Madrid
Updated:26/05/2022 03: 18h
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With an insultingly young appearance, the paleobiologist Thomas Halliday (Edinburgh, 1989) could easily be confused with an intern from the Debate publishing house at whose Madrid headquarters this interview takes place and who has published his latest book, ‘Otros mundos’. But appearances are only appearances. The author is a researcher in the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Birmingham and an experienced communicator. The work that he has come to present in Spain is promoted as one of the best scientific books of the year. And in the pages of it, Halliday combines science and a poetic gaze to describe 16 ecosystems that have occurred over hundreds of millions of years on Earth and that are nothing like what we now know.
There are giant penguins, feathered reptiles, 22-hour days, winters that last for generations, nine-meter-high mushrooms, crystal reefs… There are also violent devastations that have put life in check several times and have much to teach us about to a future that, says the researcher, is now in our hands.
“We are little aware that Earth has been very different many times. Of those other worlds, which are the most surprising?
—One of the most difficult systems to imagine occurred about 5 million years ago, when the Mediterranean dried up and became a salt flat, with temperatures of 80ºC in summer. There is nothing like it in the world today. But if we talk about life, the most incredible environment for me is the Ediacara Hills in Australia 550 million years ago, with soft-bodied creatures that for a long time it has not been known if they were animals, plants or something else.
—In those hundreds of millions of years, what moment has been the most critical for the planet?
“There have been five mass extinctions. The largest of these occurred 250 million years ago, when 95% of life on the planet disappeared. The most recent killed all non-avian dinosaurs and led to the diversification of mammals. We are here for that.
“Meteorites, volcanic eruptions… How did life get ahead?”
—There are characteristics that give advantages to some organisms. Being small helps because you don’t need a lot of food and you have more possibilities to adapt in times of scarcity. If you are not a specialized organism, you can feed on different things… And the beings that survive, adapt and innovate. New forms of life develop that repeat the patterns that have existed before. For example, large herbivorous mammals appeared very quickly after the extinction of the dinosaurs and took their place. .
What do these episodes teach us?
—That life returns, but in a different way. A mass extinction is a reset of life. If we look to the future and think about what we humans could cause, we must realize that perhaps there is no longer a place for us, because we are part of the world as it exists now and that is why we have to take care of it.
avoid misanthropy
“A world without us would be a better world?”
-Not at all. We must avoid misanthropy. Many of today’s ecosystems are closely dependent on us. Saying that humans are essentially a negative force leads to the idea that they should be eliminated, and that inevitably leads to an eco-fascist view.
“Explain yourself.”
Ecofascism is a big problem. Anyone who proposes population reduction as a measure in favor of the planet is explicitly saying that he is in favor of exterminating someone. It’s dangerous, because who decides who stays and who doesn’t? They will always be the powerful. In addition, the environmental problem is not caused by the world’s number of inhabitants, whose maximum will arrive very soon, but by the excessive consumption of rich countries.
—What other dangers does ecofascism have?
—When a national park is created in the United States, the indigenous peoples are expelled. They are treated quite poorly while putting the environment first. Genocide is an extreme example of this type of situation.
“Is the planet at a very vulnerable time right now?”
—Yes, but we can choose whether to continue in this way, change the climate and destroy the environment, or reduce dependence on fossil fuels, reduce the brutal consumption of resources and change our relationship with nature.
“He even speaks of a post-extinction world.” It sounds a bit scary.
—Two-thirds of the birds are domestic chickens. That sounds a lot like what we see after a mass extinction event, when environments are dominated by a few very common organisms. We have not yet lost most of the species but in many cases they are hanging by a thread.
—And it affirms that children who have already been born could withstand levels of carbon dioxide similar to those of the Eocene in the future.
—If we continue to use fossil fuels, the atmosphere will be very similar to that of that time, the last period in which there was no ice in Antarctica.
—How do you imagine ecosystem 17, that of the future of the Earth?
—Species will evolve as a result of the development of cities. By taking them from one place to another on the planet, we have created very different new environments. If we talk about wild places, I think it is impossible to speculate what will happen a million years from now.
“What will happen to us as a species?”
“As I say, it depends on what we do. Human beings are very adaptable and I don’t see a future in which they become extinct. This does not mean that there is no harm and suffering if we do not change our behavior. If we act, we can likely minimize much of the damage, not only to the environment but also to our societies.
“Then there is hope.
“Yes, but it has to be an active hope. As (the American writer) Rebbeca Solnit says, hope is like an axe: it helps you get through the door, but you have to use it.
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