Whose planet is it anyway?
Environmental change. Environmental awareness. Damaging the environment. Environmental protection. Environmental quality. The environment. These are only a few of the scores of abounding phrases abound about ‘the environment’. But whose environment?As you can see from the timeline below, humans are nothing but a blip in evolution. Life on Earth began 3,800,000,000 years ago and we have been around for less than 195,000. If evolution was a 24-hour clock humans have been on the planet since 3 seconds to midnight. Spiders have been around for approximately 400 million years, cockroaches-type creatures for around 300 million, ants a mere 110 and 130 million years.
Humans have the biggest egos of any species — the greatest sense of ‘self’, either individually or collectively. We talk about saving the planet, and ‘the environment’ as if we’re talking about saving the Earth and everything on it, which is not the case. What we’re really concerned about is ‘our environment’ — the one that sustains people. We actually talk about damaging ‘our’ environment, the quality of ‘our’ environment, protecting ‘our’ environment. We’re not really talking about ‘the’ environment.
Turning a blind-eye
If we paid no attention to greenhouse gas emissions, or the rise of global temperatures; if we continued to use fossil fuels and were careless about energy and resource usage then what would the outcome be?
Of course sea levels would rise and there would be famine and flood. More than a third of the planet will be uninhabitable due to drought. Populations would be decimated. However some areas will benefit from global warming and increase agricultural output, so the rich/poor gap will increase and migration and global security will become a major issue as people began to fight for, and defend, their survival and resources.
Apocalyptically, it could happen that global warming starts an unstoppable chain reaction — as methane is release from permafrost peat bogs and hydrates, and oceans become increasingly acidic, accelerating the rate of warming. It is predicted that humans will survive, but not in the same numbers. We would certainly fare a lot better than many species of plants and animals — whose ecosystems we would destroy.
Spiders would survive though, along with ants and cockroaches — they’ve survived much worse during the history of life on the planet, including a couple of mass extinctions and a sudden rise in greenhouse gases, as the evolutionary timeline shows. Some other species of plant, insect, arthropod, mammal, bird, fish, mollusc and so on would also survive, and evolution would do what it will always do — evolve new ecosystems to survive in a changed environment.
So if we’re looking at ‘the environment’ rather than ‘our environment’, it’s easy to see that humans are currently the biggest threat to it. By carrying on our current path of energy and resource consumption, greenhouse emissions, etc, with no remediation, and accepting the consequences to our species and others, we could just be contributing towards a rapid phase in the evolution of life on Earth. In fact the biggest favour we could probably do this planet is to no longer occupy it.
Another view
All of this illustrates the point that a different perspective can often provoke the most interesting arguments. Adopting an opposing view, and having the courage to understand it even if you don’t agree with it, can help increase the depth, breadth and strength of your arguments and opinions.
And this brings us to the second phase of our Debatewise Global Youth Panel Climate Change debates, which we’re continuing because the climate is not simply a conference issue. Many of our GYP are among those likely to be most affected by climate change, and so are keen to continue to debate them.
We will be debating a wide variety of climate change issues, however we’re adding a twist. In addition to simply providing the forum for members to contribute from their own perspective, we’ve decided to occasionally throw a spanner into the works to stir opinions around a little. For example, we’ll be asking panel members in Bangladesh to argue why they shouldn’t receive 15% of any climate funding, proposing debates on why the US and China shouldn’t have to reduce emission levels, asking whether clean energy should be put before the protection of the rainforests, etc. We hope the results will add a healthy pinch of spice to already lively debates.
The evolution of life on earth.
3.8 billion years — the beginnings of the first life on earth (current best guesstimate).
3.5 billion years — the oldest fossil, of a single cell organism.
2.3 billion years — the earth freezes over completely and becomes a giant snowball. 900 million years — The first multi-cellular life develops.
800 million years — the first split (or diversification).
770 million years — the earth freezes over again.
590 million years — the split that eventually forms all the vertebrates, and forms the arthropods (— the spiders, crabs, shrimps, etc).
530 million years — the first vertebrates finally appear.
500 million years — half shell-fish, half-insect-type creatures are exploring the land. 400 million years — evolution speeds up and the first insects start to appear.
397 million years — the first four-legged animals evolve, these will become reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals.
250 million years — the greatest mass extinction in the Earth’s history happens, lots of species are wiped out completely. Some survivors from the beginnings of the dinosaur age. Other survivors include the ancestors of mammals — small, nocturnal creatures.
200 million years — the end of the Triassic period and another mass extinction, but it paves the way for the great age of the dinosaurs, and a period of rapid evolution that includes the development of mammals into their four major groups, also birds and the first flowering plants.
93 million years — the oceans become starved of oxygen, destroying more than 25% of marine invertebrates. On land the ancestors of modern primates split from those of modern rodents.
65 million years — another massive environmental event, possibly caused by the combined effects of a meteor strike and volcanic activity, wipes out 75% of species, including the dinosaurs and giant reptiles.
63 million years — primates split into two groups, one of which develops into monkeys, apes and eventually — humans.
55 million years — a sudden rise in greenhouse gases transforms the planet, wiping out many species in the depths of the sea, but not those in the shallows or on land.
6 million years — humans and chimps split.
2 million years — Homo erectus appears
195,000 years — homo sapiens appears.
72,000 years — we start wearing clothes
10,000 years — we plant crops and live in villages.
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Loving this Askimet thing
And this brings us to the second phase of our Debatewise Global Youth Panel Climate Change debates, which we’re continuing because the climate is not simply a conference issue. Many of our GYP are among those likely to be most affected by climate change, and so are keen to continue to debate them.