Slogans such as ‘let’s save the planet’ are common on dates as important as World Environment Day. But the Earth does not need to be saved. The famous science fiction writer Michael Crichton, author of the work J urassic Park , said that “the planet survived everything, in its time. Certainly it will outlive you. ” This assertion may seem controversial, but it makes sense if we take into account the past and future of an insignificant rock orbiting a minor star in our galaxy, which has turned out to be habitable for a (short) geological period.
At its birth 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth was an incandescent ball of lava. Then, some 700 million years later, it became an ocean dotted with some volcanic islands. Scientists believe that we have to go back about 3.5 billion years to find the first multicellular life forms on Earth. Thus, with the first creatures slowly filling the atmosphere with oxygen, large masses of Earth drifted, breaking apart and rejoining into supercontinents.
For a time, the Earth was even a great ball of ice, in a stage that lasted 12 times the equivalent of the entire history of mankind. After the thaw, (only) about 600 million years ago new creatures populated the oceans, but many perished in the great Permian extinction (such as trilobites and anomalocaris); and, when the ozone layer was thick enough to allow it, living things began to colonize solid ground.
At that time, oxygen levels were much higher than today, allowing insects and arthropods to have much larger structures. In an age when beetles were the size of cars and dragonflies were like imperial eagles, lush forests populated the planet. Long before, life had managed to store everything a plant needs to grow in a light seed, which would not need to stay near water to germinate, and which could finally grow in the deep continent: the seed was one of the great revolutions of life; just like the egg.
Then the great reptiles populated the Earth, until another great mass extinction swept them away to make way for better adapted species. It would not take long for dinosaurs to conquer the land, sea and air while other species flourished or perished under the changes and the onslaught of other predators.
Life made its way onto our planet, but for a long time, Earth has been an unwelcoming place for life ; This has not prevented, however, that a fortunate race of intelligent primates managed to develop a technological civilization, and even colonize other territories outside their planetary home, such as the Moon and, soon, Mars.
But amid the expansion of humanity, an unflattering scenario sets in. Scientific evidence tells us that we are already in the sixth great extinction. The fragile balance that keeps the Earth a blue, green, and teeming home is shaking. Human practices are accelerating climate change that could endanger the planet as we know it sooner than we imagine. And a painful reality opens up before us: whatever happens, the Earth will continue on its way. We do not care. He will lick his wounds and move on, as he has done countless times. It will withstand the blow.
So why do we fight?
By now in the text, you will have realized what the thesis ‘the Earth does not need to be saved’ means. It is not because of ‘Earth’ as a rocky planet in our solar system that campaigns such as World Environment Day are launched. It is due to the accelerated disappearance of species, especially pollinating insects – and, in general, the disappearance of the planet’s biodiversity -; the deoxygenation of the oceans; the disappearance of water resources; desertification; sea level rise; migration crises caused by climate refugees; the large amount of pollution and accumulation of plastic waste … All these problems do not affect anyone other than the very creatures that populate the planet.
Our food industry, the quality of the air we breathe, the water we drink, our health, our sources of energy … Ultimately, our future and our lives – and those of the other creatures that populate our planet – depend on the actions that are directed to the conservation of the environment , with ways to slow down (or at least, to delay as much as possible) the processes that are unleashing the changes in the Earth that endanger its habitability.
‘Breaking’ with the Earth: ‘it’s not you, it’s me’
Scientific visionaries like the brilliant Stephen Hawking have called on their own species to leave the planet. Every year new worlds are discovered in more or less distant stars; some of them potentially habitable. Although for now we lack the technology to travel to one of them – in addition to the fact that it is still very difficult to be sure that we will be able to live in these distant exotors – it is possible that in the future humanity may continue on its way as an interplanetary species. But for this, a painful break with our planetary cradle will have to occur.
If this happens and indeed the human being transcends the Earth, it will probably leave numerous human lives on the way, and thousands of species will be annihilated.
In fact, that break may already be taking place, in an awkward conversation with Earth: “It’s not you; it’s me”. It is not you [whom we must save], it is our insects. It’s not you, it’s the forests. It’s not you, it’s the oceans. It’s not you, it’s the ozone layer.
We are in crisis with the Earth, and for this problem there are no easy solutions. We can try to minimize emissions by walking towards a clean energy transition that finally frees us from dependence on fossil fuels. In addition, severe changes in our food, means of transport, industrial production and waste management must be put in place. And, for all this, technological innovation is our best ally.
However, despite achieving the ambitious goals, we may not be able to ensure that the Earth maintains the delicate conditions that make life possible. And, if we perish in it, we will be that anecdotal (and moderately intelligent) species that did not succeed . For its part, the Earth will remember us as a slight and annoying tingle of a few million years as it says to itself: “To the next geological Age.”
