- Joined
- Dec 26, 2007
- Messages
- 7,357
- Reaction score
- 223
(Please leave all politics out of this thread and stay on the line of science)
I don't know if many people here caught this program on the Discovery Channel (Life After People), especially since many of you are outside the US and I don't know if it was broadcasted out of the US.
They basically go over what would happen to the Earth if hu8mans just disappeared one day, everything would be left in tact as it is the second we all disappeared. They go over buildings corroding and collapsing, houses crumbling, cars rusting and how animals would adapt. (It's a fascinating program, I recommend anyone to watch it).
They discussed that pretty much the only man-made item that may survive for the next generation of intelligent life to see would me mount Rushmore. The favorable conditions where it is (low erosion, cooler climate, elevation, etc..) as well as it being carved out of granite would make it the least vulnerable item in our civilization (the statues of Petra and other similar ones could last, but sandstorms would sand them down). As long as tectonics keep it in favorable conditions it could be visible that it is not natural for millions of years. (This is unlikely considering the possibility of global tectonic shift / polar reversal, but possible).
Second thought, oil. I watched another program on the History channel about oil, how it affects us and our civilization and how it is formed. First, look at the conditioned that are needed for it to be "created".
Oil fields are nothing more than gargantuan (and that is an understatement) grave yard for prehistoric life. Marine life swam into a dead zone in the ocean (like what we're starting to see form in today's oceans) and it dies, then floats to the bottom. The pressure and chemicals in this dead water helps preserve the corpses and over millions of years it forms oil. These dead spots happen when the global temperatures rise and the ocean temperatures rise, like what the climate was like back in prehistoric times (when global temperatures were much higher than they are today). These corpses also capture a lot of carbon that is in the atmosphere / climate and keep it away (in the oil) thus removing carbon from the atmosphere, reversing greenhouse gasses.
Two things come to mind.
1) It is very possible that there was another civilization of intelligent life on Earth millions of years before humans came up (exactly like what the Star Trek Voyager episode called "Distant Origins" or "Displaced" was about). Any sign of them would be long gone today whether they went extinct or moved onto other planets. Throw in the Discovery program, "The Future Is Wild" and we can assume that crustations (squids specifically) are the next likely candidate to take over some 5-10 millions years from now.
2) Using oil releases all that trapped carbon into the atmosphere, thus creating a greenhouse effect and creating another climate not unlike what the climate was like when the oil was starting to form (warmer for the dead spots). We could be creating the conditions for oil to start forming in the ocean for the next intelligent species to arrive. (Again, please leave all politics out of this thread, just science).
I've come to the conclusion that oil is the Earth's way to either test it's dominant / intelligent species or as a balance (global species / respect balance, not US vs. OPEC kind of balance)..
The Earth gives us this resource that makes our lives and routines very easy for us but at a severe cost. It could test us to see if we can harness these powers yet not damage the Earth (like what carbon emissions have the potential to do) and if we cannot, it starts the reset button that takes millions of years to reset (either driving modern life to extinction or forces us off of the planet).
Thinking of that, it makes you wonder how many of these cycles has the planet gone though? Even if each cycle takes 100 million years, the earth is over 4 billion years old which means we could be on as many as the 40th cycle, each civilization being erased from the future generation's views. The previous generation harnessed oil from the one before them as we are harnessing the oil from them today and we're creating the environment to create more oil for the next generation some 10 to 100 million years from now.
Any thoughts on this?
I don't know if many people here caught this program on the Discovery Channel (Life After People), especially since many of you are outside the US and I don't know if it was broadcasted out of the US.
They basically go over what would happen to the Earth if hu8mans just disappeared one day, everything would be left in tact as it is the second we all disappeared. They go over buildings corroding and collapsing, houses crumbling, cars rusting and how animals would adapt. (It's a fascinating program, I recommend anyone to watch it).
They discussed that pretty much the only man-made item that may survive for the next generation of intelligent life to see would me mount Rushmore. The favorable conditions where it is (low erosion, cooler climate, elevation, etc..) as well as it being carved out of granite would make it the least vulnerable item in our civilization (the statues of Petra and other similar ones could last, but sandstorms would sand them down). As long as tectonics keep it in favorable conditions it could be visible that it is not natural for millions of years. (This is unlikely considering the possibility of global tectonic shift / polar reversal, but possible).
Second thought, oil. I watched another program on the History channel about oil, how it affects us and our civilization and how it is formed. First, look at the conditioned that are needed for it to be "created".
Oil fields are nothing more than gargantuan (and that is an understatement) grave yard for prehistoric life. Marine life swam into a dead zone in the ocean (like what we're starting to see form in today's oceans) and it dies, then floats to the bottom. The pressure and chemicals in this dead water helps preserve the corpses and over millions of years it forms oil. These dead spots happen when the global temperatures rise and the ocean temperatures rise, like what the climate was like back in prehistoric times (when global temperatures were much higher than they are today). These corpses also capture a lot of carbon that is in the atmosphere / climate and keep it away (in the oil) thus removing carbon from the atmosphere, reversing greenhouse gasses.
Two things come to mind.
1) It is very possible that there was another civilization of intelligent life on Earth millions of years before humans came up (exactly like what the Star Trek Voyager episode called "Distant Origins" or "Displaced" was about). Any sign of them would be long gone today whether they went extinct or moved onto other planets. Throw in the Discovery program, "The Future Is Wild" and we can assume that crustations (squids specifically) are the next likely candidate to take over some 5-10 millions years from now.
2) Using oil releases all that trapped carbon into the atmosphere, thus creating a greenhouse effect and creating another climate not unlike what the climate was like when the oil was starting to form (warmer for the dead spots). We could be creating the conditions for oil to start forming in the ocean for the next intelligent species to arrive. (Again, please leave all politics out of this thread, just science).
I've come to the conclusion that oil is the Earth's way to either test it's dominant / intelligent species or as a balance (global species / respect balance, not US vs. OPEC kind of balance)..
The Earth gives us this resource that makes our lives and routines very easy for us but at a severe cost. It could test us to see if we can harness these powers yet not damage the Earth (like what carbon emissions have the potential to do) and if we cannot, it starts the reset button that takes millions of years to reset (either driving modern life to extinction or forces us off of the planet).
Thinking of that, it makes you wonder how many of these cycles has the planet gone though? Even if each cycle takes 100 million years, the earth is over 4 billion years old which means we could be on as many as the 40th cycle, each civilization being erased from the future generation's views. The previous generation harnessed oil from the one before them as we are harnessing the oil from them today and we're creating the environment to create more oil for the next generation some 10 to 100 million years from now.
Any thoughts on this?
