tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79426485892530441892012-01-16T01:15:14.798+11:00What the experts are finding out and how this might affect where we go from here1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.comBlogger161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-54461549752828372992010-05-11T07:33:00.000+10:002010-05-11T07:33:31.619+10:00

FIRE AND ICE ‘To treat life as less than a miracle is to give up on it.’Wendell Berry By around 30 million years ago the new layout of continents and a change in Earth’s tilt were beginning to create the distinct ocean currents and climatic zones of today. The following set of six zones is a lay-summary of the zones used by geographers. Tropical climates are either hot and wet all year round, or

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-22836367734116097492010-05-11T07:22:00.021+10:002010-05-11T07:51:29.577+10:00

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1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-90121160930316705542010-05-11T07:15:00.000+10:002010-05-11T07:15:27.609+10:00

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1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-40003337165636643692007-07-29T14:43:00.001+10:002007-08-01T14:38:48.853+10:00

THE BIRDS AND THE BEES‘We see things not as they are but as we are.’The TalmudAround 70 million years ago (25 million years before birds with artistic specializations emerged) plants were creating a very refined form of sexual display, which would take interdependence between diverse creatures in a radically new direction.It had started millions of years before when some low-growing plants

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CREATURES GREAT & SMALL‘When the head is empty,then you become aware suddenlythat a bird is singing over there.’Masanobu FukuokaBy around 150 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, Gondwana and Laurasia were splitting even further, continuing the process that would lead to today’s continents.Bird-hipped dinosaurs had long since joined lizard-hipped dinosaurs in the

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-39998108314059538472007-07-20T14:36:00.000+10:002007-08-01T14:24:04.331+10:00

DINOSAURS PLUS‘The very first requirement for ecological stabilityis a balance between the rates of birth and death . . .’Gregory BatesonThe next significant part of our story begins in what paleontologists call the Triassic period, around 240 million years ago, when reptile families were diversifying after the Third Major Mass Extinction. Among them were the ancestors of dinosaurs, which,

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ONTO SHAKY GROUND‘So it is necessary, at least intermittently. . . this thing called sex.As of course you and I knew it must be.Otherwise surely, by now, we mammals and dragonflieswould have come up with something more dignified.’ David QuammenAround 360 million years ago, at a time that marks the beginning of what scientists call the Carboniferous Period, Earth’s Second Major Mass Extinction

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OUT OF THE WATER‘You have to step backward, the better to jump forward.’French proverbAround 500 million years ago (or ‘Once upon a time’?) while all of Earth’s complex organisms still lived in the water, a few algae clinging to rocks above the low-water mark took the huge evolutionary step that brought plant life onto land.When exposed by low tides algae quickly dried out and in drought

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-48582613333715321642007-07-13T17:59:00.000+10:002007-07-16T11:51:20.331+10:00

EARLY DAYSEarth’s lands and seas 300-240 million years agoEarth’s lands and seas today‘With . . . shining morning face’As You Like It, II, vii, 146‘We [scientists] should make things as simple as possible,but not simpler.’Albert EinsteinThis song is by Cole Porter, and I’m sure it is familiar to you. I’ve chosen it for Our Second Age because this is when intimate sexual reproduction came into its

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-55569941229264754222007-06-30T15:16:00.000+10:002007-08-01T12:07:50.357+10:00

THE FIRST PLANTS AND ANIMALS‘One exercises justice or injustice to plants and animals as well.Plants and animals also have a right to unfolding and self-realization. They have the right to live.’Arne NaessAround 550 million years ago, after a 200-million-year period when ice covered a large proportion of Earth’s surface (an Ice Age), multi-celled beings, still in the water but now in

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-87495022605414761742007-06-16T17:47:00.000+10:002007-08-01T12:04:38.266+10:00

COMPLEXITY, DEATH AND BEYOND‘Everything taking form in nature incurs a debt,that must be paid by dissolving againso that other things may form.’AnaximanderAround 1 billion years ago, when Earth’s day had apparently stretched to about 20 hours long, another major step in evolution occurred. Some eukaryotes, perhaps in response to some kind of critical climate change, started a kind of merger that

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A LIVING SEA‘We consider naïve the early Darwinian view of “Nature red in tooth and claw”.Now we see ourselves as the products of cellular co-operation –cells built up from other cells.Partnerships between cells once foreign, and even enemies to each other,are at the very root of our being.’Lynn Margulis & Dorion SaganAround 4 billion years ago in a relatively stabilized solar environment the

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-22596997269182083002007-06-06T14:36:00.000+10:002007-08-01T11:45:55.655+10:00

OUR PLANET‘This grand show is eternal.It is always sunrise somewhere:the dew is never all dried at once,a shower is forever falling, vapour is ever rising.Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming,on sea and continents and islands,each in its turn, as the round earth rolls.’John MuirOnce we turn our attention from our Universe as a whole to our planet within it we are on firmer,

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-2364443628921610552007-06-05T17:13:00.002+10:002009-05-28T05:54:25.751+10:00

OUR UNIVERSE‘In order to make an apple pie [or a human] from scratch,you must first create the Universe.’Carl SaganNB As I explained in the Introduction (see Web Archive) what follows is my interpretation and summary, as a layperson for other laypeople, of the generally available scientific account. As in the rest of the story, check the Ultimate Websites and relevant Further Reading list for my

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-35068410148334423932007-06-04T15:03:00.000+10:002007-07-14T17:18:54.371+10:00

IN THE BEGINNING‘At first the infant, mewling and puking’As You Like It, II, vii, 143-4‘Each living creature must be looked at as a microcosm –a little universe, formed of a host of self-propagating organisms,inconceivably minute and as numerous as the stars in heaven.’Lynn Margulis & Dorian Sagan The song I have chosen for Our First Age was written by Eric Idle from ‘Monty Python’. He called it

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7942648589253044189.post-24841333858715952272007-05-25T18:43:00.000+10:002007-09-11T18:03:25.218+10:00

All the world’s a stage,And all the different beings are cosmic players.They have their exits and their entrances,Yet all begin where everything begins.Our species plays just one of many parts,And our seven ages link to all the rest . . .With acknowledgements and apologies to Will ShakespeareAs You Like It, Act II, Scene viiOUTLINE OF STORYOUR FIRST AGE: IN THE BEGINNING1. Our Universe2. Our

1. Lizzie Connorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04679079118094305674noreply@blogger.com5