What was the planet before the appearance of man. The history of the development of the planet earth. Who are they - the "older race" and why did they leave our planet
A well-known Russian specialist claims that before the appearance of people on earth, there were four more civilizations.
The well-known Russian specialist Ernst Muldashev, an ophthalmologist by profession and a researcher by vocation, is looking for traces of the disappearance of civilizations. According to Muldashev, there were four civilizations on earth that disappeared by the time of the appearance of mankind, but left their traces.
Asura
Asuras, or self-born, were the first race on earth, appearing 10 million years ago. They were incredibly tall, almost 50 meters, had an ethereal body, lived for ten thousand years, and used telepathy to communicate with each other. They had to move to Earth as a result of the death of the planet Phaeton.
Atlanta
Gradually, the asuras changed, their bodies became more dense. Thus, a new race of Atlanteans gradually formed, "born after. They were slightly smaller in size, they still had no bones, but there was a third eye located between the eyebrows.
Lemurians
After the Atlanteans, the Lemurians appeared on earth. They were much more like modern people, they had a bone skeleton, there was a division by gender, the third eye was still there, but no longer as well developed as that of the Atlanteans. The growth of the Lemurians was about 7-8 meters, and they lived for about a thousand years. According to Muldashev, they built the Sphinx, Stonehenge and other amazing monuments.
Borea
This race was formed later, its representatives were much lower, no more than 3-4 meters, the third eye was well hidden, and the rest of the organs were very similar to human ones.
According to Muldashev, about 25-30 thousand years ago, a nuclear catastrophe occurred on our planet as a result of a conflict between the Lemurians and the Boreas. Part of the Lemurians hid in the caves, where they fell into a state similar to hibernation "samadhi", and the other part flew away on spaceships.
The Boreas, or late Atlanteans, reached unprecedented heights of development, but also failed to maintain their civilization and died about 12 thousand years ago.
Arias
Our race, the fifth in a row, Muldashev calls Aryan. The birth of the fifth civilization took place about 12 thousand years ago, shortly before the death of Atlantis. The ancestors of modern people already lacked a third eye, which is why our civilization is developing so slowly.
The existence of more ancient civilizations is confirmed by archaeological finds, rock paintings, and references to aircraft in legends and traditions.
The science
Life has existed since before the appearance of the Earth and, possibly, was outside the solar system scientists say.
Two geneticists applied their knowledge of computer science and biology and came to the conclusion that organic life first appeared long before our planet.
Alexey Sharov from the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, USA and theoretical biologist Richard Gordon applied the scientific Moore's law to make a mathematical calculation.
Moore's Law states that the complexity of computers is increasing exponentially, that is, the number of transistors on a chip chip is doubling every 2 years. Geneticists have replaced transistors with nucleotides - the building blocks of DNA and RNA and calculated when life arose on Earth
The results showed that life appeared about 10 billion years ago, that is, much earlier than the estimated age of the Earth - 4.5 billion years ago.
How is this possible? Scientists explained that when our solar system was forming, organisms similar to bacteria or simple nucleotides from older parts of the galaxy came to Earth along with comets, asteroids and other inorganic space debris.
In science, this process is called panspermia.
Although many may be skeptical of such an idea, scientists believe that bacterial spore pollution from space is the most plausible hypothesis for the origin of life on Earth.
"We are 99 percent sure that life appeared before the Earth, 1 percent is left for some ridiculous accident that we did not take into account," Sharov explained.
Origin of life on earth
How did life originate on earth? There are several theories on this.
Development of life on Earth
The earth has been around for a little over 4.5 billion years. The beginning was quite brutal, when meteorites constantly fell to Earth. When this period ended, the Earth cooled and a crust formed on its surface.
As such, there were no continents - only the oceans with small islands. Erosion, sedimentation, and volcanic activity eventually created small primary continents that grew until they reached their current size 2.5 billion years ago.
Throughout history, the earth has undergone many geological and biological changes.
