History Of The World

There's a tropical storm (Arthur), the first named storm of the season (which started June 1), it's just off the east coast of Florida.  Hamas celebrated the kidnapping of three Israeli teens who were later found dead. Israel blew up some Hamas leaders in Gaza then a Palestinian teenager was found dead. And Belgium defeated the U.S. in he World Cup.

None of that is important. The other day I recorded "The History Of The World In Two Hours" on the History Channel. And I watched it in two sessions (I was interrupted by Faye wanting to watch some other program we had recorded that night and Faye Must Be Obeyed). The show was quite interesting. It started with the Big Bang (but did not explain how matter moved faster than light in the initial period just after) and brought the viewer all the way up to present day. Lots of interesting stuff. Quite a bit of it was absolutely true with only a smattering of speculation (not labeled as such) tossed in.

The interesting thing in that history is the rise of human beings. It's interesting because I am a human being so I tend to identify with them. I know, I know, there are people insisting we are the cause of Climate Change and it could destroy all life on the planet. I don't agree, however. I think life will continue. In fact, I think human beings will survive. We have had mass extinctions a number of times in the planet's history; wiping out the dominant species or form of life  of the period. Each time, another species or form of life grew to become dominant.

When I was a young and impressionable child, my teachers taught us that the dinosaurs died out because they couldn't adapt to the climate change (ice ages). That was the belief at the time. It would be much later when somone theorized that it might have been a huge meteor crashing into the area just north of what is now called the Yucatan. That theory was not believed until much later when someone discovered evidence of the crater. I thought the earlier belief was a bit silly because the dinosaurs were dominant for 160 million years and man had only been (possibly) dominant for less than 50,000 years. Some might say we have only been dominant for less than 5,000 years. There was no comparison in my mind.

But it was clear that a rapid change in the environment led to the demise of dinosaurs and that humans eventually evolved from the few mammals that existed and survived. Why did these animals survive? Because they could adapt. Not all of them did, of course. And that is the point. If some life survives, it will thrive and it will multiply. Because, after all, the planet is is just close enough to the sun and all the turmoil of the early millions of years of the planet have resulted in an optimum environment for life.

The odds that we could trigger a cataclysmic extinction event seem incredibly small. And, that it would last long enough to wipe out all life is impossible for me to believe. All the ants, all the cockroaches gone forever? Sorry, I doubt that. All human life? Maybe, just maybe. I suspect, though, that some humans would survive and eventually thrive again. Maybe not as the dominant form of life but maybe we will again become dominant.

But that's just me.