(Stillness in the Storm Editor) Human life is inexorably impactful on the Earth. But is this impact beneficial or deleterious? The following article reveals that our technological innovations might not be so great after all.
In the age of planned obsolescence and instant gratification, we tend not to care about the impact of our choices. And hidden forces are intentionally pushing an agenda to change the ecosystems of the planet for nefarious reasons and agendas. What better way to terraform an ecosystem for a transhumanist agenda than to have a society’s trash filled with compounds that alter the environment? This is precisely what our world is doing, we’re changing the planet with each piece of trash we throw away. As an example of this, consider how much industrial farming has almost completely destroyed ecosystems in as little as 80 years.
The good news is everything that makes modern life so advantageous can be repurposed to benefit the environment instead of destroy it. But, such methods will remain unused if the people continue to vote for destruction with their purchases.
We are more powerful than we realize, and our responsibility to the present and future generations is to seek the truth about what our habits do to the world around us—ethical living. We can either be gardeners of the Earth or its destroyers, the choice is ours.
(Alexa Erickson) There’s no doubt that humans have made quite an impact on Planet Earth, especially due to global development. Now, scientists have identified an explosion of newly formed minerals created as a direct result of our influence on the chemical makeup of the planet.
by Alexa Erickson, March 11th, 2017
What’s most intriguing about this is that never before has a species defined their existence by creating new, naturally forming minerals.
“This is a spike of mineral novelty that is so rapid – most of it in the last 200 years, compared to the 4.5bn year history of Earth. There is nothing like it in Earth’s history,” study team member Robert Hazen from the Carnegie Institution for Science told The Guardian. “This is a blink of an eye, it is just a surge and of course we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.”
It’s pretty simple to see how humans have done this, too. We’ve sourced glass, aluminum, petroleum based plastics, gold, copper, silver, and so much more, and have overlapped them to create various everyday things. So it only makes sense that such close proximity would result in new minerals being created.
Hazen and his team examined 5,208 minerals on Earth recognized by the International Mineralogical Association as official minerals, and discovered that 208 of them only exist because of human activity. Most of the 208 minerals were formed during mining.
And other new minerals could be forming from our trash, encrusting old batteries, and electrical appliances.
“There are probably all sorts of things forming as a result of old silicon chips or batteries,” Hazen told Chelsea Whyte from New Scientist.
“TVs have all these exotic phosphors they use, and magnets and all sorts of high-tech materials. When you start hydrating and oxidizing them, you’re going to start finding a lot of exotic new materials.”
The rapid increase of new minerals corresponds with the new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, and defines humanity’s influence on geologic time. Though it is highly debated among experts, one common thought is that it began during atomic weapons testing in 1940s, when humans smothered the planet in plutonium from the explosions.
Most of the 5,225 minerals that make up the International Mineral Association’s list came to be as a result of the Great Oxygenation Event 2.3 billion years ago. This is when oxygen levels, which had been at zero, spontaneously rose from photosynthetic cyanobacteria. Such an event is thought to have given rise to the aerobic organisms that ultimately led to human existence.
“Simply put, we live in an era of unparalleled inorganic compound diversification. Indeed, if the Great Oxidation eons ago was a ‘punctuation event’ in Earth’s history, the rapid and extensive geological impact of the Anthropocene is an exclamation mark,” explained Hazen in a press release.
This new study provides even more evidence of just how much humans have influenced the planet.
“If you’re a geologist who came back 100,000 years or a million or a billion years from now … you would find amazing mineralogical evidence of a completely different time,” Hazen told The Washington Post.
Now we will have to wait and see if the study’s argument holds up.
“That’s really I think the most important factor in deciding whether or not the Anthropocene is a new geological time period – the fact that we have created these materials, these crystals, that are incredibly diverse and beautiful and they persist through billions of years,” Hazen told Nicola Davis at The Guardian.
About The Author
Alexa Erickson
Inspired by balance, Alexa finds that her true inner peace comes from executing a well-rounded lifestyle. An avid yogi, hiker, beach bum, music and art enthusiast, salad aficionado, adventure seeker, animal lover, and professional writer, she is an active individual who loves to express herself through the power of words.
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