why is the earth looked at as fragile?

Question

the earth is incredibly resilient!
case in point; we r told that the earth experienced a collision with an asteroid however many millions of years ago. the environment on earth was so damaged that the dinosaurs were wiped out completely. this is an accepted account of history.
now, we r told that our very existence is a stake over global warming.
when did the earth cease to b the beautifully resilient planet it has always been for millions of years, and become so fragile that people generally accept the fate of the very earth is at stake over "global warming"?

Answer 1

Katrina wasn't fragile was it. NAture is beautiful and mean. The ocean is wonderful to view - yet it has sharks in it.

Answer 2

Well life after the dinosaurs didn't rebound magically overnight.

And they were the higher form of beings for the time. Now we are the higher form of beings, we don't want extinction.

That asteroid did show how fragile it is, think of all the life it wiped out. It was huge.

Now we risk the same basic thing, but we're the top of the food chain and we're the asteroid disaster.

Our existence is at stake as much as the dinosaurs' was.

I mean I'm sure if they could see the asteroid coming, and could do something about it, they would have avoided doom. If they could see how the asteroid would change things for them I'm sure they wouldn't want extinction.

We don't either, we can prevent it, and we should. The earth is fragile, it's perfectly balanced, we're tipping the balance, and we, for the first time ever in the Earth's history, maybe in the history of the entire Universe, are able to tip it back. I think it's worth it.

Answer 3

The Earth is fragile and we do not have a replacement. If we keep trashing it, we can not throw it out and get another. The dinosaurs didn't do things like man has done such as strip mining, nuclear and atomic weapons testing, use toxic pesticides,fertilizers,etc. They did not pollute this Earth. Dinosaurs lived an organic life style. They did no harm. Man could try and follow in their footsteps and just maybe with better minds we may survive an ice age.

Answer 4

You're right! The Earth is billions of years old and will probably be around for billions more- it is its condition as a human friendly habitat that is fragile, but people don't want to sound selfish, so they say "save the Earth" and what they mean is "save ourselves!"
The big problem with global warming (while lowering your heating bill, extending the growing season, and opening up new land to habitation) is that research indicates that global warming has historically been the precursor to an ice age.
However, any major shift in climate, is also a major extinction event so it is back to "save ourselves!"

Answer 5

Earth itself may be resilient because the planet has "geological time" on its side. We, on the other hand, are just little blips in the Earth's history. So in our lifetimes, global warming is a very big issue. It also has to do with the fact that we are adrift in the universe on this one Earthly lifeboat. No sense ruining it.

Answer 6

the EARTH is fragile !! ALLof the oxygen on EARTH came from a single cell organism that lived in shallow seas millions of years ago. if a one cell critter can make all our oxygen ,why does it seem so outrageous to think that our big autos aren't causing Global Climate Change??

Answer 7

because the earth has finite resources. we're using them up at a pretty fast rate at the moment.... i read in a aarp magazine, even though i'm only 20 but anyway, that we have used more resources from the the earth since ww2 then in the rest of history combined. that's pretty crazy if you ask me.