I recently watched a video that mentioned the “toxic pit problem” of how closed mines turn into toxic lakes full of rainwater and harmful chemicals. Some companies are trying to fix them, but I was wondering if the Earth could “purify” itself if left completely alone?
Like, let’s say all of humanity disappeared tomorrow, could the harmful chemicals be filtered out or dissolved or changed after a billion years?
In: Planetary Science
I mean, one could argue that the earth is already “pure.” Or rather that it doesn’t need “purifying” even now. Humans are part of nature. We adapt our environment to meet our needs similarly but to a greater degree as a beaver does when it dams a river.
No matter what we do the Earth will continue on spinning and it’s impossible for any actions taken by humans to exterminate all life on the planet. It’ll always bounce back and the natural ecosystem will always balance out so long as life exists. What humans have done in the last three centuries is catastrophic given our limited perspective, and indeed it is catastrophic to the life that lives on Earth today, but three centuries is a fraction of a fraction of a blink of an eye in the scale of Earth’s lifetime and that of evolution.
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