Of Photosynthesizers’ many profound contributions to the Earth’s life sustaining processes perhaps the most important has been stabilizing the Earth’s climate. Photosynthesis was essential for creating an oxygen troposphere; the stratospheric ozone layer; providing the basis of the food chain on which most life forms rely; and playing an important role in the evolution of eukaryotic cells. But these are of less significance than the stabilization of the climate. In the face of the sun’s increasing luminosity, Photosynthesizers’ extraction of Carbon from the atmosphere has been the Earth’s main climate stabilizing mechanism for the last two to three aeons.

Photosynthesizers have cooled the Earth, and thus stabilized the climate, by extracting Carbon from the atmosphere but their contribution to the stabilization of the climate has been much wider than this:-

* marine Photosynthesizers release nuclei which trigger the formation of marine clouds;

* terrestrial Plants release nuclei which trigger the formation of continental clouds;

* terrestrial plants, but especially Trees, extract Carbon from the atmosphere, pump it into the soil where, after chemical weathering, it creates nutrients which leech into the oceans;

* the albedo effect of terrestrial Plants cools the climate, etc, etc.

The conventional scientific view is that the Earth is a warm, and well insulated, spacecraft moving around a freezing universe. This leads to the common sense response that pumping more Carbon into the Earth’s atmosphere is a vital means for keeping the Earth warm against the cold of outer space. The ipcc reinforce this message when it argues that if global warming did not exist then the Earth’s global average temperature would be -19C and thus uninhabitable. This is perfectly true in an abstract sense. But it is also grossly misleading. The Earth has never experienced a time when global warming has been absent i.e. with no water, Carbon dioxide, or methane, in the atmosphere. The history of the Earth has been the exact opposite - the prevalence of water and Carbon in the atmosphere requiring the extraction of Carbon to keep the planet cool. The ipcc’s analogy stokes up popular fears of the cold of outer space requiring greater Carbon emissions when, in reality, the real danger is oomans dumping too much Carbon in the atmosphere and creating a runaway global burning disaster. The Earth’s natural temperature i.e. without life but with vast quantities of Carbon in the atmosphere, is over 200C.

After life appeared on Earth it eventually emerged onto the ocean surface and gradually spread across the Earth’s landmasses. More and more of the Earth’s surface whether land or seas, became coated with life. These living organisms or, to be more accurate, Photosynthesizers, covering the Earth’s surface have reduced global temperatures to a habitable level. The role of this life-coat on Earth has been to cool global temperatures as the sun gets hotter and hotter. As has just been pointed out, the natural temperature for a lifeless Earth (containing vast amounts of Carbon in the atmosphere) is a couple of hundred degreesC. It is life that artificially cools the planet to habitable temperatures. It is the artificiality of life on Earth that keeps the Earth unnaturally cool. Life on Earth is sandwiched between the blistering heat of the Earth’s core and the thermo-nuclear radiation emanating from the sun. The role of life on Earth is cooling the planet to enable life to thrive between these extremes. It is not there to keep warming up the Earth. A cool Earth is habitable — an Earth which keeps getting warmer would lead to a global burning disaster. The diversity of life on Earth is necessary to ensure the Earth remains cool.

Large Trees such as gymnosperms began to emerge in the Carboniferous period (363-290mya). As Forests began spreading around the Earth, they played a bigger and bigger role in the burial of Carbon on land and on the ocean floors and thereby played a critical role in cooling the Earth. Jennifer robinson suggests just how influential Forests could be on the Earth’s climate .. "trees became weighty producers of lignin long before other organisms developed truly effective ways of degrading it. In the interval - perhaps 100 million years - between the intervention of lignin by plants and the evolutionary scaling-up of lignin-cracking enzymes, massive amounts of carbon were buried. This lag allowed oxygen levels to climb to peaks never again reached, perhaps 50% higher than today." But Forests also influence the climate in many other ways besides extracting Carbon from the atmosphere. They release nuclei which helps to produce clouds whose albedo effect cool the Earth; and they boost rock weathering increasing marine Photosynthesis which increases the amount of Carbon buried on the ocean floor.