Brief stages of life on Earth:
- 3.8 billion years ago the first form of life appeared - prokaryotes
- 2.1 billion years ago multicellular life forms appeared
- 1.5 billion years ago eukaryotes appeared - cells containing a nucleus
- 200 million years ago appeared kind Homo sapiens(smart person)
Many of us watched Jurassic Park and admired the gigantic monsters recreated by technology. However, our knowledge of dinosaurs is often limited to what is presented in this nostalgic film. We publish 13 facts that will surprise you.
Walt Disney insisted on an anatomically incorrect depiction of the T-Rex
In the cartoon "Fantasy" (1940), a tyrannosaurus is depicted with three fingers on its front limbs. In fact, tyrannosaurs have only two fingers. The famous cartoonist added another one, as it looks scarier and more familiar to the human eye.
Dinosaurs ruled the earth for 160 million years
Reptiles have lived on Earth since before the advent of dinosaurs. About 300 million years ago, global warming occurred, which caused an evolutionary explosion among reptiles. The first dinosaurs appeared on Earth in the Mesozoic era about 230 million years ago, and the mass extinction of these giant reptiles occurred 65 million years ago. For comparison, the age of the oldest remains of Homo sapiens is only 200 thousand years.
Dinosaur extinction was not instantaneous
Experts believe that dinosaurs were already on the brink of extinction when the asteroid hit Earth. According to the biospheric hypothesis, the extinction of dinosaurs predetermined the appearance of flowering plants, which significantly changed the food chains in ecosystems and the gradual climate change caused by continental drift.
41% of Americans believe dinosaurs and humans existed in the same era
41% of American adults believe that dinosaurs and humans lived side by side. Of course, this is not true. But next to a man on Earth live birds, which are direct descendants of dinosaurs. Most researchers are inclined to believe that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs from the maniraptor group.
The word "dinosaur" appeared in the 19th century
In 1824, the President of the Royal Geological Society, William Buckland, made a presentation on the discovery made in 1815 in Great Britain. They were some giant bones. Buckland classified the find as the remains of a giant predatory lizard and called it a megalosaurus - "a huge lizard." In the two decades since Buckland's report, biologists have unearthed other colossal remains. In 1842, the English biologist Richard Owen stated the similarities between the described new species of lizards and their difference from modern reptiles. He identified these in a special suborder, calling it Dinosauria (Latin for "terrible lizard").
Velociraptors in Jurassic Park are wrong
Velociraptors in the Jurassic Park movie are huge bloodthirsty pangolins that hunted in packs and most often attacked people. In fact, Velociraptors were only 50-80 cm tall and never hunted in packs. But the closest relatives of these dinosaurs, Deinonychus, were twice the size of Velociraptors and often huddled in groups for hunting. The scriptwriter of the film, Michael Crichton, was based on a reconstruction of Deinonychus when writing.
Dilophosaurus didn't spit venom
Another mistake in Jurassic Park: screenwriter Michael Crichton attributed the weakness of the Dilophosaurus jaws to the fact that he hunted by hitting the victim with poisonous saliva sprayed over a long distance. This was done solely for dramatic effect: Dilophosaurus was not poisonous at all.
T-Rex was a scavenger
Many used to think that the tyrannosaurus rex is the most bloodthirsty hunter of the Jurassic period. However, scientists have long argued about its diet. Some paleontologists have argued that the regal T-Rex was actually a scavenger, as they believe its teeth were not adapted for hunting. However, now scientists have come to the conclusion that tyrannosaurs could eat both fresh meat and carrion at the same time. Younger dinosaurs had to hunt for food, while older dinosaurs took prey from the young.
Some lizards weighed 60 tons
The largest dinosaur is considered to be a dreadnoughtus from the genus of titanosaurs. Its length was about 26 meters, and its weight was 59.3 tons. This corresponds to the weight of a dozen African elephants or seven T-Rex. The giant lizard was named after the largest warships of the early twentieth century. This dinosaur was discovered in 2014. It is assumed that the discovered dreadnought died at the time of the flood of the ancient river: under the weight of the animal, the soil turned into a kind of quicksand and swallowed up the colossal reptile.
