So, the earth is going to look like hell in 50 to 100 years? No. I think we will start making the earth cleaner in 50 years. We will start with air purification. We will get so good at cleaning out the stuff that we have put into the air that we will turn these massive machines from cleaning the atmosphere of buildings to cleaning the atmosphere of our planet Earth.
Clean water? This problem will be quite a bit harder to solve. Most will agree that the best state to revert earth back to would be somewhere around the year 1000. We will probably use sea shells to extract a decently accurate chemical content for ocean water and rocks to give us selenite data that we might not have gathered from ice today.
Ice caps? I'm sure that we will have melted most of the northern ice caps before we ever think about making them anew. This is shameful for geologists who would have been able to learn much about earth that will by this time been long ago melted into oblivion, but there's nothing we can do about this. The other downside of refreezing Arctic ice is that it will also revert coastlines and may destroy harbors, swamps, and other low waterways that will then be supporting life.
Animals? Darwin was right - creatures do evolve. Creatures have and will continue to evolve to adapt to humans and what we do to the planet. By reverting the planet, we will also need to revert animals via genetics and behavior. Will we be able to bring back extinct animals? Sure, but will we want to? Will it be a good thing to do to earth? Might animals that have been extinct for decades be more harmful than introducing a foreign creature into an ecosystem half way around the planet and that becomes an invasive species?
If we are to do it right, cleaning our planet might take as much as 200 to 300 years. What most, whose computers have simulated the worst prospects in their models of the earth have failed to realize is that it will be possible to undo most if not all of the hazards that we have created. Sure, we will have a generation of kids who might only see a sunset through a pane of glass and we might have to reintroduce as many as 50% of land mammals into their environment - but it'll be doable.
I believe that this forum will help me with my writing in a couple of ways. Firstly, it will help me get the documents that I have prepared on this subject off of my computer which i think will help to better preserve them. Second, it will give me the incentive to make much needed spelling and grammar corrections to them. As I hope to present a bit more than 'fluff' - what an english teacher referred to writing that I think she would have preferred to call 'crap' - and something that people might enjoy reading versus being turned off by countless grammatical and spelling errors (as I often am when reading well thought but poorly written articles. Third, I would hope to get *thoughtful* feedback.
I think that my third incentive needs a bit definition when concerned with the loose term thoughtful. I don't expect Hubble, Dirak, Einstein, Newton, or Galileo to be reading my writing - as they're dead. Though, I doubt that Hawking, Tyson, or any other - still alive - great minds to read my work. What I would expect is that if you wish to give me feedback, you abide by a couple of 'rules', so please:
Last, the pictures on the slide show may or may not have been taken by me. Most were taken on family vacations and since we only had one (fairly) high end camera - the talented photographers that we all are - had to share. So I can't say which of these pictures I took and which I didn't (unless I was in it - and that is rare).
I think that my third incentive needs a bit definition when concerned with the loose term thoughtful. I don't expect Hubble, Dirak, Einstein, Newton, or Galileo to be reading my writing - as they're dead. Though, I doubt that Hawking, Tyson, or any other - still alive - great minds to read my work. What I would expect is that if you wish to give me feedback, you abide by a couple of 'rules', so please:
- Say more than five words - "You're an idiot" "Love your writing" - I DON'T CARE
- Unless you are pointing a unbiased and blunt untruth I have stated, take more than five minutes to think about what you are saying.
- Make your point and be done with it - don't keep reiterating a point you've already made, don't put incessant carriage returns (aka - 'enter') like a teenage chat room.
- Don't type everything big and bold, small and blending in with the background, or using all caps.
Last, the pictures on the slide show may or may not have been taken by me. Most were taken on family vacations and since we only had one (fairly) high end camera - the talented photographers that we all are - had to share. So I can't say which of these pictures I took and which I didn't (unless I was in it - and that is rare).