What makes humans so special?

[Valjean]

We may be destructive but we are also the only known species capable to travel to space and preserve life beyond the red giant phase of the sun.

So? What does that have to do with our ecological impact?

 

[Valjean]

A space station.

Not permanently.

 

[Valjean]

I'm sure the earth will still be here. Just very different.

Yes. Very different.
It took millions of years for a complex, balanced ecosystem to reëstablish after the previous mass extinctions.

 

[Altfish]

What makes humans so special?

Are we that special?
My flying ability is rank awful; I can swim but not very well.
Eyesight, well it's ok but when compared to an eagle.
Sense of smell, rubbish when compared to my dogs.
I wouldn't fancy myself in a fight with a lion
etc, etc

 

[Valjean]

So what? What's your point?

The point is, terraforming is a fantastically difficult and expensive thing. It would be a desperate, emergency measure.
It's hard to imagine an Earth so devastated that terraforming a new habitat would be more practicable than repairing our own planet.

 

[Valjean]

Humans have an enormous destructive power.

But also a very big heart.
What food could this deer have found in a snowy winter? And yet, these deers periodically visit this village in Abruzzo, and find some food thanks to good-hearted humans.

A healthy deer population existed long before we came on the scene. It's our destructiveness that necessitated supplemental feedings.

 

[Suave]

The point is, terraforming is a fantastically difficult and expensive thing. It would be a desperate, emergency measure.
It's hard to imagine an Earth so devastated that terraforming a new habitat would be more practicable than repairing our own planet.

Greenhouse gases sent from Earth to Mars would desist Earth's global warming and subsequently save life on Earth from the lethal devastation of Earth's global warming as well as transform Mars into a way more comfortable place for sustaining life from Earth. Carbon Dioxide, Methane, and Sulfur Hexafluoride could very well be transported via the Space X interplanetary transport system from Earth to Mars.

The ionization of particles emitted by the Martian moon of Phobos in conjunction with the accelerated flow of these ionized particles would generate a magnetic field shielding the Martian atmosphere from being stripped away by solar radiation, Such a Martian magnetosphere would require roughly 100.000,000,000,000,000 joules of energy, which is comparable to the total amount of electricity consumed by everybody on Earth last year.

How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars - ScienceDirect

How to create an artificial magnetosphere for Mars
lR.A.BamfordaB.J.KellettaJ.L.GreenbC.DongcV.AirapetiandR.Bingham

A magnetic field enabling Martian atmospheric retention should very well be the first step towards forming a man-made biosphere that is an appreciable fraction in size comparable to Earth's biosphere. This magnetic shielding would subsequently allow the planet's atmosphere to reacquire its former density that'd be high enough to allow for sustainable surface liquid water.

A few billion Tonnes of Sulfur Hexafluoride gas (SF6) could increase Martian atmospheric surface temperatures by well over 20 degrees Celsius. Sulfur hexafluoride - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The SpaceX interplanetary transport system could deliver this super greenhouse gas to Mars at a cost of less than $2,000/kg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Mar...astructure

The forming of a man-made biosphere around Mars as well as on the Martian surface (terraforming) that is an appreciable fraction in size comparable to Earth's biosphere would create many high tech jobs, and save humanity from the existential threat of the Earth's atmospheric and terrestrial global warming . This project ( terraforming ) to make Mars a better place for human colonization there could be dubbed the "Green New Deal for humanity on Earth and Mars". Please let us agree to favor the "Green New Deal for humanity on Earth and Mars" I figure the cost of terraforming Mars would be just a few trillion dollars per year, which amounts to only a few hundred dollars annually per each person on Earth.

Asteroid mining windfall taxes could fund a significant portion of the multi-quadrillion dollar total cost to transform Mars into a world retaining triple its current atmospheric pressure and a warmer Mars with an average surface temperature of 270 Kelvin.

Terraforming Mars Using a Weird Greenhouse Gas - Sulfur Hexafluoride

 

[Heyo]

So? What does that have to do with our ecological impact?

We are the long shot, high risk, high reward, species that can potentially preserve life in our galaxy after a catastrophic event. (Or we can be the catastrophic event.)

 

[Heyo]

Not permanently.

Yes permanently. It would have to be at least the size of a Stanford Torus and well monitored, but it can be done (with existing technology).

 

[Suave]

We are the long shot, high risk, high reward, species that can potentially preserve life in our galaxy after a catastrophic event. (Or we can be the catastrophic event.)

Mars or bust!

 

[Heyo]

Mars or bust!

You are still thinking planetary. Why would I go down a gravity well which I have just escaped?

 

[Mock Turtle]

When God created humans, he created the most destructive and killing species that has ever existed.

