recycle carbon. Let an animal
develop technology and its ability to recycle carbon increases
dramatically.
The biomass of
the Earth's plant life greatly exceeds that of animal life. It is
foolish to think that amount of biomass with such tenacity for life and
procreation is totally without any consciousness or will. Just
because mankind is unable to communicate with this consciousness
doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Man tends to believe he is the top life
form in the pyramid of life on this planet and resists any suggestion
that he is not the prime attraction.
It is just as
likely mankind is merely an agent of Earth's plant life whose function
is to recycle carbon into atmospheric CO2. Without this recycling
effort plant life would find it harder to thrive and at some point
would cease to be the dominant life form on this planet. Without
plant life producing O2 there would not be any free atmospheric O2 as
the oxygen would react and combine with some other molecule.
Man's purpose is
to serve plant life by recycling carbon. We are part of the
biosystem and we must do our part by building a civilization which
recycles carbon either by hydrocarbon use or freeing carbon from
mineral deposits. Whatever plants we consume is small in
comparison to the total plant biomass and is hardly missed. The
more you prune plants the more they grow, man can do no wrong.
Another
consideration of man's role in improving the environment for plant life
is the return of mineral nitrogen to the biosystem for re-use (from
hydrocarbons) as even though atmosphere nitrogen is abundant that is
not the form required by plant life.
Man tends to
believe he is the end result of evolution. Use the example of
cyanobacteria, a life form which thrived for the better part of a
billion years and made the Earth habitable for most current life forms
on this speck of cosmic dust. Cyanobacteria destroyed an ideal
environment for its existence. Yet their environmental
destruction made it possible for what we consider higher forms of life
to evolve. If the cyanobacteria were Green, and told steps to
preserve their environment, the wide variety of current life forms
would not have had the opportunity to develop. In retrospect we
can definitely state their destiny was to prepare the Earth for other
forms of life and thereby sacrifice the bountiful existence of their
species. Maybe man is destined to play a similar role by
recycling CO2 back into the atmosphere?
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Revised: August
9, 2006