While awaiting my sure-to-be intriguing comments, PLEASE download this poster: http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/posters/2012%20Changing%20Planet.jpg It was a 2012 AAAS visualizations honorable mention. The Hughes Medical Institute might decide to put it behind a paywall. It hits a lot of things we will cover in class Besides, it's nifty keen.
Everybody's waste product is somebody else's "hey, that's pretty tasty". If your biology/ecology teachers didn't tell you, they left out some of the best parts. One Karen Chin (a paleontologist with a flair for this sort of thing) recently published a paper about snails livin' the high life in dinosaur dung. There are way too many other examples, but this one is below most people's radar. Anyway, now that the football game is over, those who have not yet snagged the poster should now do as they have been told. After a fit of (offline) procrastination, the first few episodes now exist in draft form. Have to punch them up a bit before posting though. Probably with additional scatological references The subtitle is still the same: Life on Earth is not like a Disney movie. It is a messy agglomeration of evolutionary kludges, absurd coincidences, and acts of major spite that somehow have come together as the best planet known to exist anywhere.
In a counter intuitive thought process, Laurence Gonzales in his book Deep Survival has an interesting tangent on the "purpose" of life. Most folks would consider the purpose of life is to reproduce and spread. His claim is the purpose of life is to consume and eliminate energy. Physical processes are much too inefficient. Primitive live processes can spread fast but are only good at simple processes. So to really make a dent in eliminating energy, enough intelligence is needed to contrive even more accelerated consumption. Certainly a viewpoint "Way Out There" but I always like the unexpected viewpoints.
Based On FL's intro, I thought that this book might be an update of Odum's emergy (note, I did not type energy). Instead, all I can get from Amazon's (kindly offered) preview is that somebod(ies) have found that some mental state can save some humans during some difficult circumstances. Which, we kinda already knew. The book may contain many other things that I cannot see. With the Earth having developed an oxygen atmosphere, the new critters (like humans) use reduced carbon to reduce internal entropy and keep it down. This is critical for survival. Thermodynamically we are a mess, but biologically it all sorta works. The sun continues to provide photons, plants on Earth continue to use (a few of them) to make reduced carbon, and everybody else benefits. The energy (heat produced in re) stays on board or is re-radiated, as the IR characteristics of the atmosphere permit. My planned Gaia chapters won't treat any of that further, but maybe I have to plan more Could do, if I understood what 'eliminate energy' means. 'Cause I don't.
I guess the best analogy I can give is like this. Life is to energy what Cars are to gasoline. Both consume with no "worries" about the eventual outcome. PS. Don't confuse the messenger with the message. I'm repeating a really unusual viewpoint, not endorsing that viewpoint. The book concerns how human survival (deep survival) requires serious planning and thinking. One of the core things he prioritizes is the need to think about energy conservation, something that only becomes important once we run short....when thinking is missing.
No CH.1 yet. I actually got some long-waited isotope data and need to work with that now. But I see that there is one Gaia-like Geology course with extensive notes on the internet Classes Taught Spring 2005 With substantial overlap, So, wander through it if you like. I may plagarize (er, adapt) some of those notes. Not most of it though; the prof. has tried to cram (er, include) a lot of geomorphology in, which I'd not. I'll bet there are several like this, and maybe therefore little reason for me to write lectures. OTOH I'd scarcely say that Schiebe has a flair for simple communication FL, planning ahead is sure not what life has done in the past. Parental care (which started pretty early with isopods!) would seem to be one of the exceptions. Humans have plenty of capacity, but not such glorious demonstrations. Isopod = wood lice = rolly polly/ From back in the days when evolution said: "ya want more legs? sure no problem. go for it"
Perhaps he meant, "make energy unavailable". Heat death and all that. Of course life actually has no purpose. The purpose of the universe is to make neutrinos; everything else is by-products.
If any here are breathlessly awaiting for me to commence, then just go to: Revolutions that Made the Earth: Hardback: Tim Lenton - Oxford University Press Where the first chapter of Lenton's book can be freely downloaded. We both cover much of the same beginning stuff. I think my treatments are better but don't let that dissuade you. Tim's got a publisher and he deserves it. His whole book (it says) will act as an antidote to the doom&gloom about climate? Great. We totally need that.