Perversely, most so-called greens don’t understand the history of the Earth’s climate nor the role of Forests in cooling the Earth’s climate and, as a consequence, they aren’t in the slightest bit interested in Reforestation as a means of combatting global burning. If you ask a green ‘what is the basis of the Earth’s life support system’, or ‘what is the key to the Earth’s sustainability’, or even ‘what is the nature of a sustainable Planet’, most of them will drive off in their lightweight aluminium, energy efficient, lead-free, catalytic converted, recycled glass, recycled plastic, recycled rubber, recycled metal, free range, livestock manufactured, cars with fake fur trims and nodding dogs in the back window, complaining about the need to curb greenhouse emissions with new technological gizmoes. The so-called greens aren’t green. Their primary role is covering up the destruction of the Earth’s life sustaining processes being carried out by Earth-rapists. The existence of greens make people believe that environmental improvements are being made when environmental degradation is getting worse. As a consequence they are as much of a threat to oomans’ life support system as Earth rapists. It would be much more precise to call them blues. The fundamental difference between environmentalist/ecologists in the blue movement and geophysiologists in the green movement is that the former use the concept of sustainability without any reference to Photosynthesis (and thus invariably promote policies which destroy Photosynthesis) whereas the latter believe the concept has no meaning without Photosynthesis. For example, geophysiologists argue, "The only ultimately productive beings are the cyanobacteria. Ultimately, a nation’s gross national product can only be biological, not industrial." Geophysiologists therefore use the concept of sustainability as a means of justifying the protection of Photosynthesis.

At the end of the cretaceous period the Earth suffered what is believed to be its fifth mass extermination of life. But, the Earth’s Biodiversity gradually recovered from this catastrophe. The cenozoic might be regarded as the apotheosis of life on Earth because of its spectacular profusion of life-forms. Photosynthesizers had stabilized the climate for nearly two aeons and thus contributed critically to the flourishing of life on Earth. But this blossoming of Earthly perfection was coming to an end. The pleistocene period revealed the first cracks in Photosynthesis’s role in creating the Earth’s luxuriant habitability. From that time on, the question had to be asked ‘how long could Photosynthesizers keep the Earth cool in the face of increasing solar radiation. Lovelock has estimated that the increase in solar radiation would eventually lead to the Earth burning up in approximately a hundred million years time. However, much more ominous than Photosynthesizers’ increasing inability to stabilize the climate was the appearance of an Animal with only two legs. At first, the Earth’s spectacular profusion of Wildlife must have regarded this new species as suffering from a terrible deformity but any pity they may have felt would have been quickly shattered as oomans began their reign of terror against all other life forms on Earth. It turned out that although they had only two legs they possessed the amazing ability to string together an endless number of barmy ideas which they presented as the epitome of ooman infallibility. No matter how abstract, irrational, or planetless, these ideas may have been, no matter how eloquently such nonsense was expressed, they almost invariably concluded with the need for oomans to intensify their terrorist activities against other life forms on Earth. If oomans lacked shelter, Animal habitats had to be expropriated to provide them with houses. If oomans became ill, yet more Animal habitats had to be flattened to provide them with hospitals. And, of course, if oomans lacked food, Animals had to be slaughtered to provide them with sustenance. All ooman whims had to be catered for by the slaughter of Animals and the devastation of their habitats — even though these habitats were stabilizing the climate.

For the previous few aeons, Photosynthesizers had helped to combat increasing solar luminosity. About two million years ago, now known as the start of the pleistocene period, the extraction of Carbon from the atmosphere had reached the stage where there was little Carbon left in the atmosphere to be extracted. Photosynthesizers cannot control the climate when there is virtually no Carbon left in the atmosphere, "In fact, for the past 3 million years CO2 levels in our atmosphere have been incredibly low. Compared to what is usually the case on earth, the carbon dioxide content of our atmosphere is still so low that it has almost no insulating effect at all. In fact, in the whole geologic history of the earth, levels have been this low only once before. That was 300 million years ago .. At that time, a massive ice sheet stretched over what is now called south africa and world climate was harsh and cold." The removal of Carbon from the atmosphere decreased the greenhouse effect to such an extent it triggered off an ice age.

There were limits, however, to Photosynthesizers’ ability to use this physiological fluke to sustain the ice age. Once the Carbon in the atmosphere had been extracted, Photosynthesis became redundant and the Earth could no longer be kept cool. The ice age went into reverse and was eventually superceded by a warmer period. However, this warm period did not last long. As Photosynthesizers extracted the Carbon that had been dumped into the atmosphere during the warm period, the climate was pushed back towards another ice age. What makes the pleistocene unique is not the first ice age but the fact that there have been many ice ages each interspersed with warmer periods, or inter-glacials.

