Mummified leaves offer a glimpse of Earth’s ancient climate—and our future

Mummified leaves offer a glimpse of Earth’s ancient climate—and our future

I'm just not into doom porn fear mongering. So, here's the skinny. Humanity sucks and possibly doomed by its own self inflected ignorance. Thats the bad news.


The Good News for environmentalists

One of the fossilized leaves found in an ancient former lake bed in New ZealandJennifer Bannister/University of Otago

Earth will recover just fine and will look amazing. Thats how I interpret this find. It seems the Earth has dealt with worse things than what we've been doing and Life will find a way of course. I think this is great news, kinda like poetic justice. For me, whether any of us are around to see how she'll look or not is unimportant.

I mean, Earth is roughly 4.50 Billion years old, has had roughly Five Extinctions level events. Lets do the math.

Our Sun/Star has a lifespan, characterized by a formation, main sequence, and eventual death. This lifespan began roughly 4.6 billion years ago, and will continue for about another 4.5 – 5.5 billion years. I think Earth could squeeze in a few more mass extinction events before she retires.

23 million-year-old mummified leaves might give us a peak at how plants might respond to our changing climate in the distant future. In a study published on August 20 in the journal Climate of the Past, Biologists and geologists examined exceptionally well-preserved fossils from a lakebed in New Zealand and found evidence that they thrived in a time when the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was higher than it is today. Compared with those of modern plants in similar environments, the ancient leaves may have absorbed carbon dioxide more efficiently while minimizing water loss.

Of course, by the time any of this happens all of our great coastal cities, and most recognizable coastlines for that matter will have been long gone and forgotten.

We should smoke it.

originally posted by: Brotherman
We should smoke it.

💯

a reply to: SLAYER69

It seems the Earth has dealt with worse things than what we've been doing and Life will find a way of course.

Quite simple.
All those sequestered hydro-carbons that humans dig up and pump into the biosphere were once part of the biosphere before humans had a suitable environment to live in.

Human terraforming results in life without humans.
We be cool, man.

a reply to: Brotherman

a reply to: pthena

So, in essence we will become their fertilizer. Seems fitting with all the crap we spew as a specie.

a reply to: SLAYER69

No matter how much evidence we find for the climate being cyclical, the doomsayers are too dug in. They cannot admit that they were sold a lie which they perpetuated and spread.

There are tons of papers and sources that back up the cyclical nature of our planet, like ice cores and evidence of CO2 levels stretching back tens of thousands of years.

a reply to: Brotherman

Hell yea brother. Roll it up into a blunt. Radical.

Hahaha that makes me think of that Dave Chappelle skit with the dinosaur eggs.

a reply to: SLAYER69

I just worry sometimes about the rapidity.
( not really my job to worry about it though )

The massive cataclysm which sequestered the hydro-carbons in the first place must have been pretty freaking rapid.

Okay. I feel relieved somehow.

a reply to: pthena

I've Wondered why are there so many fresh appearing (Geologically) speaking, sharp jagged mountain ranges around the world. The Earth moves at an agonizingly slow pace most of the time, while at others???

Rapid quick moments of shear upheaval.

a reply to: SLAYER69

It sucks we don't really have any other planet to compare too especially about our relative understanding of time and fast versus slow in regards to geo feature formations.

a reply to: SLAYER69

I just did a Startpage search "Rapid moments of shear upheaval"

The whole first page is studies by Oil Industry Engineers investigating pipeline buckling.
Weird!