sexta-feira, 14 de junho de 2013

Gaia’s womb

12/05/2013

Humanity entered the 21th century with a colossal problem created by its own ingenuity: will nature, as we know it, cope with the climate change caused by global warming? Of course that is in no way an altruistic enquiring, for our existence, although sometimes we forget it, depends uniquely on our intricate relationship with nature. We not only depend on nature, we are also part of it, so when self-perseveration is thought of, it is primordial to first recognize the importance of maintaining our environment as it is fit to our survival.
Human kind didn’t evolve on its own in to Homo sapiens, we coevoluted with nature [1], and that is the key aspect to why preserving nature is the first step to preserve our own species. Lovelock [2] created a fascinating theory called “the Gaia hypothesis” based on the analysis of Earth’s atmosphere. He proposes that the atmosphere is a component part of the biosphere rather than a mere environment for life, otherwise stated, life maintains the environment so as to it provides to the living’s necessities. Therefore, if nature is destroyed so will be the environment we are able to live in.
Coevolution is such a delicate issue that even pathogens may be important in living a healthy life. Some studies [3,4] suggest that viral infections early in life may have a role in preventing allergies further on. Gravity is another essential factor to us and it became an important issue in the space exploration age. Without gravity we immediately start losing muscle [5], bone density [6] and even our immune system starts decaying [7]. We were literally made to live in the environment we live in, and global scale changes are a big threat to us.
When the nations’ representatives discuss protocols that can limit the impact of green house gases, a common counterargument of implementing them is the impact that it will cause in the economy.  What they fail to see is although we could hardly destroy nature per se –because life has a high resilience and will probably reorganize itself in another livable biosphere; we can change our environment so that it will no longer support us. The recently premiered movie “After Earth” goes beyond the idea of nature not supporting us, in the movie nature actually rejects humans. The plot discusses that because we weren’t able to keep an ecological balance, Earth evolved to eliminate us.
It is impossible to discuss humanity without discussing nature as a whole: there is no place we can live other than Earth simply because we evolved with her; and we are only alive now because Gaia provides the appropriate conditions for it. Our importance, therefore, is only relevant after our Mothers will. We live inside and are sustained by her womb.

1- Levin, A. S. Ecosystems and the Biosphere as Complex Adaptive Systems. USA, 1998. Ecosystems (1998) 1: 431-436. Available in: http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs100219900037.pdf
2- Lovelock, J. E. Lynn M. Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: the gaia hypothesis. USA, 1973. Tellus XXVI (1974) 1-2: 2-10.
3- Martinez, F. and D. Role of viral infections in the inception of asthma and allergies during childhood: could they be protective? USA, 1994. Thorax 1994 49: 1189-1191.
Available in: http://thorax.bmj.com/content/49/12/1189.full.pdf
4- Xepapadaki P. and Papadopoulos N. G. Viral infections and allergies. Greece, 2007. Immunobiology 212 (2007) 453–459.
5- Fitts, R. H.; Riley,  D. R. and Widrick J. J. Functional and structural adaptations of skeletal muscle to microgravity. USA, 2001. The Journal of Experimental Biology [On-line].
Available in: http://jeb.biologists.org/content/204/18/3201.full
6- Holick, M. F. Microgravity-induced bone losswill it limit human space exploration? USA, 2000. The Lancet, Volume 355, Issue 9215, 6 May 2000: 15691570.
7- Sonnenfeld, G. The immune system in space and microgravity. Med. Sci. Sports Exerc., Vol. 34, No. 12, pp. 2021–2027, 2002.

 *This is part of a series of writings I did to train for an english test. I'm not a native english writer but, recently, I started studding to be as if I were one. I hope to see my improvement as I post my studies here.


Nenhum comentário:

Postar um comentário