Planet Earth compared to other astronomical bodies -- miniscule
Hierarchical classification, Latin binomial nomenclature
Pongid (“Hominid”) phylogeny, blood group polymorphism
Primate evolution, human mistakes, inability to control our instincts
Kline’s “Dance, Monkeys, Dance” video
Greenhouse effect, gases, global warming
Carbon dioxide, methane, climate change, global warming
Wobbling Polar Jet Stream: Ridges and Troughs
“Man did not have forever . . . , Matter will know itself no longer”
Watch “TempFast.mov” 128 years go by in one minute!
Ice ages, agriculture, deforestation, the “Long Summer”
Ocean temperatures, sea level rise, melting ice caps, sliding glaciers
Milankovitch Cycles
First Exam Thursday 18 February
Covers Chapters 1-4, 6-7 plus Chapter 16
and first 9 lectures, 5 discussions, plus 8 Readings:
Scientific Methods
Natural Selection
Human Nature
Our Hunter-Gatherer Heritage
Evolution of Uncaring Humanoids
Unburnable Oil
Population Growth
Evolution’s Problem Gamblers
We trashed the life support systems of this,
our one and only Spaceship, planet Earth.
The disparity between what humans
could have been versus the pitiful
creatures we actually managed to
become is tragic and unforgivable.
If only more people would live up to
their full potential!
“Matter will know itself no longer.”
Excerpts from Homer Smith (1952) “Man and His Gods”
and Lord Earl of Balfour (1895) “Foundations of Belief”
Man did not have forever to harness the forces of the sun and stars. The
Sun was an elderly light, long past the turbulent heat of youth, and would
some day join the senile class of once-luminiferous bodies. In some
incredibly remote time a chance collision might blow it up again into
incandescent gas and start a new local cosmic cycle, but of man there
would be no trace. In Balfours's terms, he “will go down into the pit, and
all his thoughts will perish. The uneasy consciousness, which in this
obscure corner has for a brief space broken the contented silence of the
universe, will be at rest. Matter will know itself no longer. ‘Imperishable
monuments’ and ‘immortal deeds,’ death itself, and love stronger than
death, will be as though they had never been. Nor will anything that IS be
better or be worse for all that labour, genius, devotion and suffering of man
have striven through countless generations to effect.” (Italics added)
Broca’s Area
Music
Emotions
Greenhouse Effect
Global warming
•
CO2 pollution of the air
– Burning oil, deforestation
•
Greenhouse gases cause warming
•
Water vapor, H2O
•
Carbon dioxide, CO2
•
Nitrous Oxide, N2O
•
Methane, CH4 = 25 molecules CO2
•
Trifluoromethyl Sulfur Pentaflouride, SF5CF3
N=N=O
= 18,000 molecules CO2 (half life = 1,000 years)
AVERAGE global temperatures are increasing.
– Ocean temperatures and acidity
– Sea levels rising
– Glaciers and ice caps melting
2013 396 ppm
James Hansen
Science, 1431 (2005); 308
James Hansen, et al.
James Hansen, et al. (2013)
PLOS One
1884
Watch “TempFast.mov” 128 years go by in one minute!
1916
Watch “TempFast.mov” 128 years go by in one minute!
1948
Watch “TempFast.mov” 128 years go by in one minute!
1980
Watch “TempFast.mov” 128 years go by in one minute!
2012
Watch “TempFast.mov” 128 years go by in one minute!
1.74 times the area of Texas
Warming stresses ecosystems
• Coral reefs, tundra, Arctic
3.5 kilometers per year.
2030
The Big Apple finally goes under
Currently, 7+ billion (that’s 7 thousand million)
humans are using half of planet Earth’s land
surface, half of the fresh water, and half of the
solar energy impinging on the surface of the Earth.
Resources are NOT ever expanding. Per capita
shares are falling all the time. About 3 acres per
person.
Growthmania economics is fundamentally flawed
Watch: http://www.upworthy.com/a-smartypants-scientist-makes-an-easy-analogy-about-our-planet-and-now-im-scared
2000
2005
From Proc. Nat. Acad.Sci. (2002), vol.99: 9266-9271
2010
History and Biogeography
Self-replicating molecular assemblages
Geological Past
Shrinking, buckling Earth, Polarity Reversals
Paleoclimatology: Milankovitch cycles
Eustatic (world wide) sea level changes
Palynology (fossil pollen profiles)
Radioisotope dating (half life, C14 carbon 14)
Geological time scale
Boundaries marked by extinctions
Asteroid impact, Chicxulub crater (iridium layer, 65 mya)
Pleistocene Megafauna“Overkill” hypothesis
The Geological Time Scale
__________________________________________________________________
Years in millions
since beginning of
Eras
Periods
Epochs
period or epoch
__________________________________________________________________
Quaternary
Recent
0.1
Pleistocene
1.6
Cenozoic
Pliocene
5
Miocene
22
Tertiary
Oligocene
36
Eocene
55
Paleocene
65
__________________________________________________________________
Cretaceous
144
Mesozoic
Jurassic
192
Triassic
245
_________________________________________________________________
Permian
290
Carboniferous
360
Devonian
408
Paleozoic
Silurian
435
Ordivician
485
Cambrian
570
__________________________________________________________________
Precambrian
4600
__________________________________________________________
Ward, P. D. 2006. Impact from the deep. Scientific American 295, 64–71.