Monday, July 7, 2014

Thoughts 18

Thoughts 18



Last Friday was a national holiday and Saturday was one of my great-granddaughters' birthdays. I was out of state or traveling when I normally would have been writing. My apologies for being a day late with the post.




Hopefully, I have set up standards in the last post that show how the Earth can have accidents like humans. Still looking at the Earth as a single unit like a human, this week I will see if the Earth can have a disease like humans.

I know that the Mississippi River alluvial plain has been stripped of its' tree so that men can farm the land to make money. With the farming we have been able to better keep the human population increasing. With a continuing increase of numbers and expansion of people, economies grow. Growing economies helps, not universally, evenly or completely, to sate our natural instinct of survival. Having children helps us fulfill another natural instinct; that of reproduction, the passing of our genes. The more people there are the easier it is to indulge our need for fellowship with others, which I understand is a third natural instinct. ( since writing this I have come to see where gregariousness is a by product of survival ) So by changing the Earths surface, we can have more people, more material wealth, more gregarious and antagonistic interaction.




What are the results of one organ of the Earth doing what genetically it is programmed to do? I live in the United States of America so my knowledge is mainly from this area of the world. Hundreds of thousands of square miles of land have had trees removed clearing the land for farming in the Mississippi River alluvial plain. It is my understanding that the same process is taking place in other parts of the world. Haiti has been cleared of trees. Areas of South America are being cleared for farming like the Mississippi alluvial plain, but the ecology in South America is different. When agribusiness changed their crops to take advantage of government subsidies for produce to manufacture ethanol, there was more clear cutting of trees in the tropical far east to fill the market for the crops no longer grown by agribusiness in the USA.




Support for the growing population and affluence also demands more and more energy. Strip mining and possibly the hydraulic fracturing are making dramatic changes in the Earth. There probably are many more examples that could be used but I am not familiar with others.




Earth's population is growing at an enormous rate. Notice on the chart from 1800 through 2010.

Estimated world and regional populations at various dates (in millions)
Year
World
Africa
Asia
Europe
Latin America
Northern America
Oceania

70,000 BC
< 0.015













10,000 BC
1














9000 BC
3














8000 BC
5













7000 BC
7














6000 BC
10














5000 BC
15














4000 BC
20














3000 BC
25














2000 BC
35














1000 BC
50













500 BC
100













AD 1
200













1000
310














1750
791
106
502
163
16
2
2


1800
978
107
635
203
24
7
2


1850
1,262
111
809
276
38
26
2


1900
1,650
133
947
408
74
82
6


1950
2,519
221
1,398
547
167
172
12.8


1955
2,756
247
1,542
575
191
187
14.3


1960
2,982
277
1,674
601
209
204
15.9


1965
3,335
314
1,899
634
250
219
17.6


1970
3,692
357
2,143
656
285
232
19.4


1975
4,068
408
2,397
675
322
243
21.5


1980
4,435
470
2,632
692
361
256
22.8


1985
4,831
542
2,887
706
401
269
24.7


1990
5,263
622
3,168
721
441
283
26.7


1995
5,674
707
3,430
727
481
299
28.9


2000
6,070
796
3,680
728
520
316
31.0


2005
6,454
888
3,917
725
558
332
32.9


2010
6,972
1,022
4,252
732
580
351
35.6

  1. Jump up to:a b c d e Northern America comprises the northern-most countries and territories of North America: Canada, the United States, Greenland, Bermuda, and St. Pierre and Miquelon. Latin America comprises Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and South America. *



What I have said so far in this post is enough to show that not only can Earth have sores like humans, it can also have diseases. What is cancer:

World English Dictionary
cancer  (ˈkænsə) 

— n
1.
any type of malignant growth or tumour,
 caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division:
 it mayspread through the lymphatic system or blood stream to other parts
 of the body
2.
the condition resulting from this
3.
an evil influence that spreads dangerously


Are humans a cancer on this Earth? Could we be making this whole world uninhabitable; one big sore.


*World population chart from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population


All photographs in this post are from google.


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