Can anyone name something man has done to actually benefit the Earth?

[Toots]

I am not talking about benefiting mankind, I am talking about benefiting the Earth itself. I know we have establishjed wildlife sanctuaries but they would not have been needed if man didn't almost wipe out the protected species. I know there is a program going on to plant trees where they have been cut down but again that is just trying to remedy one of our created problems. I want to know something man has done to actually benefit earth without it being to fix something we broke. IMO mankind has been nothing more than a plague upon the planet reeking havoc everywhere we go. We take take take but almost never give back or just out and out give. Give a good reason why mankind should not just be exterminated from this Earth...God really wants to know...

[C_U_L8R]

1. Dying

We make good fertilizer..

I guess poop fits in that category too.

All depends on your diet.

[salinen]

2. Man is a horrible mutation of an Ape

that hopefully soon, will be wiped off the planet by it's own foulness. To that end, Bush may be the savior. And Man is convinced it deserves everlasting life in heaven.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Nature has a way of balancing things out.

Despite our hubris in thinking that we are somehow special and the epitome of evolution, we are newcomers here. And, we are proving ourselves to be very incompetant newcomers.

Nature will sort us out, just as it has countless other species.

[cigsandcoffee]

4. The natural world does fine on its own.

What could we do to help it be better than its natural state? All mankind can do is minimize our impact on nature, and benefit other people.

[TomClash]

5. The Pet Rock nt

[Toots]

6. By far the best answer and probably the only real true one.

:thumbsup:

[Boojatta]

7. How about U.N. peacekeepers preventing conflicts between cats and birds?

[Bill McBlueState]

8. what counts as a benefit?

How do you define "benefit"? It's a hard question to answer unless there's some way of measuring what's harmful and what's helpful.

[Cvortex_10]

9. Benefiting the earth to do what?

nt

10. we are suppose to keep things in balance

And the world will purify itself, if we keeping polluting it. There will be volcanoes and storms etc.

[Odin2005]

11. Our benifits to earth lie in the distant future

Various things dealing with nuclear reactions and the gas laws cause the Sun's core to slowly become more dense ( and therfore causing the rate of fusion to increase) as more hydrogen is converted to helium, this causes the sun to slowly get brighter over billions of years. 4 billion years ago the sun was 30% dimmer, requiring Earth to have lots of atmospheric CO2 to keep warm. as the sun brightened warming caused increased rainfall and therefore erosion, which caused more CO2 to be trapped as limestone in the oceans, this feedback loop has generally kept the earth's average temperature between 12C and 22C.

Now, the ever brightening sun is casing the Earth is starting to run low on CO2 (the current human-caused mess will correct itself in a couple million years one we've stoped using fossil fuels, and so is insignificant on the timescales I'm talking about). 500 million years from now the CO2 levels will reach the minimum level that photosynthesis can occur (40ppm). If the level drops below the minimum plants will begin to die on a massive scale, the rotting releasing CO2 back into the atmosphere; the feedback loop keeping the earth mild will go haywire and Earth will eventually the ever-brightening sun will cause the oceans to start boiling way, and Earth will become a new Venus.

This is where inteligent life can help. in the distant future when we are super-advanced we could slowly move the Earth outward as the sun brightens, or even sooner put up a "sunshade" allowing us to control the amount of light comming in. This could allow us to keep the Earth alive untill the Sun dies.

[pitohui]

12. so your answer would be a "no?" then

because saying mankind will get around to doing something useful in a billion years or so does not encourage me that mankind has done anything useful just yet

:-)

[Odin2005]

13. Yeah, we haven't done anything usefull YET.

We are making the transition from a Kardshev Type 0 civilization to a Kardeshev Type I civilization, the most dangerous time in the history of an intelligent species. A Type 0 civilization gets most of it's energy from the biosphere (animal power, wood, fossil fuels), a Type I civilization uses so much more energy then a Type 0 civilization that is must get most of it from non-biological sources (fission, fusion, solar, wind, etc.) so it does not ruin the biosphere of it's planet.

Our problem is that our levels of energy use is approaching Type I levels, but we don't have the technology yet to make that energy use sustainable because we sill rely mostly on the biosphere for energy. British astronomer Sir Martin Rees estimated that we have a 50% chance of distroying ourselves before we reach Type I status, ethier from ecological devastation or from nuclear war. One good thing about acheiving Type I status is that we should be able to reverse global warming, Type I civilizations command enough energy to engage in intentional climate modification.

[blues90]

14. Man has done nothing but abuse the planet

I saw people in 1976 in florida slowely ruin many natural small water ways by bringing their picnik crap and tossing all the garbage right in the water , including lawn chairs and tires and all sorts of garbage . This spread rapidly so much so that within a year all these areas were spoiled dumps , I used to fish there and saw this devastation and ruin . It was sad and a crime done by stinking lazy slobs who had the time to load up their shit but no time to pick it up and despose of it properly .

Here in southern calif in a city called glendale there were grand trees lining the front of the place I worked , these were cut down to provide a better view of this dealership , then the city built a parking lot across the street m a line of tall shade trees were removed because of the berries that fell , many more trees were removed as well , Well it was evident from the heat of the afternoon breeze since it was raised by no less than 15 degrees by doing so and it was all to please people and the appearance of the streets and sidewalks and their precious cars from berry stains . now it is an ugly over heated abomination right out of hell .

If man could get it into his fool head that to work around rather than alter the landscape then the result would be a better planet . LA is close to being void of trees . A concrete hell is what it's become .

[Marie26]

15. God, I can't think of a thing. nt

[porphyrian]

16. No one can, not that we have or haven't.

It's the scope of it all - no one has any fucking clue whether our existance and its impact is good or bad for the earth except in the short term. Long after we're forgotten, our actions may precipitate events that save the planet. Or we may be responsible for its destruction. Unless you know someone with a time machine, you don't know either.

[Wiley50]

17. Yeah. RFK Sr. begat RFK Jr . n/t

[RB TexLa]

18. I didn't know we were here to benefit the earth

[SoCalDem]

19. If one accepts the premise that earth is a dynamic living thing

every other living thing "on" it is little more than a parasite, doomed to live for a while and then die, only to be replaced by other parasites :)

cheery? no?