In this traditional time to give thanks, most people focus on the joys within their own circle of family and friends, but there are some things that all of humanity can be thankful for.
First among these is the 80 percent of nitrogen in our atmosphere. Without that abundance of the heavy, inert gas that no one ever talks about, we would never have those wet “low pressure” systems that lift moisture up and away from the surface of the earth, to condense and rain down upon us and then leave us dry. Lacking nitrogen, there would be no sunny days and cloud-filled skies. The entire earth’s surface would forever experience
100 percent humidity, locked in a permanent fog.
We should be grateful that the continental plates still move across the globe, buckling rock, lifting mountains and causing earthquakes. Without that constant uplift, the mountains and hills would have long-since eroded away, leaving us with no dry land to stand upon.
We should be grateful that there is so much oxygen, and no more, in the atmosphere. It’s unusual for such a reactive gas not to disappear when it is in such constant contact with so many things that it could oxidize, but it’s rare and renewed availability makes possible all of the energy-expensive functions of life. And yet, if we had just a bit more, there would be no holding it back, and every combustible thing on earth would be consumed in a global inferno.
We should be grateful that oxidizing carbon is an exothermic reaction. Otherwise, our ancestors could never have warmed their homes and we could never warm our bodies. We would sink into a metabolic stupor whenever our environment turned cool.
We should be grateful for decay. Without it, the Earth would be covered with ever-deepening masses of wood, leaf and bark that would rival the coal-forming periods of the Carboniferous, until all of the vital elements were locked away in its depths and life ground to a halt. Decay cleanses the world and replenishes life. Be grateful for fungi and bacterial slimes.
We should be glad that the world is such a harsh and dangerous place. We would have no taste of cinnamon and nutmeg, vanilla and chocolate, if plants didn’t have to fend off things wanting to consume them. We would have no maple syrup or fuzzy kittens if things didn’t have to cope with life-threatening cold. Without the constants of violent death and brutal competition, life would have never evolved beyond a simple bacterial soup. We are all children of persistent violence and should not be ashamed of our heritage. Without suffering and cruel fate, there would be no compassion, nor the better parts of human nature.
We should be grateful for sex. Having genders is a wonderful way to ensure mixing of genes, giving nature a lush selection of variations to select among as she tailors organisms to their habitats. If all she had to work with were mutations, in the 2 billion years of working on life, the most she would likely have come up with would have been the simplest monocells. Let’s also be thankful that something as necessary as sex is also so enjoyable.
One last thing we should be thankful for are our parents, and their parents, and their ancestors going back to those first simple monocells. In an unbroken line, they rose to all of the challenges of the world, survived and sent a small bit of themselves forward into an unknowable future. Each of us stands on their shoulders extending back long before shoulders existed.
All of these things are so commonplace that most people don’t even take notice of them, and, if they do, don’t think them special, but the combination is unique in our solar system, and the chances of them co-occurring on any other planet are statistically infinitesimal.
Whether you believe in a beneficent God, or Gaia, or the randomness of chance, we should all be grateful that things have turned out as they have. As we look into space for worlds like our own, it might be good to remember how special our world is and how special we are to be in it. While some may think that this world was made for us, it might be more accurate to say that we were made for this world. We are not just existing on this planet; the Earth is our substance and it is what has made us human.
John Blasiak lives in Greenfield.