Over the last two million years the climate has oscillated between glacials and inter-glacials. One commentator reckons there have been twenty ice ages/inter-glacial cycles during this period. (See the video clip taken from Aubrey Manning's bbc2 documentary, 'Earth Story': earthstory02.mov - 1 mb and 33 seconds long). Lovelock argues the pleistocene was not the first ice age on Earth but it was the first to display a climatic oscillation, "The present oscillations to and from a glacial state are recent: up until 2 million years ago, the climate was much more constant."

With the Earth’s climate stabilization mechanism periodically becoming redundant, lovelock believes that the pleistocene oscillations, assuming oomans didn’t exist, would have persisted for about a hundred million years i.e. until solar radiation started to burn up the Earth. As the Earth approached burn up, ice ages would last for shorter and shorter periods of time until eventually, they would disappear altogether. The Earth would then no longer have the protection of an ice age to keep it cool and it would face the full glare of an increasingly radiant sun. But, oomans do not have to worry about the Earth burning up in a hundred million years time. They face a much more immediate and urgent danger - themselves.

Many scientists suspect that, if oomans hadn’t been around, the Earth’s current inter-glacial would presently have been coming to an end. They speculate that the little ice age during the later medieval period was the onset of the next ice age. Whatever the underlying trend of the Earth’s climate, whether it had already started moving back into another ice age or would do so soon, ooman-induced global burning has delayed the next ice age cycle. The delay may be only for another couple of centuries. But there is a possibility that oomans might destroy the Earth’s life sustaining processes to such an extent that they will trigger off a global burning disaster which could destroy all life and permanently prevent the return of another ice age.

The fact that for the last 10,000 years or so, oomans have lived in a warm climate has led some scientists to argue that the geological time period in which we are living does not belong to the pleistocene period. As a consequence, they argue that oomans are living in a new geological period which they call the holocene. Other scientists, however, insist we are still living in the pleistocene period and call the current inter-glacial, the flandrian which will eventually be superceded by another ice age.

As far as lovelock is concerned, the Earth’s current inter-glacial fever is a bad enough portent for the survival of life on Earth. But then along came oomans. Their presence might have been tolerable if they hadn’t initiated the agricultural revolution which replaced Forests with crops and pastureland and then compounded this ecological devastation with the industrial revolution which led to increasing quantities of Carbon being dumped into the atmosphere. Oomans are perpetuating the current flandrian inter-glacial through these social and economic revolutions. One of the reasons why global temperatures may not have risen as much as has been predicted from the amount of Carbon that oomans have dumped into the atmosphere and from their devastation of Forests, is because the Earth’s underlaying climatic trend was in the direction of another ice age. But oomans are not merely perpetuating the flandrian inter-glacial, they are boosting global temperatures to such an extent they are threatening to end the pleistocene’s ice age oscillations.

The destabilization of the climate as a result of the industrial revolution was as nothing in comparison to the destabilization brought about by the agricultural revolution. From the moment that oomans started domesticating Animals, the Animal slavery industry has been devastating the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity and boosting global burning. The scale of the devastation has increased dramatically as a result of the industrialization of the Animal slavery industry. The Animal slavery industry has been:-

* cutting down or razing more and more Forests in order to create pasturelands;

* turning more and more Grasslands into deserts;

* suffocating more and more fertile soil with cement;

* suffocating more and more land beneath vast mountains of mining waste and industrial rubbish as the mining and manufacturing industries have churned out machinery and equipment for the pharming industry;

* dumping vast quantities of soils and manure into the oceans creating swarms of poisonous, smelly, asphyxiating Bacteria which plague the coasts of the over-industrialized world; and, finally,

* vacuuming up all forms of life around the Earth in a barbaric mass slaughter which is virtually unimaginable in its sheer scale thereby destroying the Plants which are dependent upon these life forms.

The Earth is currently in an inter-glacial when it needs to be in an ice age. Instead of global temperatures being a stable 10C with ice sheets spread across the northern continents, they are an unstable 15C. According to lovelock, the Earth is currently 5C beyond the point of climatic stability. What makes this predicament worse is that when global average temperatures start rising above 18C it will become increasingly difficult for Photosynthesizers to survive. It is possible this will cause a positive feedback further increasing global temperatures. In other words, if oomans continue to boost global temperatures they could soon trigger off a runaway global burning disaster. Given the possibility of such a terminal disaster, oomans have to prevent global temperatures from rising to 18C and beyond. Oomans are only three degrees away from the start of an unstoppable, self perpetuating, global burning, disaster.

There are a number of objections about the dangers posed by global burning.

