If We Are An Organ In Earth's Body

According to the Gaia theory, the earth is becoming a coherent individual, so I can't help wondering about humanity's function in earth's body.

Discover what we do best and you will discover which earth organ we are.

So what do we do best?

Collect together and talk.
                                     Connect.
                                                Send.
                                                     Receive.

We create community and we communicate.

That suggests that humans are the connecting, communicative organ in earth's body--earth's neural net.

According to a Morgan Stanley survey 91% of mobile phone users keep their phones nearby at all times. We use them everywhere: alone or in a crowd, in bed or on the toilet. In fact, 75% of American mobile users used their phones in the bathroom.

Connectivity is addictive. 

Once we get it, few of us can let it go, even for a few hours.

Why?

Most of us have an unsatisfied hunger at the center of our being. Unsatisfied longing hurts. Connectivity combines two of the best ways to distract ourselves from pain: keep busy and consume.

But is there more to our love of connection?

We humans have only just filled our environment. What if this is the required tipping point in earth maturing into a coherent homeostatic individual? If so, we have only just crossed that line.

Then our NEED for connectivity is not just a desperate wall social isolates erect against loneliness, or a way business profiteers build global markets, or how all of us keep ourselves from feeling. Our connectivity addiction would be an inherent response to our nascent biologic role in homeostatic earth.

Then connectivity would be vital to every human, plugged-in or not.

Vital to all life, human and non-human.

            Vital to the earth.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Human Population Growth: Earth's Push Back Time

Humans are entering the top of our population growth curve. 

Partly because some of us have chosen to limit births, but also because, for the very first time in human history, earth is limiting our births for us. 

It’s a biological given that populations have an s-shaped growth curve.

At first, growth is exponential, starting slow and increasing at a faster and faster pace.

Sound familiar?

Until recently, this is what all the human population growth charts looked like:

Doomsday scenarios say if we keep reproducing at greater and greater rates, we will soon run out of food, water, and space.

For most biological populations, though, the rate of growth starts off exponential. Then it slows and eventually stops. The top of the curve becomes flat, making that characteristic s-shape.

Why?

Most critters are no smarter than people. They don’t choose to limit how many babies are born.

The environment limits births for them.

Populations race exponentially upward until the critters have filled their environment. Then the environment pushes back. 

The critters' waste products pile up. A poison to them, their waste damages their fertility and vitality. Meanwhile, predators--including disease organisms--settle in for a steady munch. The result? Population growth slows, then levels off.

The human population is still growing, but our growth rate is going down.

We have entered the top of our growth curve.

Now, some of that is sociological. For people in rich countries, kids are expensive, social services means you don't need them to take care of you in your old age, and better medical care for children means you no longer need a bunch to have some reach maturity. So people choose to have smaller families.

But there may also be a more biological explanation.

Think about it.

1. We are the only true world-wide species. (Other world-wide species, like Norwegian rats, live off us).
2. If the whole world is our environment, we have only just filled it.
3. As we cover the earth, our waste products spread--primarily industrial and agricultural pollutants. These decrease our health, and many act like hormones to decrease our fertility.
4. As a global monoculture, we are fast food central for human disease organisms.

Humans are not really better than other critters. We are not immune to normal, biological processes. 

Neither are we worse. 

In fact, we’re just the same, and we’ve finally filled our environment: the whole earth.
  
Giving the earth a chance to push back.

*  *  *  *  *  *

When Compassion and Biology Collide

With a flash of annoyance, I drove up behind a car stopped in the middle of a suburban street. Then I noticed that facing me was another car in the opposite lane. Between the two cars a mom duck was crossing followed by her string of ducklings. A lot of ducklings, maybe a dozen.

They all crossed. As the cars started up, the mom duck jumped the curb. Her ducklings followed one by one.

The second smallest duckling jumped at the curb--and missed. The smallest also failed to make the jump. The two ducklings flapped their nascent wings, jumping at the curb again and again.

No luck.

They stumbled along the gutter, jumping and flapping, while the mom duck hunkered down on the sidewalk surrounded by the rest of her brood. A crow flew down to stand in the grass over the struggling ducklings. The ducklings would make a nice feast once they'd exhausted themselves.

Unaware of the ducklings that I was still watching, another suburbanite drove up behind me and honked. I had to go. I put my car in gear.

It’s just biology, I thought as I drove slowly away. What duck fledges a dozen ducklings? There is nothing to do except let nature take its course. After all, crows deserve to eat, too.

I drove a couple of blocks, then stopped. I couldn’t just leave. I had to try and help.

By the time I returned, the stranded ducklings had gotten pretty far from where the mom duck still crouched--the crow keeping pace over them.

I parked and got out.

Now I’ve lived with mammalogists and ornithologists. I know how to grasp a small wild thing: firmly, wrapping my hand around its body just behind the head. Hold it firmly, and it won’t hurt itself or you.

I know what to do. That doesn’t mean I can do it. My socialized fear of hurting interferes.

I scooped up the second smallest duckling. Although I held it too loosely, so it flailed in my hand, I managed to set it down near the mom duck. It ran to safety, tucking itself into the mass of ducklings. I felt the rush of warmth that philanthropy brings.

Then I went after the smallest duckling. It was way down the street, having run in total panic from my hand descending on its sibling. I was able to scoop it up, but couldn’t bring myself to grasp it firmly enough. It wriggled hard. I held it against my breast. It wriggled harder, falling from my fingers to the sidewalk. I didn’t hear it land, but imagined a sickening thumb.

Still, a moment later it ran to its mother. I smiled benevolently at it.

Only, something was wrong. This smallest duckling didn’t wiggle into the brood, but huddled into a small ball, separate from the others. Like it wasn’t sure of its welcome. Like it knew that that was as close as it could come and not be pecked.

No question: the smallest duckling was crow food. And although it was saved for now, how long did the second smallest have? It’d be an extraordinary year when a duck could fledge a dozen ducklings.

I went back to my car and my errands. I didn’t want to see the painful end to the smallest duckling’s story. I didn’t want to see biology at work.

Laying eggs is relatively cheap, and predators go for the weakest first. Perhaps the sole purpose of smaller siblings is to be a dangling bribe, insurance for those with a better chance of reaching adulthood.

If so, what price an act of compassion? Did I actually save one duck and give another a chance? Or did I just make myself feel good, while leaving those small ducklings to go through the same suffering all over again, later?

I don’t know.

But life is complicated and mysterious. If the value of helping is only measured by results, it means nothing when we don’t save the way we intended. But what if there is meaning in simply extending a hand, in trying?

If the purpose of the smallest ducklings is to protect the others by dying, then perhaps I did ok, even if my interference was naive. The thing is, my heart would not let me drive away. Of that I am sure.

Let nature go on clipping the string of ducklings, life by tiny life. I still had to put my hand in, all justifications aside.

That is also biology.