Earth

We are privileged to be uniquely situated in a cosmos on a specific circling planet tailor-made for us and other organic life. The universe evidences exceptional conditions and exacting precision involving  extremely fine-tuned numbers and parameters that must be met to initially support a life-flourishing earth.  Many well-choreographed chemical and geological factors come together to make our position in the universe a safe, efficient and pleasing location.  Powerful factors are in operation to regulate and balance climate and temperature that permit a habitable environment.  We take gravity for granted, but it is reportedly actually fine-tuned to 1 part in a hundred million billion billion billion billion billion.  If the gravitational force were altered by the smallest degree, one devastating effect would be that the sun and us would cease to exist.  Such tell-tale signs point to a well-designed environment purposefully created to be habitable for life, not one that could have come about by random chance over time.

Our planet is well-outfitted for livability by us.  We have not seen life arising from non-life.  The biology in plants and animals is marvelous.  An extraordinarily vast array of varied series of exact inter-related, inter-connected complex circumstances and events must occur in specific sequential order to allow for the development and continuance of life on earth.  The planet has a delicate balance of necessary finely-tuned chemical and physical phenomena, properties, compounds, components and overlapping processes that must behave and interact in certain fashion to allow life on earth as we know it.

Cloud formation and related activities perform in useful cycles that serve as a clever thermostat in creating habitable temperatures.  The earth has self-regulating movements and mechanisms to support availability of salt to sustain ocean life. The earth provides minerals.  From the core of the earth, which makes possible our magnetic field, to our unique crustal plate tectonics that help to keep earth temperatures safely controlled, earth is endowed with rare and exquisitely calibrated  properties that enable life here to be possible. We are situated at an optimally beneficial distance from our sun which happens to be the right age with the right mass in the right location.  We live in a clear, pleasant transparent atmosphere that has a correct balance of life-supporting oxygen.  We’re conveniently located in an unusually excellent position for viewing and studying the cosmos.  These sort of numerous, important, significantly advantageous, precise features could not have happened through accidental occurrence. 

We are not here by happenstance.  Man and living things have complexity and purpose.  Our earth was intentionally engineered with crucial mind-boggling, intricately precise calibration that must be minimally met and maintained for man to live in it.  Beautifully orchestrated, acutely-calculated design is evidenced from our inner core outward.  Many complex “must-have” vital factors working together in exact precision were required for earth to even be – e.g. a correct tilt, our size, our adequate distance from the sun, the moon’s positive effect on our tides and tilt, the often referenced just-right habitable “Goldilocks Zone” location in just the right optimal type of spiral galaxy, and numerous other special favorable requirements.  “Goldilocks” used in this context refers to necessary planetary conditions to be “just right” to sustain life.  Our special earth-moon relationship is vital to earth’s routine and continuance.  It is unique in the universe in that so far astronomers haven’t yet found another comparable earth-moon “Goldilocks” scenario such as we have.

What are the odds that the 322 immensely precise, necessary conditions that support the existence of earth could be here by chance?  Hugh Ross, a modern-day astrophysicist, estimated the mathematical probability that there could exist even one other true life-supporting planet besides earth, and the number calculated to a staggering 10 to the 304th power.  What an unfathomably huge number! So, written out in words, the odds there is another life-supporting planet truly like earth anywhere that could have come into being on its own is a stunning one in a million trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion  trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion.  (To spare you counting, that’s “trillion” repeated 23 times after “million”).  Can such magnificant hidden wisdom woven into the fabric of everything everywhere come into being without a Master Designer?  Can there be Creation without a Creator?

The Bible tells us that God created everything from nothing, and He did so in total control and with perfect purpose.  God’s providence over Creation exhibits His wisdom.  His divine intelligence, power and meticulously detailed supernatural design are evident in things of earth and beyond.  The earth is a uniquely positioned habitat created to support life.  From the speed of the earth’s rotation to its protective magnetosphere’s distance from the sun, the placement of our planet was carefully designed.  Earth conditions allow human beings to exist.  If further from the sun, we’d freeze.  If closer to the sun, we’d burn.  We must rotate as we do or half the planet would be in periods of darkness and vegetation could not thrive.  Even the size of the earth is a significant factor supporting many forms of life that could not be sustained if the earth were 2 times larger with increased gravity.  The temperature of the oceans sustain marine life.  The precisely balanced concentrations of gases in the rather thin band of air we call our atmosphere are essential to support life, such that even the slightest variation would create an unstable situation that would make life as we know it impossible.  This protective blanket is unique to earth and we would not exist without it.  There are many layers to our atmosphere.  The higher up we go, the gas molecules that make up our atmosphere become less and less dense, making breathing difficult as the air becomes progressively thinner.  Expert opinion varies regarding where the boundary of earth’s domain ends and space begins, but most agree on 62 miles above sea level as the transition line between earth and space.   The weather systems of other places in our solar system reveal a broad formidable mix of anything from terrifyingly huge storms, severe winds and cyclones, icy cold, extreme heat, terrible dust storms, methane, massive hurricanes and other frightening weather unsuitable for humans.  Our intelligent Creator designed our planet so human life would flourish and continue.  Creation is a gift from God.  We are not the owners of Creation.  To the Lord your God belong the heavens, the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it. -Deuteronomy 10: 14 (NIV).  We are not to exploit the earth.  Ours is a dominion of service and management. Being image-bearers of God, our Biblical stewardship involves an attitude of preservation and being good, loving servants who’ve been entrusted to give proper care of God’s great Creation and its creatures whom He gave us to be caretakers over.

