Friday, October 15, 2010

A very thin layer of life

This week's dramatic rescue of the Chilean miners should serve as a reminder of the tenuous nature and fragility of life on this planet.

Consider for a moment this fact (and certainly I'm not the first to point this out): A kilometer beneath the surface of the earth the temperature becomes unbearable for humans and at two kilometers, uninhabitable. With increasing height, air temperature drops uniformingly with altitude at a rate of approximately 6.5 Celsius per 1000 metersAt a height of 3 kilometers, life is not sustainable without the proper equipment.
So we are born, prosper, and die on this 4 km deep sliver that supplies us with all the sustenance we could ever need. And this sliver of life is a one-in-a-billion occurence that only took billions of years to  occur! And it's all we have.

And yet we carry on brutalizing both this planet and  our fellow denizens as if our tomorrows are guaranteed. Ours is a ball of blue life floating in the inky darkness of space and unfortunately, we all seem to be hard-wired to screw it all up.

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