No Life On Mars

A huge dragonfly hanging out on my fence

You may have missed it but it's been reported this week that there is no life on Mars. Not on the surface anyway. Apparently the UV rays in the sun's light reacts with the compounds found on the Martian plains to break them down into even more toxic chemicals. Alien bacteria (and this is the kind of life we hope to find) wouldn't stand a chance.


In 2020 the European Space Agency is sending a new robot equipped with a two metre drill to hunt for Martian bacteria that may lurk beneath the surface, well away from the hostile environment above. If they find something it will be hailed as a huge breakthrough, and rightly so. Life would be proven to exist on our closest neighbouring planet, possibly independent from any connection with life on Earth, so we can expect life to exist on many of the planets out there circling other stars.

Yet as of today, we only know of life existing here on Earth. And what life. The sheer range and diversity of life is mind-contorting. We don't even know how many species there are. A 2011 study reported that we have yet to catalog 86% of the species on Earth, and 91% in the oceans. There may be about 8.7 million species in total (give or take a million or two).

Lots of these we are killing off before we even get a chance to say hello. The mass extinctions due to humans are between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate (ie what would happen if humans weren't here.) Possibly between 9,000 and 90,000 species are being irreversibly wiped out every year due to our actions.

.

Warming the oceans and filling them with plastic junk and toxic chemicals. Destroying habitats such as forests so we can grow soybeans and keep cattle. Burning fossil fuels to cause the overall climate to heat up and melt the ice caps. The list goes on.


A lot of this devastation is caused because humans need food, warmth and the ability to travel. These are necessary things, but the devil is in the detail. We can eat food grown more locally and more organically. We can take holidays on a train instead of a plane. We can warm ourselves by insulating our homes better, installing better heating technologies and wearing an extra layer! And we can make a fuss to let our governments know that they must take some pretty radical steps to halt the ongoing ecocide.

P.S. The sauerkraut was delicious if a little crunchy!