It Builds Itself: Biosphere Earth

We are rebooting The Value of Biosphere Earth podcast series, starting with a focus on the meaning of the word, biosphere. In this episode, author/researcher Chris Searles reads an extremely-well cited synopsis of the academic research on why other-Life, Earth’s biodiversity of plants, animals, fungi, microbes, etc., is the most valuable and intelligent thing in the known universe. (Citations below.)  A STACK… all of the elements of a system, creates our ability to live in the universe. More on this in podcast #3 in this series, Ecosystem Services.

Defining the "Software Stack" analogy
The Human Life-Support System is essentially (top down): 

    a) Stuff we need: Food, Clothes, Fuel, Atmosphere, Freshwater, etc., generated by:

    b) Other macro life: Plants, Animals, Wilderness Ecosystems, and

    c) Micro life: Protista, Soils, Fungi, Microbes, Microbiomes, and their interactions with

    d) The geosphere: Rocks, Minerals, Chemicals, Climate Conditions (non-living elements). 

Read The Value of Biosphere Earth, A Self-Generating Stack: 

• by Chris Searles, on Google Drive: https://tinyurl.com/VOBE2-stack
• Visit our website for more: https://biointegrity.net/value

About Chris Searles

• director, BioIntegrity.net / exec. editor, AllCreation.org
• other notable research: The Systemic Climate Solution

 
Program
0:00  Welcome  

1:30  Paragraph 1, Biosphere Earth  

3:00  Paragraph 2, Smarter than our Computers (the software stack analogy)

          "Stack" visual: https://tinyurl.com/VOBE2-stack
5:00  Life itself is miraculous. The life-support system built itself over the last 4 billions of years

6:25  Chris goes through the diagram in paper. Our life-support system = inanimate elements of Earth (minerals & climate conditions) + interactive, intelligent, relational life-layers, which ultimately led to and presently create our everyday life-support system, (aka. Nature, as we know it).
7:45 This planetary life-support system is EXCEPTIONALLY RESOURCEFUL: self-integrating, adaptive, self-healing, self-correcting. It appears to always be going towards more diversity of life (more biodiversity) when climate conditions are favorable. 

Citations
Images and Oxford
 • “The Pale Orange Dot” (Microbial Earth circa three billion years ago) – Zubritsky. NASA Team Looks to Ancient Earth First to Study Hazy Exoplanets. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. (2017) https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-team-looks-to-ancient-earth-first-to-study-hazy-exoplanets 
•  “The Blue Marble” (Biosphere Earth today) -- Stockli, Nelson. Earth The Blue Marble. NASA Visible Earth. (2000) https://visibleearth.nasa.gov/images/54388/earth-the-blue-marble
• “Definition of biosphere”. Oxford University Press. Lexico.com. 30 September 2021. https://www.lexico.com/definition/biosphere

No other planet known to contain organisms after thousands surveyed
• NASA Exoplanet Archive. Infrared Analysis and Processing Center, California Institute of Technology. [Retrieved 20 August 2021.] https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu
• University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo. Habitable Exoplanets Catalog. Planetary Habitability Catalog, University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo. [Retrieved 29 September 2021.] http://phl.upr.edu/projects/habitable-exoplanets-catalog.
• Kaufman, M. Life, Here and Beyond. Astrobiology at NASA. [Retrieved 17 August 2020.] https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/about/

Science has established that the foundation for human existence is simple and complex life
• Chimeleski, Kolter. Microbes gave us life. Stat. (2017) https://www.statnews.com/2017/12/21/microbes-human-life/
• Ellison, et al. Trees, forests, water: Cool insights for a hot world. Global Environmental Change 43: 51-61. (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.01.002
• Malmstrom, C. Ecologists Study the Interactions of Organisms and Their Environment. Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):88. (2010) https://nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/ecologists-study-the-interactions-of-organisms-and-13235586/
• Gilbert & Neufeld. Life in a world without Microbes. PLoS Biol. 12(12):e1002020. (2014) doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1002020
• European Commission publication. Ecosystem Goods and Services. European Commission
Publications Office. (2009) https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/info/pubs/docs/ecosystem.pdf
• Convention on Biological Diversity. Sustaining Life on Earth. CBD. (2009) https://www.cbd.int/convention/guide/
• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Ecosystems and human well-being: Biodiversity synthesis. World Resources Institute, Washington, D.C. (2005) http://www.millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.354.aspx.pdf

Everything we have is a result of living inside of Biosphere Earth
• Isbell, et al. Linking the influence and dependence of people on biodiversity across scales. Nature 546, 65–72. (2017)  https://doi.org/10.1038/nature22899
• Rojstaczer, Sterling, Moore. Human appropriation of photosynthesis products. Science Vol 294, Issue 555, 2549-2552 (2001) https://science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1064375
• Williams. A modern Earth Narrative: what will be the fate of the biosphere? Technology in Society 22, Issue 3, 303-339. (2000) https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-791X(00)00012-9
• Daily, G., editor. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Island Press. (1997) https://islandpress.org/books/natures-services

Definition of “software stack”
• “Definition of software stack”. Semilof, S. Tech Target: SearchApp Architecture. Searchapparchitecture.techtarget.com. [Retrieved 29 September 2021.] https://searchapparchitecture.techtarget.com/definition/software-stack

Biosphere Earth is self-creating, self-organizing, more complex and varied than we can visualize.
> Self-creating and self-organizing
• Morozov, et al. New paradigm of state policy in the field of ecology and environment climate protection. Energy: Economics, Technology, Ecology. Vol. 8, 7-14. (2019) https://www.bioticregulation.ru/life/paradigm.php
• Ellison, et al. Trees, forests, water: Cool insights for a hot world. Global Environmental Change 43: 51-61. (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.01.002
• Brose, Hillebrand. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in dynamic landscapes. The Royal Society 371, 1694. (2016) https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0267
• Rutledge, et al. Biosphere. National Geographic: Resource Library. (2011) https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/biosphere/
• Stachowiz, Bruno, Duffy. Understanding the Effects of Marine Biodiversity on Communities and Ecosystems. Annual Review of Ecol, Evol and Sys 38: 739-766. (2007) https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.38.091206.095659

> Ocean life integration
• Friendlingstein, et al. Global Carbon Budget 2020. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12...