Thoughts 25

Thoughts 25

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Last week I went off course. This week I will try to pick up from before I veered. From the sub-atomic particles to the great galaxy clusters the cosmos is connected by the four forces. We know that the energy that sustains life on earth comes from the sun. Also, that the material of life on earth comes from the earth and that the material of the earth originated in the cores of stars. Is there an interconnectedness of life on earth.

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Around forty years ago, each summer there was a fish kill in the Pearl River south of Jackson, Mississippi. After a scientific investigation, it was found that chemicals being dumped into the river at Jackson were causing a depletion of oxygen when the river was low in late summer. The fish were dying from lack of oxygen for many river miles. After a few years the problem of dying fish was fixed. I don't know if the over all problem of harming the water was eliminated. What the chemicals were I don't know. All or part of the problem could have been the dumping of human waste into the river. There definitely was an interaction (connection) between humans, a river and the fish in that river.

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Biologist tell us that when the prey of a predator is decimated, the predator population goes down if it cannot adapt to the new circumstances. The reverse is also true. When I was young, it was considered exciting when someone killed an alligator, so people went on the river to kill as many as possible. Within a few years of the correction that stopped the fish kills on the Pearl River, it was stated that the alligator on the Pearl was extinct. I was on the Pearl a lot at that time and know that there were two 'gators within several river miles or one that traveled a long way. Without the large number of 'gators the beaver population exploded. The woodlands around the Pearl and other connected waterways were being damaged by the beaver to the extent that the state put a bounty on beaver. Finally, the state started to repopulate the river with 'gators from other states and make it illegal to kill them. The beaver are no longer a problem. In this instance there was at least an interaction between humans, alligators, beavers and the woodlands.

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People who have studied the relation between living entities on earth, tell us that to one degree or another all life on earth depends on each other. We can also see how life on this planet can affect the inanimate. One example is the beavers in the paragraph above. If there had not been something done to control their population, the woodlands along the river would have been cleared and the river banks would have eroded. Other examples are strip mining, clear cutting forest to make farmland, damming rivers, making roads and then covering them with concrete. The list can go on and on. Humans seem to make the greatest changes (for good or evil) to the planet.

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Interconnectedness within the planet (remember that we live inside the planet) and the planet connected with the solar system; the solar system connected to the Milky Way galaxy; the galaxy connected to galaxy clusters. Everything is connected within the cosmos. When we act does it in some extremely small way affect the cosmos?

* Images from Google images