Stegosaurus brain is very light
It is widely believed that the brain of a Stegosaurus was the size of a walnut. Indeed, in 2013, paleontologist Lawrence Whitmer revealed in a Facebook post that he and his colleagues had come up with a new unit of measurement for the dinosaur brain, the walnut, and it was misrepresented by the press. What the scientist actually meant was that the brain of a Stegosaurus (which is actually the size of a dog) looks like a walnut on the scale of these animals. Indeed, it is very light: 70 grams per 2 tons of live weight. However, in the spinal canal of Stegosaurus there is an extension filled with nervous tissue. Scientists called it the "second brain" of the dinosaur. This expansion is now thought to be responsible for supplying the nervous system with glycogen.
Sauropods swallowed stones
It is known that sauropods (these are herbivorous dinosaurs, including brachiosaurs and diplodocus) swallowed small stones to improve digestion. Birds and crocodiles inherited this tradition from their distant ancestors.
Dinosaur eggs are not always white
Dinosaur eggs are usually white. However, in 2015, scientists discovered pigments that colored the shell blue and green. The pigments biliverdin and protoporphyrin are found in the eggs of some ancient bird orders. Dinosaur eggs of the species Heyuannia huangi had a camouflage coloration similar to the color of the eggs of modern emus.
Soft tissues can be stored for millions of years
In 1981, amateur paleontologists discovered the remains of a dinosaur that was later named Scipionyx samniticus (Scipio's claw). This find became famous because of the unique preservation of fossilized soft tissues and internal organs such as muscles and intestines, as well as the internal structure of some muscle and bone cells.
Goals and objectives of the lesson:
- To form the ability to determine the structure of a complex sentence.
- To form the ability to place punctuation marks in a complex sentence.
- To teach to see the synonymic possibilities of subordinate clauses.
During the classes
1. Organization of the beginning of the lesson.
3. Vocabulary and semantic work.
Using a dictionary, write out synonyms for the word active. Explain the common in synonyms and the difference between them.
(Active- active, energetic Active member. Active- showing special energy, diligence in the implementation of a smth. affairs. Active nature. Vigorous– full of energy; active, active. energetic people. Initiative- possessing the initiative; enterprising, capable of independent action. Initiative person.)
4. Explanation of new material.
Analysis of the sentences written on the board.
- They sat in the garden where the orchestra was playing. (K. Fedin)
- Only he is worthy of life and freedom who every day goes to fight for them. (I. W. Goethe)
The analysis is carried out according to the following plan:
- What question does the subordinate clause answer?
- Which word in the main clause is it?
- How are the attributive clauses attached to the main?
- Can there be demonstrative words in the main sentence? Are they mandatory or optional? What is the role of demonstrative words?
- What is the place of subordinate clauses in relation to the main?
(It is necessary to focus students' attention on the functions of allied and demonstrative words. It is proved that where- allied word, it is replaced by the word garden, is a circumstance of a place, has a logical stress, it can be replaced by another allied word, it introduces a definitive meaning into the sentence with a touch of the circumstance of a place. index word volume is a definition in the main sentence, it is introduced as a means of clarification and emphasis (not any garden, but the one where the orchestra played).
The analysis of proposals according to the plan should lead to the drawing up of a diagram that reflects the structure of a complex sentence with an attributive clause:
[… dict. sl. + n.], (allied words which, which, where, where, what, who, etc.)
Then the students are given the task to talk about the relative clauses, using the material of the textbook.
5.
a) Consolidation of the concept of definitive clauses can be carried out using the exercises in the textbook.
b) Perform syntactic analysis of the 1st sentence. Chart 2nd offer.
- The line along which the body moves is called the trajectory of motion.