The majority of climate scientists are concerned about the dangers posed by rising global temperatures. However, they hold conventional scientific views about the issue. For example, they do not believe global burning could develop a momentum of its own. As far as conventional scientists are concerned, once oomans have learnt to limit their Carbon emissions, the climate will no longer be a threat and consumers in the over-industrialized world could resume their extravagant lifestyles.

There are those who argue that the Animal slavery industry has not damaged the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity and is not destabilizing the climate. On the contrary, they argue it is boosting global Photosynthesis, and thus stabilizing the climate, by:

* pumping up vast quantities of water from underground to increase Photosynthesis;

* manufacturing vast quantities of synthetic fertilisers;

* mining vast quantities of minerals which are releasing vast quantities of nutrients that Plants need for Photosynthesis; and,

* mining vast quantities of fossil fuels which are dumping Carbon into the atmosphere and thus generating a fertilization effect for the Earth’s Photosynthesizers.

It has been argued that oomans have had to endure a cool climate throughout most of their existence so why shouldn’t they just enjoy a hotter climate without worrying about the consequences?

A more common objection to global burning is that it has usually been hotter in the Earth’s past so the current situation cannot be dangerous. Gregg easterbrook seems to believe there haven’t been any ice ages until quite recently in the Earth’s history, "From about two billion years in the past till around 40 million years ago, Earth’s typical temperature probably ran 10-22F higher than current readings."; "Then somewhere around 40 million years ago the environment slid downhill precipitously toward cold. In other words, until a point in time relatively near, most of the Earth’s ecology was what the eden stories imagine it to have been: a warm, lush forest." Easterbrook’s assumption is that if it has been 25C in the past then what does it matter if it’s 25C in the future?

Those scientists of an ever-optimistic disposition, usually those being funded by the world’s biggest Earth rapists, argue that even if there is a dramatic 15C rise in global temperatures, oomans would be able to adapt to the changes. It is argued that oomans could survive no matter what global temperatures are - after all, oomans currently live in desert areas where average temperatures are over 30C. The fact that the planet would then be bereft of Photosynthesis doesn't seem significant to them at all!

Some argue that if global temperatures rose to 30C this might produce more storms and climatic disasters but it would still be possible to stabilize the Earth’s climate at this temperature — although, once again, quite what oomans would do without Photosynthesizers is a little difficult to imagine.

Another objection to global burning is that the damage that oomans are inflicting on the Earth’s life sustaining processes is nothing like the damage the Earth has suffered in the past as a result of being hit by an asteroid, a massive super-volcano, or a super tsunami, or an ice age. If the Earth could recover from being hit by such massive disasters, it will recover from the depredations inflicted on it by oomans.

This section counters the above objections to global burning.

The majority of climate scientists do not support lovelock’s geophysiological analysis. They deny the Earth is stable during ice ages when global average temperatures are approximately 10C. They deny that current global temperatures are 5C above climate stability (being conventional scientists they believe that current temperatures represent climatic stability). They deny that a global average temperature of 18C would be a critical turning point for Photosynthesizers ushering in a self perpetuating, global burning, disaster. They deny that oomans are 3C away from a climatic calamity i.e. 5/8ths of their way to a climatic disaster. And finally, they deny there is any such thing as self perpetuating, global burning. Since conventional scientists do not account, in their global climate models, for the role played by the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity it is hardly surprising they do not accept lovelock’s analysis - unfortunately for them, his analysis of the Earth’s climate is more sophisticated and comprehensive than theirs.

It is true that in some instances the Animal slavery industry boosts the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity, and thus helps to stabilize the climate but this is miniscule in comparison to the damage it is causing.

Many oomans have had to endure a cool climate during but they could not survive a climate which was getting hotter and hotter.

It is quite true that the Earth’s global average temperature has been higher in the past than it is at present. This may seem convincing evidence that fears of an anthropogenic rise in global average temperatures are mistaken. However, condoning the Earth’s currently high global temperature by contrasting it with higher temperatures in the past is misleading - it's a bit like a doctor saying to an old man that his fever is nothing to worry about since as a young man he must have got far hotter than he is now. Whilst a young man could shrug off a fever, it’s a lot more problematic for an older person who is less fit and healthy. The same is true for the Earth. The planet’s climate was much more stable in the past, whereas these days it is much more of an old man highly vulnerable to temperature changes.

