A little dusting of snow last night, so every branch and twig is outlined, a picture postcard snow, a magical snow.\u00a0 The sky is still grey, so the colors are all soft pale pastels.\u00a0 It made me think what a miraculous sight I see from my windows.\u00a0 In order to have snow and trees, a number of conditions must be fulfilled.\u00a0 First, there has to be a planet the right distance from its sun such that water exists as vapor, liquid and frozen.\u00a0 A process of water evaporating, rising up into colder air and becoming clouds,\u00a0 clouds high enough and cold enough so the water will crystallize into the wonderful delicate hexagonal shapes of snowflakes which then start to fall.\u00a0 They have to meet with the right conditions as they fall, if it gets warm they melt and become rain, if it gets warmer still they evaporate again and never get to the ground.\u00a0 A phenomenon I\u2019ve seen here in New England, but it\u2019s more likely in desert areas \u2014 you see the cloud, and the rain, but the slanting lines of rain stop partway down.\u00a0 There also can\u2019t be any warm updrafts, or the snowflakes melt, become droplets, and freeze again, falling as hail or sleet.\u00a0 Then there\u2019s always freezing rain, as rain falls on a very cold surface and freezes.\u00a0 I expect the processes that deliver the different types of precipitation are more complex than I\u2019ve offered here, but that only makes snow more of a miracle.<\/p>\n
As for trees, to create a tree requires atoms of Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Nickel, Iron, etc. in a chemical soup, in a warmish puddle or pond or lake.\u00a0 Each of the atoms that are heavier than hydrogen have to be synthesized inside a giant star which then explodes, scattering the heavier atoms back into the cloud of hydrogen where they can combine to form a planet.\u00a0 Where did the hydrogen come from in the first place?\u00a0 Some think it was just there to be the material for the \u201cBig Bang.\u201d\u00a0 Others make the assumption that it is a property of space to create hydrogen atoms.\u00a0 Now that we\u2019ve discovered that atoms aren\u2019t \u201catom\u201d \u2014 indivisible \u2014 but made up of smaller parts, of which new ones are discovered every day, it\u2019s possible to imagine that these smaller parts, in another dimension, self-organize to become a hydrogen atom which emerges into our space-time.\u00a0 Once you\u2019ve got hydrogen, you can go on the create stars, which create the heavier atoms, etc. \u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n
Back to trees, back to carbon, oxygen, hydrogen in a puddle on a planet that\u2019s just the right distance from the sun.\u00a0 The atoms do a beautiful thing, they self-organize<\/a> into molecules, which then self-organize into cells, which then self-organize into multi-celled creatures, which then become plants which then co-evolve into many sizes, shapes and types to create healthy ecosystems.\u00a0 And there were trees. \u00a0And it was evening and it was morning, the Third Day.<\/p>\n By the way, Darwin never said \u201csurvival of the fittest<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 That was a convenient phrase for the wealthy creators of industrialism who wanted to justify their exploitation of natural resources and people.\u00a0 Unfortunately there are still people who believe in survival of the fittest as justifying rich people not helping poor people. \u00a0The understanding now is that a particular eco-system consists of creatures co-evolving to make the most use of the available resources.<\/p>\n Finally, there is the question of seasons on the planet.\u00a0 I suspect that the planet also has to have its axis tilted to the plane of its orbit, or trees and snow won\u2019t co-exist.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing that the range of angles the axis can take is somewhere around the earth\u2019s tilt of 23\u00b0.\u00a0 If a planet\u2019s axis is hardly tilted at all, there will be ice and tundra at the poles and rainforest around the equator, and only in the temperate latitudes will there be a chance of large trees evolving that then occasionally have snow falling on them. \u00a0That\u2019s likely to be extremely rare.\u00a0 I\u2019d love to know if someone has made a study of this.<\/p>\n For more information: \u00a0do a google search for “complexity” or “complex adaptive systems” \u00a0 \u00a0Slideshare<\/a> is helpful, but you have to create an account. \u00a0The book Complexity<\/a> is good, and there’s probably a lot of other stuff out now. \u00a0There’s also a page on my blog called “At Home in the Universe<\/a>,” that talks about this process. \u00a0For myself, I am very happy with this idea of how the universe creates itself. \u00a0This process, so complex and beautiful and elegant, is nothing less than divine. \u00a0The fact that it gives rise to sentient beings who are capable of cooperation, self-organization, and compassion leaves me with no doubt at all that it is a spiritual process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A little dusting of snow last night, so every branch and twig is outlined, a picture postcard snow, a magical snow.\u00a0 The sky is still grey, so the colors are all soft pale pastels.\u00a0 It made me think what a … Continue reading