- A chemical element is a certain type of substance, all the atoms of which have the same nuclear charge. (scientific style)
(Pay attention of students to the place of the allied word in the 2nd sentence. Clarification: if it is important to emphasize a characteristic feature, property, quality of an object or phenomenon, an attributive clause is used).
c) Performing an exercise to coordinate the allied word with defined.
Add a definitive clause to this sentence using the allied word which the in different cases.
Already several times it began to fall large, fertile rain.
- … which is so dear to the earth yearning for it.
- ... after which young grass grows before our eyes and new shoots stretch out.
(Attention is drawn to the difficulties of coordinating the allied word with the defined, which consist in the fact that the allied words which, whose, what are in double relation with the main sentence. They agree in gender and number with the noun of the main clause to which the subordinate clause refers, but are controlled by the verbs of the subordinate clauses (they are not controlled only when they perform the function of the subject). In addition, a subordinate clause may not begin with a union word, but with a preposition, noun or phrase).
6. Homework.
Lesson goals and objectives: to consolidate knowledge about the structure of complex sentences with attributive clauses, punctuation marks.
During the classes
1. Organization of the beginning of the lesson.
2. Checking homework.
a) The birch trees that were just planted near the fence under him have grown and have now become tall branched trees. (A. Pushkin)
b) The small room I entered was rather dark.
(In the 1st sentence, a replacement is not possible, since it is necessary to convey a general definitive meaning. In the 2nd sentence, it is advisable to replace with an allied word where to show a spatial sign, such a union word is used by I. Turgenev).
a) Again I visited that corner of the earth where I spent two imperceptible years as an exile. (A. Pushkin)
b) For reading, we chose a book that everyone would be interested in.
(In the 1st sentence, the demonstrative word gives a shade of emphasis, and in the 2nd sentence, the demonstrative word such with union to determines the subject according to its purpose (goal).
a) What is a rhombus? b) What literary work is called a novel? c) What is a compound sentence?
3.
Analysis of sentences present in the text with subordinate clauses. Students are invited to think about why only one allied word is used in the text to attach a subordinate clause to the main one. which the.
historical geology
On Earth, even before the appearance of man, events took place for millions of years that changed our planet. The seas repeatedly attacked the land, which eroded and destroyed it. The mountain ranges rising from the waters of the sea were undermined by rain and snow waters, as well as glaciers that descended from the mountain peaks. At the bottom of the seas, on islands and on the continents, volcanoes erupted molten lava, which covered vast areas, changing the face of the Earth beyond recognition.
All the changes that the globe has undergone since the formation of the earth's crust on it and up to the present time are studied by historical geology. Historical geology establishes not only events that took place over millions of years. She studies their sequence. She is interested in what was before and what is later.
Questions and tasks for the exercise:
- What is the role of complex sentences in this text?
- Is it possible to convey the content of the text using only simple sentences?
- What linguistic means are used to connect the sentences in the text? Prove it's text.
And would it be the same as it is today, if we did not exist at all?
Imagine for a moment that the last 125,000 years of Earth's history are recorded somewhere on tape—a thin, old-fashioned tape tucked between two metal spools. With each second, a certain amount of film is unwound from one cassette and wound onto another. Now imagine that there is an opportunity to stop the film, intervene in this process and change the direction of movement. We do a rewind.
Gradually, with each new turn of the reel, our current reality is removed. An area of natural forests and woodland the size of 10 football fields is being restored every minute. During each year, an area slightly larger than Denmark is again covered with forest. It takes only 150 years to rewind everything that was lost. At the same time, the clusters of cities are receding like a concrete mass. Mega-cities shrink to the size of ordinary cities, then shrink to the level of villages and villages, and after that green swaths of untouched and uncultivated land reappear. Existing rivers are freed from dams. The ozone layer is being restored. The remains of the estimated 108 billion people who lived on the planet are removed from the earth, and fossil fuels, precious stones and metals, and other minerals extracted from the bowels are returned to their original place. Tons of garbage polluting the planet, including sulfur dioxide and carbon, are sucked out of the atmosphere.
