Vita : the Living Planet
Vita : the Living Planet
At the heart of Vita is the belief that all life on Earth is part of a single life-form - a single living organism.
In the field of biology, all organisms are given a scientific name called a binomial. This is written in Latin, has two words and is descriptive of the organism.
The name ascribed to the single organism that makes-up life on Earth is Imperium vitae-planeta.
A shortened version is Vitae-planeta. That's Latin for The Planet Lives. The shortest version of all is just Vita.
Vita is a super-organism made up of all the other living things on the planet, plus the atmosphere, ocean and soils.
You and I are part of the living planet, cells in Vita's body.
Some readers will recognize Vita as a variant of James Lovelock’s Gaia, which it is, with one important difference.
Lovelock said that Earth’s biosphere has the characteristics of a living organism, whereas Vita believes that the biosphere is a living organism.
This distinction is central to Vita belief. What's more, as the belief is just a small step away from a testable scientific frame, it is possible to infer truths about the place of humans on Planet Earth.
Below are some observations about Vita.
Omni-Holobiont
In the language of ecology (the science that studies the interaction of living things) Vitae-planeta can be viewed as a holobiont - an organism comprised of many different types of organism. A coral reef is an example of a holobiont. Because Vita comprises all forms of life, she can really be considered an omni-holobiont - a holobiont that is comprised of all living organisms.
Not a God
Vita does not view Vita as a God, a Deity, the creator of the universe or anything remotely like a conscious entity with intent.
One of Trillions
Vita is an emergent property of the laws of nature playing out on a planet within the habitable zone of its star. There are probably trillions of Vitas on planets around the Universe.
Wide and Thin
The closest analogue to Vita would be a giant lichen that lives on the surface of a boulder. It has the shape of a thin skin, about 1% of the the diameter of the globe.
Above and Below Vita
Above Vita is the frigid depth of space, and below VIta is the Earth's mantle (molten rock). Vita's wispy outer boundary is about 100 kilometers above the ground, and its lower depth is some kilometers below the seafloor in the Earth's crust.
Very old.
Vita has endured over 3 billions years because she maintains internal chemical and thermal equilibrium that is conducive to life. Indeed, if the Universe is 13.8 billions years old, that makes Vita about one-quarter the age of the Universe.
He. She or It?
Technically, Vita would be referred to as an 'it' as it is a gender-less non-human species. However, out of respect Vita is referred to as 'she'.
Non-judging, but reacting
While one can ponder Vita , Vita cannot ponder us per se. Vita is not conscious and she doesn't observe us. We humans can ponder on Vita 's behalf. Humans are the part of Vita that ponders. While Vita doesn't judge us for our actions, she does respond to them - at the global scale. We are, after-all now living in the Anthropocene Epoch in which humans are the main drivers of change on the Earth.
Pumping 30 Gigatons tons of CO2 a year into Vita's body, and sending extinct legions of her organisms will not come without consequence. If Vita turns on us humans, it won't be because she is angry. It will just be.
Diurnal/Nocturnal
Vita is the only organism that is simultaneously in both night and day, and in every phase in between.
Vita Never Sleeps
Vita never sleeps. She is always in an equivalent state of consciousness.
Vita for the Human Race
Over the past 3.8 billion years, Vita has existed in many forms not all of which were suited to human habitation. At times in the past, it has been both too hot and too cold on Earth for humans. Vita 's climate has been ideal for the growth of human civilization over the past 12,000 years, but our actions have shifted us out of the natural cycles.
Mutually Bound
The future of the humans is in Vita's hands as we are dependent on a healthy planet for our survival. However, in two ways, Vita needs us.
In the first instance, humans are needed to clean up the mess left behind by the humans, including:
- Climate Change enhanced super-storms will excavate the world’s land-fills and flush hundreds of millions of tons of plastics and pollutants into the ocean;
- The world’s 450 nuclear reactors and their containment ponds will succumb to age and natural disaster, set afire and contaminate the planet with deadly radiation;
- The 1,000 kg of plutonium and uranium that resides in abandoned orbiting satellites will de-orbit and burn-up in the atmosphere;
- Many threatened species will die-off without the proactive conservation efforts;
- The trillion tons of CO2 we have put in the atmosphere will continue to overheat planet.
If we do not fix this mess, Vita will suffer greatly, shedding massive amounts of biodiversity.
Secondly, over much longer time-frames, Vita ’s future is in our hands. This is because Vita will eventually die on Earth as the sun expands.
An option therefore exists for humans to depart to another planet and take parts of Vita with us.
This is not something that needs to be planned for and certainly not attempted for at a minimum several million years.
As a species, we humans do not yet have the emotional intelligence to undertake this. We are still adults requiring child supervision.
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https://www.metabunk.org/threads/full-disk-hd-images-of-the-earth-from-satellites.8676/