{"id":5363,"date":"2016-12-17T15:08:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-17T20:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5363"},"modified":"2019-03-23T09:58:01","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T13:58:01","slug":"the-enormous-regenerative-power-of-mother-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=5363","title":{"rendered":"The Enormous Regenerative Power of Mother Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

So many people have been writing about how they are grieving the damage humans have done to the earth, and their fear that we will damage the earth irreparably.\u00a0 As a scientist, and one who knows that the best we can do is check hypothesis (AKA guess) against data, I have a good idea of how science works and its limitations. \u00a0Nothing is ever solid.\u00a0 Paradigm change happens all the time.\u00a0 I have a degree in Astronomy, and I know<\/strong> that the universe is unbelievably beautiful, unimaginably complex and interconnected, far beyond our powers or understanding, and that nothing that happens is random.<\/p>\n

Books to read: \u00a0 \u00a0EarthDance by Elisabet Sahtouris<\/a>
\nThe Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn<\/a><\/p>\n

I know<\/strong> that the regenerative powers of Mother Gaia, our planetary life support system, are enormous.\u00a0 The worst case scenario \u2014 atomic holocaust \u2014 would not kill all the people, it will just kill off those who are living unsustainably. \u00a0Those who know how to live with respect for the earth, will not only live, but will know what to do to stay alive and healthy.\u00a0 I expect it will take nature a couple of thousand years to clean up the mess, and that\u2019s just the blink of an eye, geologically speaking.<\/p>\n

I wrote this in 2004. \u00a0It’s at the end of “A Circle of Hope<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

I was reminded yesterday of something that gave me great hope at the time, but there was a further lesson to be drawn from it:\u00a0 there\u2019s a business called\u00a0Ocean Arks<\/a>, that designs systems to deal with various kinds of water waste \u2014 like the Living Machines in Burlington<\/a> and at Findhorn that deal with sewage.\u00a0 John Todd designed a system for a candy company, to handle 10% of their waste\u2026
\n\u201cOne Friday a computer malfunctioned and sent 100 percent of the waste in to the eco-machine, overloading the system.\u00a0 \u201cA godawful mess \u2014 foam, fats, oil, dead fish \u2014 everywhere,\u201d says Todd.\u00a0 Disgusted employees turned off the pumps and went home for the weekend.\u00a0 But when they returned on Monday, the eco-machine had rebalanced itself.\u00a0 \u201cThey were so startled by this self-healing; that\u2019s what turned the tide and allowed us to continue with other projects,\u201d says Todd, who confesses surprise himself.\u201d\u00a0 (from story in Hope Magazine, Jan\/Feb 2004, written by Sarah Tuff)<\/p>\n

This is Gaia, in small, an eco-system that\u2019s capable of handling an overload of toxic stuff.\u00a0 Humans created the mess, but humans also designed the solution and when they did something magical happened: nature joined the fight. One-celled creatures and plants and fish somehow cooperated to deal with the mess. Guess what, everybody \u2013 WE ARE NOT ALONE.\u00a0 Even the algae are fighting to save planet earth. Nature is on our side and ready to help the moment we open the door \u2014 remember the 40 pound cabbages at Findhorn, and the rainforest that\u2019s regenerating under the pines of Gaviotas.\u00a0 There\u2019s this huge process working toward health, awareness, consciousness, compassion \u2013 and it\u2019s bigger than we are, big as the planet, maybe even big as the universe (Today I believe for sure as big as the universe) and our circle dancing community is part of it.\u00a0 We are part of how the human community re-balances itself \u2014 we don\u2019t have to know how, all we have to do is keep on doing what we do.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More evidence for my hypothesis: \u00a0I heard about this story a while back. \u00a0People removed a hundred year old dam, and the salmon started swimming back up it. \u00a0When I googled it, looking for facts, this is what I found: \u00a0What happens when you demolish a dam<\/a>. \u00a0It took two weeks for salmon to return. In the story, they don’t say how extraordinary this is. \u00a0The dams have been there for 100 years. \u00a0It has been a hundred years since a salmon has returned to its spawning ground. Generations of salmon have lived and died without returning to their special spot. \u00a0How did they know how to return, where to go?<\/p>\n

I also read a story about how removing pigs and rabbits from a small Pacific island allowed the native flora and fauna to rebound, and it happened faster than anyone expected. When I googled it I found a lot of scholarly papers and more complete stories<\/a>. \u00a0The process has been done on many many islands, and it’s more complex than my simple description makes it sound. \u00a0Alas it involves killing the invasive animals. \u00a0But nature does rebound.<\/p>\n

In 2010, the Nature Conservancy and other organizations bought a huge “station” in Australia. \u00a0Europeans had tried to grow cattle and sheep on huge tracts of land in a region where the dry climate made it very difficult. \u00a0So this was an experiment in returning to the indigenous ways of managing land. \u00a0Many positive results<\/a> have happened since.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So many people have been writing about how they are grieving the damage humans have done to the earth, and their fear that we will damage the earth irreparably.\u00a0 As a scientist, and one who knows that the best we … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-spirit","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}