Finally, we find ourselves at a point that seems unthinkably far from us - 125 thousand years ago. In geological terms, this may feel like yesterday, but the length of time between then and now represents the entirety of human existence on the planet. By rewinding the tape back to this point, we have eliminated virtually all traces of human impact on the Earth. And what happened?
125,000 years ago, the Earth was in the middle of the Eemian Interglacial, which lasted 15,000 years and was a temperature phase between longer and colder ice ages. Suddenly the whole world became warm and green. In the northern hemisphere, continental snow cover has receded south almost to the level of Germany in Europe and Illinois in North America.
“Then it was a little warmer than it is today, and the sea level may have been a little higher, and at its maximum level,” emphasizes Ian Tattersall, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in the City of New York ( American Museum of Natural History).
One of the beneficiaries of this warming has been Homo sapiens- a reasonable person. Our species first appeared about 200 thousand years ago in eastern Africa, 125 thousand years ago the population of this species was probably somewhere between 10-100 thousand individuals. They earned their own food, hunted and made the first raids, leaving the homes of their ancestors.
However, we were not alone. “At that time, there were at least three lines of hominids,” notes Tattersall, an expert in early human evolution. - In Africa there was a reasonable man ( Homo sapiens); Homo erectus settled in the eastern part of Asia ( Homo erectus), which subsequently became extinct; and Neanderthals lived in Europe.”
Other members of the human race, both unknown and partially known to us, struggled to survive in other parts of the planet. “No one knows what happened in Africa,” Tattersall said. “There were hominids in Africa that looked very different from modern Homo sapiens.”
Large animals also abounded in the world—whales in the ocean and gigantic herds of herbivores on land. “I think that if it were possible to teleport to that world, then you would immediately pay attention to the megafauna,” emphasizes environmental historian Jed Kaplan from the Interdisciplinary Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Geneva in Switzerland (University of Geneva "s Institute for Environmental Sciences). - You would find huge herds of animals moving around the world. There would be woolly mammoths that inhabited the Arctic. And you would undoubtedly be able to see bison. In Europe, you could find large cats, and in America there would probably be a lot of horses, and also a large number of bears, wolves, and also a lot of herd animals.
Going beyond nature
But then, without any warning, everything changed. Or, to be precise, human beings first changed, and then the same thing happened to the outside world. “Something terrible happened right at the moment when people began to behave in a modern way, and this began 100,000 years ago,” says Tattersall. “And it was at that time that human beings, in a certain sense, went beyond nature, found themselves in opposition to it and began to do all the stupid things that we are very familiar with today.”
Reading the list of stupid things Tattersall talks about is sobering. In just 2,000 years before the birth of Christ, the world population was several tens of millions. In 1700, after the birth of Christ, there were already 600 million people on the planet; and today their number is slightly more than 7 billion and continues to increase, according to experts, by 220 thousand people a day. And that's just human beings. According to the FAO, the global cattle population is 1.4 billion, and in addition, at any given time, there are about a billion more pigs and sheep, as well as 19 billion chickens, that is, almost three for every person.
According to the data we have, we use more energy today than ever before. In the 20th century alone, its consumption increased 16 times. Since 1870, approximately 944 billion barrels of oil, or 135 billion tons, have been extracted from the Earth's interior, according to a 2009 report in the International Journal of Oil, Gas and Coal Technology. In 2011 alone, the United States produced more than a billion tons of coal, and China - 3 times more.
We have also radically changed the landscape. Agriculture, coupled with the use of fire almost everywhere, subjugated the environment and gave it a different form. In many regions, cultivated land has replaced natural vegetation. From 30% to 50% of the earth's surface is currently used in one way or another for the benefit of man, and we consume more than half of the available fresh water.
