Earth Is More Than A Planet With Life On It. It's A "Living Planet"

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 24 June 2024

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

About ten years ago, science writer Ferris Jabr started contemplating Earth as a living planet rather than a planet with life on it. It began when he learned that the Amazon rainforest doesn't simply receive the rain that defines it; rather, it helps generate that rain. The Amazon does that by launching bits of biological confetti into the atmosphere that, in turn, seed clouds. After learning this, he began looking for other ways life changes its environment. That led to his new book Becoming Earth: How Our Planet Came to Life. He talks to host Regina G. Barber about examples of life transforming the planet — from changing the color of the sky to altering the weather.

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Transcript

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0:41.0	About 10 years ago, science writer Ferris Jabor came across a fact he never heard before that blew his mind.
0:48.0	The Amazon rainforest does not simply receive the rain, for which it is so famous famous it actually generates about half of the
0:54.3	rain that falls on its canopy every year. It may seem straightforward that trees
0:58.2	and other plants pull water from their soil then release what they don't need
1:02.0	into the air.
1:03.1	But Ferris says it's not that simple.
1:06.6	That the process actually involves the entirety of life
1:09.6	within the forest.
1:11.1	So the Amazon is continually spewing these invisible plumes of tiny
1:14.8	biological particles. Think pollen grains, fungal spores, microbes, bits of leaves. They
1:21.1	get swept up into the atmosphere and they become the particles on
	...

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