| Popis: |
There are two contrasting views on life and Earth’s habitability. One view is that the program of environmental regulation by life cannot exist, because it is genetically unstable. A program of “common environmental good” cannot be stabilized by natural selection and would have been disrupted by selfish mutants. The ever-changing Earth’s environment has remained suitable for the ever-adapting life by chance. The second view is that the Earth could not have remained habitable by chance, because the life-compatible environment is physically unstable. Life regulates the environment, but the program of regulation has persisted by chance (for some reason, the disruptive mutants never spread). Neither view forms a quantitative theory of life-environment interaction. Here I discuss the biotic regulation theory, whereby the genetic and environmental stability are mutually guaranteed: the genetic program of environmental regulation by life encodes such an environment where disruptive mutants cannot spread. The key interdisciplinary question is what these environmental properties are. This is not an academic question: once the natural ecosystems are destroyed, the environment will rapidly degrade even if carbon emissions discontinue. Global change mitigation efforts can be misguided if the key role of natural ecosystems in stabilizing a life-favorable environment continues to be neglected. |