Especially rice production has flattened all ecosystems. “People are creating small dams,” said Earle Ellis, an environmental specialist at the University of Maryland. “And it changes the whole sediment movement in the river basins. The goal is to create wetlands suitable for rice cultivation in many places. As a result, a large number of areas have become flatter. It makes an impression."
There are very few places left in the modern world that look the way they would if there were no human intervention at all. “There are very few landscapes left untouched, especially in Europe,” says Kaplan. - There are practically no forests left where you could see large dead trees just lying on the ground. It's incredibly rare."
Just from the moment when man began to oppose himself to still preserved nature, people spread throughout the world like seeds driven by gusts of wind, and as a result, about 125 thousand years ago they settled in the Middle East, 50 thousand years ago - in South Asia , 43 thousand years ago - in Europe, 40 thousand years ago - in Australia and in both Americas in the period from 30 thousand to 15 thousand years ago. The last heavily populated territory was New Zealand, and this happened about 700 years ago.
Everywhere people went, they brought animals with them - some deliberately (dogs, cats, pigs), and others accidentally (rats). The introduction of alien animal species into a delicately balanced ecosystem can have serious and irreversible consequences, says Ellis, especially for rats: “Their impact on the ecosystem is very large. All living creatures that create nests for themselves on the ground or in any other place accessible to rats are doomed.”
Of course, we ourselves are effective killers. As you know, many species of animals were exterminated as a result of hunting or persecution, and the dodos are the most famous example in this regard (their last confirmed sighting was recorded in 1662). Also gone were: Steller's sea cows (1768), nilgai antelopes (about 1800), Mauritius blue pigeon (1826), wingless auk (1852), sea mink (about 1860), Falkland wolf (1876), passenger pigeon (1914), and also Caribbean monk seal (1952). Many other species have also disappeared in our memory. Human beings are marching on the planet, and behind them, one after another, waves roll in, exterminating megafauna. The reasons for this are still being debated, but many are pointing the finger at us. “I actually believe that human beings contributed to the extinction of numerous species of megafauna,” notes Kaplan.
So, for example, 15 thousand years ago, human beings penetrated through Siberia to North America. “An unprecedented period of extermination has begun,” said Bill Ruddiman, climate scientist at the University of Virginia. “For this, something completely new was needed, and this new one turned out to be human beings.”
“The American west, the plains there, had a diversity that was much richer than what the Serengeti National Park is today,” says Ruddiman. “It was an amazing place. In addition to mammoths and mastodons, saber-toothed tigers, horses, camels, giant ground sloths lived there - all these species became extinct within a fairly short period of time. The most reliable evidence suggests that this happened about 15,000 years ago.”
Today, the vast—and mostly empty—spaces of the American West are vastly different from what they looked like 125,000 years ago.
The destruction of large animals by man has had an impact on the landscape, which is noticeable almost everywhere. “Wide spaces used to be semi-open, they became so as a result of the existence of a large number of grazing animals that feed on grass and branches, as well as predators,” says Kaplan. — It is important to remember that landscapes are also shaped by animals. Huge herds of buffalo trampled small trees and thus left the space open - of course, not to the same extent as the man who used the fire, but this influence was undoubtedly noticeable.
water world
In addition, we have devastated the oceans. According to a study published in 2010, the United Kingdom's fishing fleet has to work 17 times as hard today as it did in the 1880s to catch the same amount of fish. FAO estimates that more than half of the world's coastal fish resources are overfished.
Whaling has also changed the oceans beyond recognition. During the 20th century, some species of whales were on the verge of extinction, and their populations have not yet been restored. A controversial study published in the journal Science claims that the whale population was significantly larger before they were hunted than previously thought. According to this study, there were once 1.5 million humpback whales in the world, and not 100,000, as experts from the International Whaling Commission believe. The same can be said about minke whales, polar whales and sperm whales.
We have also changed the climate. In May of this year, the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the first time in millions of years exceeded 400 ppm; 125 thousand years ago, its content was 275 ppm. This increase is partly due to the use of fossil fuels, as well as a decrease in the number of forests, which for millions of years served as a virtually bottomless carbon sink.