The proposition that because oomans can survive in areas where temperatures are on average 30C, then oomans could survive if the Earth’s global average temperature was 30C or over, is erroneous. It is a mistake to believe that if the Earth’s global temperature was 30C then everywhere around the Earth would enjoy the same temperature. In reality, some parts of the Earth would be far hotter, and thus uninhabitable. The difference in regional temperatures would trigger off storms damaging to the Earth’s life support system. Global average temperatures of 30C would cause a considerable melting of the ice caps and thermal expansion of the oceans so that much of the low-lying land around the world would disappear; most of the Earth’s Forests would be burnt to the ground; the only water available would be that stored from occasional torrential downpours; and storms, hurricanes, tornadoes etc would whip across the Earth’s surface. It is one thing for oomans to be able to survive in hot areas of the Earth when the Earth’s global average temperature is 15C and the climate is relatively stable. It is an entirely different proposition for oomans to survive anywhere on Earth when global average temperatures are 30C and the climate is completely unstable.

The Earth’s climate cannot be stabilized with global temperatures around 30C. The Earth’s climate is stable at 10C. If global temperatures rise to 18C then the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity would start collapsing thereby accelerating the rise in global temperatures. Climatic conditions could rapidly become inhospitable for oomans. There are no geophysiological factors to stabilize the climate beyond such a point. Runaway global burning could start to undermine oomans’ life support system not in the long distant future when global temperatures reach 30C but in the near future if global temperatures rise a mere 3C from current levels. At the rate at which oomans are currently boosting global burning it is only a matter of decades before this critical point is reached.

To suggest that the damage that oomans are causing to the Earth’s Biodiversity is nothing like as bad as that caused by a massive calamity such as an asteroid impact; a super volcanic eruption; a tidal wave resulting from a super tsunami; or an ice age, is another misleading comparison. This proposition considerably underestimates the scale of the damage that oomans are inflicting on the Earth’s Biodiversity. Oomans are currently carrying out the sixth biggest mass extinction of Wildlife during the Earth’s history. They are decimating even more of the Earth’s Wildlife than occurred when an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and the majority of other life forms. They are on the verge of wiping out every single one of the Earth’s most visible species - something that has never happened in previous extinctions - see below for a list of the Earth’s main mass extinctions.

One of the main issues at stake here is the scale of the damage oomans could inflict on the Earth’s life support system and thus the severity of the pending geophysiological collapse. There are various scenarios.

* Firstly, it is possible oomans could trigger off serious climate destabilization which could result in the collapse of global capitalism but the extermination of only a small percentage of oomans. Edward goldsmith argues the only chance oomans have of creating a sustainable planet is if a geophysiological collapse sweeps away the old political and economic systems, forcing those who are left to return to a tribal way of life.

* The second scenario is where oomans destabilize the Earth’s climate so severely that it wipes out most mammal species - including themselves.

* In the third scenario, oomans destabilize the Earth’s climate to such a degree it destroys all life forms except micro-organisms. What this would mean is that geolution would eventually begin again but, hopefully, next time it wouldn’t culminate in eco-terrorists such as oomans.

* Finally, the worst case scenario is that oomans trigger off a self-sustaining, global burning disaster that it ends up with a boilingly hot, and unstable, climate that would destroy all life on Earth, and thus the life of the Earth.

If oomans destroy more and more of the Earth’s Phytomass so that it can never recover, and if they suppress more and more of the Earth’s remaining Phytomass preventing it from reaching its full Photosynthetic potential (a potential it would reach if left to itself), then they will seriously impair the Earth's Photosynthetic capacity. If the anthropogenic diminution of the Earth's Photosynthetic capacity continues it will eventually undermine oomans’ life support system and destabilize the climate. The greater the reduction in the Earth's Photosynthetic capacity; the greater the destruction of soils; the greater the extermination of the Wildlife maintaining the Earth’s soils/Phytomass; the greater the destruction of the Earth's life support system; the greater will be the destabilization of the climate.

There is ample scientific evidence that, for aeons, global warming has been a natural part of the Earth’s dynamic, interacting, life support system. It is a tangible phenomena - the snow topped peaks of mountains in the tropics are visible proof of the greenhouse lid. There is also evidence that, over the aeons, the Earth’s Photosynthetic capacity has played a vital role in stabilizing the climate and thus determining the degree of global warming. However, there is no way of scientifically proving:

* that global burning will cause an ecocidal disaster;

* what the turning points are that will lead to a global burning disaster (if global temperatures reach 18C will the climate contribute to increasing global temperatures and climate destabilization?);

* the point at which the rise in global temperatures would cause Forests to contribute to global burning rather than combating it;

* the scale of the disaster that will be caused (the same scale as an asteroid impact?);

* the shape of the disaster (whether it will be a runaway global burning disaster);

* how much life will be left on Earth after the disaster is over (some life forms or none?);

* the conditions on Earth after the disaster is over; and, finally,

* whether the Earth could return to some sort of stability after the disaster (a martian or venusian climate?).

