How We Came About Part 2

It requires another almost 30 million years for Earth to fight back and man does it ever when the Age of the Dinosaurs emerges to dominate the sea, land and sky for the next 165 million years. Some species reach gigantic proportions and as incredible as it might seem, many would have lasted to the end of your timeline journey; except for a very unlikely catastrophic event that eliminates every reptile, as well as about half of the remaining life, on Earth. At this precise point of your trek, you look out to take in a violent destructive blast from afar, in what is today Mexico, that forces a mile high tsunami and the discharge of billions of tons of sulfur. Known as the Fifth Extinction period, fumes and dust caused by a six mile diameter asteroid burrowing miles down in our planet’s crust, chokes out the gargantuan animals while blocking the sun’s light and warmth, making the planet unrecognizable for roughly 16 million years. Fortunately, there are surviving smaller organisms evolving into a whole new level of life before the arrival of the last Ice Age.

Whipping along in your time travel expedition, you observe an extreme climate condition cooling Earth and causing layers of ice to penetrate a good part of the northern continents. This event happened about 2.5 million years ago and continues right up to 10,000 years BCE - not long in the grand scheme of Earth’s evolution. After you were zipped all the way back to our planet’s birth, then rewound up to this most recent Ice Age, you come to the conclusion that the majority of what you just observed was void of visible life. All the action involving the fish, birds and animals literally began about 400 million years ago at the tag end of Earth’s 4.5 billion year development. You remain astonished how life did rebound time and time again after such terminal extinction periods were brought on by severe climate change, volcanoes and one enormous asteroid. Mother nature is proving to be quite the warrior, never losing the most violent battles for survival, always prevailing for a better environment.

You easily recognize that your home is in pristine condition during this last Ice Age as evidenced by the purest water and cleanest air you can ever think possible. Fighting for survival below your time machine are the saber-tooth tigers, wooly mammoths, the giant mastodons and eventually, mankind. You’re blown away as modern man populates the planet, exploring life saving techniques while migrating from one continent to the next. It’s fascinating to watch people advance their learning through the technological stages. Bone needles, jewelry, paintings, carvings and endless other ground-up inventions come into existence. As Earth begins to warm, the final Ice Age wanes and the advent of farming develops and changes humanity. Cows, pigs, irrigation, Copper/Bronze/Iron Ages, wheels, towns, cities, and written word are a tiny portion of the discoveries for a way of life when 1 AD arrives. 

Humankind number estimates at around 300,000 million during the initial year of the Common Era and incredibly, it takes almost another 2,000 years for the world to contain one billion human inhabitants, the estimated population in 1800. And that remains fairly steady for another 100 years when in 1900, the planet’s human population count was at about 1.6 billion. What is known as the Age of Exploration and the Industrial Revolutions (1450-1914) were some of the biggest foundations of the present-day human cultures we have today. During this time piracy, wars, diseases, and natural disasters keep the population in check. Yet even during these unstable times, Earth mostly retains its immaculate identity in terms of an overall unpolluted existence.

The majesty of the creation before you is undeniable: from pole to pole, rotating, growing with light until a full moon that then fades as the moon subsides. Here is the source of all life, the uncontrolled birthplace of every species, stately splendor in an ever-changing motion of moving parts; as if it has a life of its own remaining undaunted in its quest to be humanity’s ideal home. Mother Nature’s natural resources are plentiful and men and women prevail in a seemingly normal progression. Our modern world commences, and with all that you have seen from above, you have high expectations with regard to civilization’s progress.

At this point in your long time travel adventure, you grow weary. Although it accelerated at a very fast clip, you are exhausted with the assimilation of all that you have studied, and you decide to take a quick nap before the final hour. You're unconscious, sleeping for about 109 years in terms of the time travel experience. While you're dreaming of the blue, green and white Earth, there’s a sudden jolt to the spacecraft, you sit up, rub your eyes, stretch, then focus back down below to your beloved planet where the year is 2024.

You are astounded about how nature’s movie set has been altered. Billions and billions of people are swarming to exist the best way possible. You are traumatized by this explosion of humanity with no required attention being paid to the consequences. Here-to-fore, this unforeseen, natural and mostly innocent circumstance will be known as the Age of Overpopulation. You ponder: How could this have happened in an instant? I watched 4.5 billion years fly by and saw nothing that could have predicted this.

It gets worse because you watch global climate trends that vaguely resemble those of your epic space journey - surely not to those proportions, but nevertheless, eerily similar. While recalling your universal travel, a dreadful conclusion comes over you that suggests another global geological alteration could be in the very early stages. You quickly realize that now is the time to disembark from this flight you’re on and return to real life. You decide how to contribute in the effort to restore Earth to its prior condition of a mere century ago. . .a time it was the most stunning, functional decoration in the universe. As a human you understand you are part of the problem and you finally put the pieces of the puzzle together: Mother Nature is clearly in a state of total disorientation. Glaring around in sad disbelief, she knows she has no other alternative than to draw the attention of those that are damaging her body. Her method of persuasion: Climate change events.

After one last scan of the planet’s environmental regression, the time travel machine sights in on North America, where a flickering signal grabs your attention. Safely on the ground, the door opens and you recognize the southern Arizona saguaro tree-like cacti all about you - near where I, Noah, was born.