We kill, destroy, pollute, drive species to extinction, destroy habitats, etc more than any other species that ever existed.

For example.... We have killed many more millions of humans than the covid virus but think nothing of it.

Why would an all knowing God create something he knew would be so deadly and destructive?

The easiest answer is that there is no God, and hence no such creation of humans. All the rest then becomes easier to explain.

We have evolved as all the rest of life and even if we think we are so clever, we are just as clever or stupid as many other species, and have the same sorts of issues as they do - that is, not doing things that tends to threaten the actual existence of the species.

Many other species tend to live locally (apart from the travelling varieties), that is, they tend not to have any interests apart from where their food comes from and where the threats to their existence comes from. They, in general, can only damage their locality. Humans (as a species) have not come to grips with the fact that the effects of what we do often goes much further than our local environment - out of sight, out of mind - and hence not living in a sustainable manner. We seem quite content with our problems being sorted if we can export them elsewhere or into later times.

Of course much of this tends to come from not having the relevant information until after the event (pollution, for example), even though we do tend to have examples from the past as to our behaviour being so damaging, not just to ourselves but to the environment and other life of course. So in effect we tend to always be behind the timeline as to solving problems - creating issues for future generations to solve rather than paying the price now. And this perhaps is an example of our greed and selfishness - so often promoted by our leaders.

And it perhaps is mostly down to our love of nationality, politics, cultures, religions, and such, as to why we might never actually succeed as a species when all these things tend to pull us apart and keep us from acting more united and more responsibly. Apart from the aggression we have of course, and which too might see our end.

 

[Estro Felino]

A healthy deer population existed long before we came on the scene. It's our destructiveness that necessitated supplemental feedings.

Sadly true.

 

[Brickjectivity]

This thread just makes me realize how special humans are and also how special mammals are in general.

If I understand the OP, though, it is simply a dig at creationism which technically probably belongs in the evolution/creation area. I'd say its a theological argument against hard creationism though not all forms of creationism. Definitely there are contexts in which humanity does not make sense.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Yep. More precisely, a few billion years.

Around one billion years to be exact. By that time, sun will turn into a red dwarf producing so much heat that life on earth will become impossible - although sun's radius will not increase to engulf earth. That will happen in about 5 billion years time.

 

[Suave]

You are still thinking planetary. Why would I go down a gravity well which I have just escaped?

I hope exotic matter to warp space is found for faster than light interstellar space travel.

 

[Hockeycowboy]

And we’ve created laws and systems of justice to deal with those issues.

That alone sets us apart….correcting mistakes.

 

[Suave]

Around one billion years to be exact. By that time, sun will turn into a red dwarf producing so much heat that life on earth will become impossible - although sun's radius will not increase to engulf earth. That will happen in about 5 billion years time.

Titan or bust!

 

[Heyo]

I hope exotic matter to warp space is found for faster than light interstellar space travel.

I wouldn't hold my breath for that one. But when we get fusion to work, a drive based on that can accelerate a spaceship to about 20% c. That's 25 years to Proxima Centauri.

 

[Suave]

I wouldn't hold my breath for that one. But when we get fusion to work, a drive based on that can accelerate a spaceship to about 20% c. That's 25 years to Proxima Centauri.

"Habitable Climate Scenarios for Proxima Centauri B with a Dynamic OceanThe nearby exoplanet Proxima Centauri b will be a prime future target for characterization, despite questions about its retention of water. Climate models with static oceans suggest that Proxima b could harbor a small dayside surface ocean despite its weak instellation. We present the first climate simulations of Proxima b with a dynamic ocean. We find that an ocean-covered Proxima b could have a much broader area of surface liquid water but at much colder temperatures than previously suggested, due to ocean heat transport and/or depression of the freezing point by salinity. Elevated greenhouse gas concentrations do not necessarily produce more open ocean because of dynamic regime transitions between a state with an equatorial Rossby-Kelvin wave pattern and a state with a day-night circulation. For an evolutionary path leading to a highly saline ocean, Proxima b could be an inhabited, mostly open ocean planet with halophilic life. A fresh water ocean produces a smaller liquid region than does an Earth salinity ocean. An ocean planet in 3:2 spin-orbit resonance has a permanent tropical waterbelt for moderate eccentricity. A larger vs. smaller area of surface liquid water for similar equilibrium temperature may be distinguishable using the amplitude of the thermal phase curve. Simulations of Proxima Centauri b may be a model for the habitability of weakly irradiated planets orbiting slightly cooler or warmer stars, e.g., in the TRAPPIST-1, LHS 1140, GJ 273, and GJ 3293 systems."

Habitable Climate Scenarios for Proxima Centauri B with a Dynamic Ocean - NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)