Over the last ten years greens have played virtually no role in educating the public about the current role of Forests in combatting global burning or the general role of Photosynthesizers in stabilizing the Earth’s climate throughout most of the Earth’s history. This is not merely a failure of green politics but a tragedy. Despite years criticizing greens for their opposition to Reforestation as a means of combatting global burning, and despite outlining 43 reasons why greens have adopted this stance, it is still difficult believing this is the case. But the fact remains that virtually all the major green organizations, from greenpeace to foes of the Earth, from ‘new scientist’; ‘tiempo’; ‘the Cornerhouse’; to the ‘ecologist’, etc, all display a "scorn" for Reforestation. The only people on the planet who supposedly love Trees and Forests, are also the most vigorous opponents of Reforestation. This is a betrayal of green politics, a betrayal of life on Earth, and, ultimately, it could be a betrayal of the Earth itself. To be more specific, green politics and the Earth are being sabotaged by greens, most of whom support organic pharmers. Since the second world war most of the damage to the Earth has been done by the industrialized Animal enslavement industry but if the greenless greens ever managed to replace the intensive, Animal slavery industry with organic, free range pharming this would finish off the Earth’s life support system. The Animal enslavement industry is killing the Earth and green organic pharmers are all too likely to strike the fatal blow.

The conventional scientific viewpoint, promoted by ecologists in governmental institutions and corporate universities funded by Earth wrecking multi-national corporations, is that life has played little role in the Earth’s history, "Those scientists who hold that the laws of physics and chemistry alone are sufficient explanation of the Earth’s thermostat, are in the majority. Their view was encapsulated by nasa: ‘The earth would still have remained habitable even if it had never been inhabited."

no hydrogen,

no water,

no oceans,

no clouds/mist/fog/rain,

no continents,

no Carbon burial,

no Carboniferous rock formations,

no oxygen in the atmosphere,

no stratospheric ozone layer,

no coal nor oil deposits,

no Plants nor Trees,

no food chain,

no soils,

no Wildlife habitats,

no Wildlife,

no stable climate and, indeed,

no climate,

In sum, no life.

Oomans are supposed to be the most intelligent creatures on Earth and yet they do not know the first thing about living on this planet. The sooner this garbage is gone the better. The only hope is that oomans will disappear before they trigger off an irreversible global burning disaster which will leave the planet lifeless with a climate like that on venus. Without the parasol of life on Earth, the planet’s global temperatures will move into triple figures. In contradistinction to the impression given by ipcc scientists who talk about a planet without global warming and thus generate fears about the cold of outer space, the Earth’s natural state (without life but with a massive concentration of Carbon in the atmosphere) is the boiling temperatures of venus. Sure, there will be sadness at the loss of some incredible ooman culture but, overall it’s not enough to sacrifice the wonders and beauty of a four billion year old living system. At the point of ecocide, oomans will have proved themselves to be eco-nazis. Paradoxically, the sooner they recognize they are eco-nazis, the better their chances of becoming a more civilized species and surviving.

It is commonly held that the Earth has endured five mass extinctions of biodiversity during its four and a half billion year history. These are:

Towards the end of her life hannah arendt argued there was a need to abandon the idea of progress and its linear perspective. But, she had no desire to return to the ancients’ cyclical view of life. She speculated that a more fruitful image may be the spiral. What gives this image some credence is that two most of the fundamental realities of life have spiral structures - dna and the milky way. In addition, the Earth’s Carbon spiral links together life forms, Photosynthesizers, and climatic conditions.[81]

‘The Day the Earth was Born’ is the rather misleading title of a channel four documentary about the history of the Earth. It highlights the most recent discoveries of planetary science. A large part of the documentary is made up of first rate computer graphics which brilliantly portray the key events making up the development of the Earth. The main difference of the analysis in this documentary from previous analyzes of the Earth’s history is the role of outer space. Whereas in the past, planetary scientists tended to regard the emergence of life as being indigenous to the Earth, this documentary suggests that life probably started in outer space. It reinforces this proposition by suggesting that much of the water on this planet may also have come from outer space.