It may sound ultra-hippy but it's hardcore science: for at least 610,000 years Earth has managed to keep a very tight balance of atmospheric carbon, with a variance of just 1-2%. Now we are challenging that finely tuned balance with releases that ammount to 100 times what Earth has ever been confronted with, so it is virtually impossible that our mother planet will be able to correct our wrongdoings.
This finding, already suspected, was made by K. Cladeira of Carnegie Institution for Science and R. Zeebe of the University of Havaii.
When carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, the chemical reactions that break down silicate minerals in soils are accelerated. Among the products of these reactions are calcium ions, which dissolve in water and are washed to the ocean by rivers. Marine organisms such as mollusks combine the calcium ions with dissolved carbon dioxide to make their shells (calcium carbonate), which removes both calcium and carbon dioxide from the ocean, restoring the balance.
The researchers found that over hundreds of thousands of years the equilibrium between carbon dioxide input and removal was never more than one to two percent out of balance, a strong indication of a natural feedback system. This natural feedback acts as a thermostat which is critical for the long-term stability of climate. During Earth's history it has probably helped to prevent runaway greenhouse and icehouse conditions over time scales of millions to billions of years — a prerequisite for sustaining liquid water on Earth's surface.
The Carnegie Institution's press release concludes with a most alarming remark by Caldeira:
We are emitting CO2 far too fast to expect mother nature to mop up our mess anytime soon. Continued burning of coal, oil and gas will result in long-term changes to our climate and to ocean chemistry, lasting many thousands of years.
As a chain smoker, I know well that slow stupid suicidal is a very human possibility. No kidding.
Dual monotheism:
Basque ancient religion has many genies but only two Gods: Mari and Sugaar (or Maju). They are the divine couple and can well be considered a single dual God. They are the personified Yin and Yang.
What about Urtzi? Urtzi has no mythology. It can well be thought as a mere abstract personification of the Sky, much like Chinese Tian, that eventually absorbed foreign celestial deities like Zeus or Yaveh.
This dual monotheism that pre-dates polytheism is also found in other cultures:
In Daoism: Yin and Yang, fundamental principles of the Universe (not properly gods though, as they are not personified)
Some variants of Hinduism also seem to believe in this male-female dualistic monotheism: some forms of Shaivism, all of Shaktism and the related schools known as Tantra.
Guess that for monofisite religions such as Judaism, Islam and some oriental Christian churches the concept of a dual God is kind of perplexing, but it shouldn't be so for mainstream trinitarian Christianism, withe their triple God. And certainly dual monotheism it's both much more intuitive and self-explanatory than the male-only Trinity and seemingly much older.
From the primordial Chaos sprang both Gaia, the Earth, and Eros, the force of Life. This belief, described by Hesiodos at the beginning of his Theogony, seems to be deeply rooted in Europe and the Mediterranean, dating to at least Neolithic times.
Perpetual creation:
Forget about that fancy Judaic story of creation in six days, forget about any need to introduce intelligent design, not in science classes, but in your personal philosophy. The dual God does not create once but always: perpetual creation is the real thing.
But my holy book says...
Ah, you idol worshipper of words! Do you think that God only manifests in one particular book or act, or is it actually doing every time and in everything.
Your god is false... or rather a very narrow version of the real thing. Evolution definitively works better than any concievable ID and the Gods certainly know better than trying to intervene: they instead participate of the perpetual creation and change. They are the World, including you and I.
The cosmic dance is for real, your petty book is just part, a small part, of it.
Mari and Sugaar are said to meet every Friday and in such celebrated meetings they create the storms, that fertilize the land.
It's not just some distant friday in the far past... it's every week, actually maybe every single day, hour, minute, second and even Plank time.
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