living earths systems

some one started a post about a living earth, so i figure its time i posted this thought ive had on the systems of a livng earth
ive looked at it more, and its gotten more confusing, essentialy all plants and animals are part of the respitory system, because of their ability to exchange gases, and regulate them. second animals also function as an immune system, a plant or animal will become cancerous to the earth if its population becomes to high so there are herbivores to keep the plants in control, and carnivores to keep the herbivores in control. plants also serve a purpose as the starting point for the energy to enter the system, so like a digestive system. they take the input energy(the sun which acts almost like the planets food source) and convert it to a usable form, by making starches and sugar for the animals, so not quite like a typical digestive tract in animals, but along an idea that is similar. finaly humans may have become cancerous for the moment, i dont know if we will be differnt, or if we are actualy just serving another purpose. another thing we do is weve started to merge mopre with the liveing earth almost starting to act like another brain, or a more advanced defense. if our technology continues to advance and we use it right, we may be able to deflect meteors from hitting earth, we can geneticaly perserve speices that may go extinct. so we may be on the way to achiving a better relationship with a living earth.

reply to post by connorromanow
Something to keep in mind is that it didden't get messed up in a day and therefore won't get fixed in a day. That being said the best way to start is on an individual basis. Observe how things interact in your immediate area, how the animals move, what sort of habitat encorages them ,etc. One of the biggest factors is healthy soil. Our farm was clay and rock 15 years ago, now we have some acreage with deep black soil with lots of earthworms,microcorziae, and no hard pan. We did not use chemicals or machinery to accomplish this, instead we relied on some writings from the 1940's. I believe the author's last name was Turner and the book was Soil and Health. Turner advocated a method called sheet composting.This is done by covering an area with a layer of organic matter like leaves or straw and letting it break down on the area to be improved. When I read about this method a light came on! That's what is going on in every biosphere on the planet. If we just stand back and observe these systems we see that the organic material is naturally re-cycled in all of them. Our mission then, is to see where we fit into the system in a benifical way. Let me know if you want me to get into other facets of this because it is an amazing subject.

Glad to know I can leave for a whole day, and not have to worry about post build ups

reply to post by educatedhick


Well that's one way and I suppose we really don't know enough on the subject to be sure what we may be doing

reply to post by connorromanow
I guess what I'm trying to say is that we do have a niche in nature, it's just our impatience that gets in the way. We want everything now. Turner was not the first person to figure out how to fix depleted soil or to create a sustainable man-made environment. In the book 1491 there is a chapter about tiera negra, this is in referance to strange mounds found in Brazil 15 or 20 years ago. It turned out that thousands of years ago the native people made pottery for the express purpose of breaking it and layering it with organic matter to form islands on a large flood plain. Some of these islands were used for living areas, some for farming, and when the river flooded they fished to suppliment their diet. Technology is wonderful, even ancient versions of it.