This impact left a noticeable imprint on the ice on our planet. All over the world, glaciers began to shrink, and in some places they disappeared altogether. The US National Snow and Ice Data Center, organized at the University of Colorado in Boulder, monitors approximately 130,000 glaciers around the world. Some of them are increasing, but much more are decreasing. In general, we can say that for every glacier that increases in size, there are at least 10 shrinking ones. At the time of its creation in 1910, Montana Glacier National Park had 150 glaciers. Today their number does not exceed 30, and they have all shrunk in size. In 2009, the Chacaltaya glacier in Bolivia disappeared, and at one time it was the highest place in the world where ski lifts were located. The ice cover in the polar latitudes is being destroyed, and ice floes the size of a city are breaking off from it. In July of this year, a 30-kilometer crack in a glacier called "Pine Island" (Pine Island glacier) in Antarctica led to the formation of an iceberg the size of New York.
As a result of rewinding the tape of time, all traces of human influence on planet Earth disappear. And now, just for fun, let's play another game - remove the reasonable man altogether. Imagine that 125,000 years ago, a small number of our ancestors in eastern Africa would have been wiped out by some kind of catastrophe - a deadly virus, or maybe a natural disaster. And now let's fast forward the tape. What would our planet look like today if there were no modern human beings on it?
In some respects, the answer seems obvious: it would look much the same as it did 125,000 years ago. “We would have a continuously existing biosphere, and it would be such that it is even difficult for us to imagine. That is, there would be forests, savannahs and the like - and so on the entire surface of the planet, - emphasizes Jan Zalasiewicz, a geologist from the University of Leicester, located in the United Kingdom. No roads, no fields. No cities. Nothing of that sort." Large animals would exist in abundance on Earth, and whales and fish would be abundant in the seas.
However, this could not continue for a long time, Ruddiman believes. If human beings had died out 125,000 years ago, we would be entering a new ice age today. Glaciers would increase their size and move forward. In itself, this is a controversial idea, and Ruddiman has been criticized for it. However, today, ten years after he first expressed it, many climatologists agree with him.
“If you remove the human impact, there will be much more ice in the seas, and the tundra in the Arctic Circle will also increase in area,” he notes. “The boreal forests would have retreated and, most importantly, the ice cover would have increased in many northern regions — in the northern part of the Rocky Mountains, in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, in parts of northern Siberia. These are the earliest stages of the Ice Age. And that's the single most significant change."
Or maybe things would have turned out differently. It is possible that another human species, for example, Neanderthals, Homo erectus, or some hitherto unknown species, could take our place, and it would begin to determine everything that happens on the planet instead of us.
Tattersall doubts. “Having established themselves on Earth, would they follow our example? he asks. “Would they become a substitute for a reasonable person, which would indicate the existence of a certain kind of inevitability regarding what happened to us? I think it's unlikely."
However, there is an excellent counterargument to this.
“There’s also this concept, convergent evolution, which is that if we hadn’t come and done it, someone else would have done it,” says David Grinspoon, curator of astrobiology at the Museum. nature and science in Denver, Colorado. “In that case, there would be selective pressure on other species that would push towards the development path that we have taken, and where there is feedback between the big brain, language and abstract thinking, and also the development of agriculture. If the scenario is literally such that Homo sapiens dies out and the overall landscape remains, then perhaps something similar would happen. It wouldn't be exactly the same because there's a lot of randomness and it would probably take longer."
In short, all of this would have happened anyway. Perhaps the formation of the modern version of the Earth and our place on it was inevitable. Delete Homo sapiens out of this equation, restore forests and megafauna, and then maybe in 100 thousand years we will again get the same result - our greatest works, our achievements and our mistakes. Or at least something similar.
“I would like to have a magic crystal or some kind of alternative world viewfinder,” Grinspoon admits. “It would be great to know.”
