The good news: Gaia is real, and she can take care of
herself. There will be life on Earth until the sun
swallows it.

The bad news: Gaia regarded the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg)
Extinction Event the way we regard a mild case of sunburn.

--
Joy Beeson
joy beeson at centurylink dot net

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In article <[email protected]>,
Joy Beeson <[email protected]d> wrote:

The good news: Gaia is real, and she can take care of
herself. There will be life on Earth until the sun
swallows it.

The bad news: Gaia regarded the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg)
Extinction Event the way we regard a mild case of sunburn.

Would that make the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event a 2nd degree
sunburn?

--
"We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."
Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_. -------------------------------------------------------
Robert Woodward [email protected]

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On 4/24/25 10:33 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

The good news: Gaia is real, and she can take care of
herself. There will be life on Earth until the sun
swallows it.

The bad news: Gaia regarded the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg)
Extinction Event the way we regard a mild case of sunburn.

I'm reminded of a George Carlin talk where he pointed out that "saving
the Earth" is nonsense. Earth will survive anything we can do to it. We
might not.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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Evelyn C. Leeper <[email protected]> wrote:

Robert Woodward <[email protected]> wrote:

Joy Beeson <[email protected]d> wrote:

The good news: Gaia is real, and she can take care of herself.
There will be life on Earth until the sun swallows it.

But if people are extinct, life won't survive after the sun swallows
the Earth. People can move life elsewhere, or can move the whole
Earth. It's unlikely that another intelligent species will evolve.

The bad news: Gaia regarded the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg)
Extinction Event the way we regard a mild case of sunburn.

Would that make the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event a 2nd degree
sunburn?

The fact that neither the trilobites or the dinosaurs were able to
avoid their doom is strong evidence that without us, whatever comes
next will also be doomed.

I find watching the series "Life After People" oddly reassuring.

I'll admit that the end of our species wouldn't be all bad, since it
would include Republicans, Democrats, police, prosecutors, free-lance criminals, and people who stuff this newsgroup with endless discussion
of Dr. Who.

Re "Life After People," never mind when the last artificial light will
go out, what I want to know is when the last automated scam phone call
will take place.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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Gary McGath <[email protected]> writes:

On 4/24/25 10:33 PM, Joy Beeson wrote:

The good news: Gaia is real, and she can take care of
herself. There will be life on Earth until the sun
swallows it.
The bad news: Gaia regarded the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg)
Extinction Event the way we regard a mild case of sunburn.

I'm reminded of a George Carlin talk where he pointed out that "saving
the Earth" is nonsense. Earth will survive anything we can do to
it. We might not.

Well, perhaps not the Earth either. In David Brin's aptly named "Earth"
novel, scientists have created a micro black hole that gets loose and
starts orbiting within the Earth itself, slowly accreting
mass. Eventually the Earth will implode. It has been a long time since I
read the novel: I think they finally managed to save the planet, but
if some real-life supercollider manages to make a black hole, we might
not be so fortunate.
--
-Don_from_AZ-

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Don_from_AZ <[email protected]d> wrote:

Gary McGath <[email protected]> writes:

I'm reminded of a George Carlin talk where he pointed out that
"saving the Earth" is nonsense. Earth will survive anything we
can do to it. We might not.

Well, perhaps not the Earth either. In David Brin's aptly named
"Earth" novel, scientists have created a micro black hole that gets
loose and starts orbiting within the Earth itself, slowly accreting
mass. Eventually the Earth will implode. It has been a long time
since I read the novel: I think they finally managed to save the
planet, but if some real-life supercollider manages to make a black
hole, we might not be so fortunate.

When I experienced the 2011 earthquake here in Virginia, that was
my first thought: That those who warned that the LHC or some other
collider would create a black hole that would swallow up the Earth
were right, and I was about to fall 4000 miles straight down, along
with everyone and everything else on Earth.

It retrospect it's a rather silly idea. Every day for billions of
years, Earth has been exposed to cosmic rays with far higher energies
than LHC could ever reach. If planets could so easily collapse,
our solar system would contain a lot fewer planets and a lot more planetary-mass black holes. And yes, someone would have noticed
such black holes by now. Just ask Adams and Le Verrier.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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On 4/26/25 1:05 PM, Don_from_AZ wrote:

Gary McGath <[email protected]> writes:

I'm reminded of a George Carlin talk where he pointed out that "saving
the Earth" is nonsense. Earth will survive anything we can do to
it. We might not.

Well, perhaps not the Earth either. In David Brin's aptly named "Earth" novel, scientists have created a micro black hole that gets loose and
starts orbiting within the Earth itself, slowly accreting
mass. Eventually the Earth will implode. It has been a long time since I
read the novel: I think they finally managed to save the planet, but
if some real-life supercollider manages to make a black hole, we might
not be so fortunate.

See also Larry Niven's "The Hole Man." In that story it's Mars which is
slowly turned into Swiss cheese.

--
Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

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Gary McGath <[email protected]> wrote:

See also Larry Niven's "The Hole Man." In that story it's Mars
which is slowly turned into Swiss cheese.

Or his "Wrong-Way Street" in which it happens to the moon -- billions
of years in the past, causing all of recorded history to never have
happened. Be careful with time machines and with black hole controls.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.

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Keith F. Lynch <[email protected]> wrote:

Or his "Wrong-Way Street" in which it happens to the moon -- billions
of years in the past, causing all of recorded history to never have
happened. Be careful with time machines and with black hole controls.

Sheesh, nobody uses time machines anymore. They'll become obsolete
in the future.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

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