Sunday, February 14, 2016

Who says understanding Earth’s Evolution is irrelevant?


Sadly all too many.  

I often hear people, not just the religious with their paper thin understanding, but educated rational people who superficially accept the notion of evolution, but who have never spent anytime really absorbing what Earth's pageant of evolution has been all about, dismissing the need to learn anything about it.  

Its all led to a general apathy that I can't for the life of me comprehend.  Especially considering what an amazingly beautiful, complex, mysterious and absolutely relevant story it is.

This general apathy terrifies me, and compels me to share some of the building blocks that have shaped my own developing basic understanding.  I have a head-start since I've been fascinated by this Creation I was born into since my earliest days.  The wonder of it, and the things I've learned makes me want to share some of my experience and perspectives during what time remains for my own, oh so splendid, journey on this wonderful planet.

Tragically, people who never pondered the reality, (that all we have today is the direct product of four and a half billion years of evolution, unfolding one magnificent day after another), lack the foundation to understand what we are doing to our planet and life support system these days.  It explains why we have so many profoundly ignorant, self-deluded and disconnected politicians and 'masters of the universe' these days.

When I toss out a concept such as, our "Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine," it's blank faces all around.  Why?   I'm fearing listeners have no fundamental conception for the intricate interconnections between our evolving Earth, oceans and land masses.  Without that awareness, of course they'll never get it. 

After all, our atmosphere is the direct product of a fantastic evolutionary process that married geology and biology and took billions of years to unfold.  Without understanding how it got here, there's no way one can comprehend what we have,... and what we are doing to "it",... that is, the only life, and economy, support system we have.

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January 6, 2016
{1} Our Global Heat and Moisture Distribution Engine

January 9, 2016
{2} Co-evolution of Minerals and Life | Dr Robert Hazen

January 14, 2016
{3} Evolution of Carbon and our biosphere - Professor Hazen focuses on the element Carbon

January 23, 2016
{4} Evolution-Considering Deep Time and a Couple Big Breaks

February 6, 2016
{5a} The Most Beautiful Graph on Earth - A. Hessler

February 7, 2016
{5b} Earth's Earliest Climate - By Angela Hessler

February 14, 2016
{6} Evolution of Earth's Atmosphere - easy version
providence willing, more to follow.


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