Topsoil is a precious part of earth which contains nutrients, minerals and microorganisms essential to supporting plant life.  It is the upper layer of soil that comprises the earth’s outermost layer.  Depending on location, it ranges from 2 to 10 inches deep.  Topsoil develops very slowly.  It can take 500 to 1,000 years for just 1 inch of topsoil to form.  Fertile topsoil is made of organic matter, minerals and water, and it contains many roots.  Topsoil holds lots of water, which helps to prevent flooding.  Earthworms and many small animals including gophers, mice, prairie dogs and other critters make their home in topsoil.  Earthworms and millions of insects such as spiders, ants and mites live in topsoil and help to nourish and aerate it as they pass through and create spaces for air and water to move.  The topsoil becomes enriched from worms eating organic matter which becomes converted to nutrients for plants.  Topsoil is teeming with life! In the top 3 inches of soil, it is estimated just 1 square foot holds 60 million bacteria and 3,000 little spiders.  Weight-wise, amazingly 1 acre of good topsoil can house over 100 pounds of protozoa, 900 pounds each of worms and algae, and over 2,000 pounds of fungi.

Dirt is an incredibly amazing living system.  There are at least 70,000 various kinds of soil in the U.S.  One teaspoon of dirt contains from 5 million to 100 million and up to 1 billion beneficial bacteria.  Just 1 tablespoon of dirt holds more organisms than there are people populating the planet.  A majority of these varied microscopic organisms have yet to be classified.  Soil sustains human life.  It holds much of the earth’s fresh water and it helps to maintain the temperature of the earth.

Perhaps when your gaze turns upwards to notice dreamy-looking white clouds floating by against a perfect blue sky, you may fancifully imagine the clouds to be as wispy and lightweight as pillows of soft, fluffy cotton balls.  However, such a thought would immensely underestimate the enormously significant scope of the substantial and necessary contribution of clouds to life on earth.  Surprisingly, clouds can be very weighty.  It may come as a surprise to hear that an ordinary cumulus cloud may weigh a million pounds!  Consider that the largest passenger jet weighs about that amount.  And clouds can hold up to millions of tons of water.  They have tremendous influence on our planet’s climate and weather.  They help deliver the sun’s energy.  Clouds also block light by shading the earth which helps keep the earth’s surface cooler.  So clouds help to balance the temperature both to warm up and cool down the earth.  Earth’s temperature would rise dramatically without clouds.  Clouds are essential to sustain life on earth.  Not only do they bring needed rain to prevent drought and the death of animals, humans and plants, they also help to regulate our temperature to protect us from excessive heat spikes and extreme cold.

Besides being breathtakingly beautiful and bringing a sense of soothing serenity, waterfalls are important to earth.  They purify the water as it flows into various rivers.  Waterfalls break down bacteria into nutrients and oxygen to the water where they flow – both features that help fish and other aquatic life to thrive.  Moisture from waterfalls keeps plant life and trees alive and healthy, which in turn helps to minimize soil erosion.  The negative ions released from the falling water also bring a healing calmness and clean air.

Sand ripples that can be seen on beaches and sand dunes around the world are wonderful examples of self-organizing, moving grains of sand.  Saltation is the term used to describe this phenomenon caused by the effect of the speed of wind blowing over sand in such a way the sand deposits cause ripples and unique surface patterns.  Sand ripples can occur underwater, and large sand ripples or dunes can reach far inland beyond beaches.  There is a sound phenomenon known as singing sand dunes or “Song of Dunes” which can happen when wind moving over sand dunes creates a high-pitched whistling, roaring, squeaking or booming sound, and these sound emissions can occur for several minutes.  Such sounds occur in about 35 or more desert locales throughout the world.  In certain areas, a person walking on dry sand can create the singing sand sound.  There is a variety in the range of frequency with singing sand.  Not all sand sings and different patches of sand produce different singing sounds.   The phenomenon of singing sand is not yet scientifically fully understood.

Right beneath our feet lies a vast and diverse invaluable hidden underground fungal network that is an important and vital  resource for sustaining life on earth.  The world vast biomass system of fungi consists of some trillions of miles of filaments known to transmit water, minerals, nutrients, and vital information through the planet’s soil systems and plant life.  On a walk in woodlands, we likely may see certain mushrooms growing, but this sort of fungi would only comprise a very small example of the great, expansive, active fungal network that exists on earth.  Diverse fungus build networks of active tiny filaments that perform many crucial functions.  They are able to collect and store carbon.  They interconnect roots of trees and plants and help with moisture retention.  They make vital nutrients available. They exchange important information about parasites and environmental nutrient density.  They send help and early warnings about dangers among trees and plants, and they play an important role in decomposing organic matter in the forest ecosystem.

In the long view, earthquakes rejuvenate our planet.  An earthquake is sudden ground movements and shaking that occur along fault lines when enormous stress builds up and causes a disturbance deeper within  the earth’s crust.  Energy is released in waves that cause shaking and ground fractures.  Annually millions of earthquakes (small and large) occur globally, and they are difficult to predict.   Though the dark side to earthquakes is that they are capable of causing enormous suffering from injuries and loss of life plus billions of dollars in damage to buildings and infrastructure, geologists remind us there are long range positive benefits from earthquakes that maintain high habitability necessary to sustain human life.  Earthquakes can churn the soil to redistribute sediment to make the soil very fertile which ultimately causes vegetation to flourish.  In the long run, earthquakes serve to regulate earth’s temperature and keep us cooler.  Without earthquakes happening, the earth could eventually become uninhabitable.  They are instrumental in making new crust and removing the old.