Terraforming Earth
Without a doubt, humanity is seriously harming the Planet Earth that we all live on.
Mankind is ravaging the planet for its resources to sustain our heavily consuming civilization. Unfortunately, the Earth is not able to naturally renew itself at the current rate of human consumption, and this rate is also increasing. There are already vast areas on the planet that can no longer support human life because of mankind’s activities. Other areas are no longer able to sustain life, at least not in abundance, where there were teeming ecological habitats before humanity’s interference. Furthermore, these "dead zones" or areas are growing in number and in size. As a result, the planet is dying piece by piece.
In order to save most of the life forms on the planet, it will be necessary to repair the environment on a massive scale. In other words, the Earth will be the first planet that will need terraforming. Terraform means to change (form) a planet to be more Earthlike (terra). This may seem like a conundrum, since terraforming the planet may be interpreted as making Earth more Earthlike which does not make logical sense at first. What is actually meant by terraforming Earth is to make the planet more habitable to sustain more life as the Earth was previously able to support.
Mankind has already terraformed small areas of the planet, such as irrigating deserts, planting forests, building islands, creating artificial reefs, and constructing wildlife sanctuaries. However, this is not enough to counteract all of the damage that is being done everywhere on the planet.
In order to successfully save the entire planet and as many living organisms as possible, it will be necessary to eventually terraform most of, if not the entire, planet. This is the only way to guarantee the survival of mankind on our Planet Earth.
by Phil for Humanity
on 02/26/2008