| Bright Ideas |
| Restart Earth This document was first complete on Wednesday, January 23, 2008 and was most recently revised on Tuesday, February 19, 2008. I expect an extinction event to occur on Planet Earth sometime in the foreseeable future. It might happen tomorrow. It might not happen for a long time. Whether or not it will happen isn't in question. Eventually, it will happen. I'm not concerned here with minor extinction events. The planetary environment can recover quickly from those. I'm concerned here with a major extinction event, the kind that leaves the planetary environment with not much in the way of living things. It will take millions of years for the planetary environment to recover from such a major extinction event. I have an idea that might remove millions of years from the required recovery time. I won't be able to do it by myself. I'll need some help. I'd appreciate any such help that you might care to offer. Here's what I want to do. I want to build time capsules. I want to use concrete, unless someone can suggest a better material. I want the composition of the concrete (or other material) to be such that it will last as long as possible before it disintegrates. I want the capsules to be hollow, so that they'll float, if necessary. I want them to be filled with dry Nitrogen, unless somebody can suggest a better internal environment for them. Within the Nitrogen environment, I want the capsules to contain seeds from the most hardy plants available. Since there won't be any insects available in my proposed scenario, the plants must be of species that don't require pollination by insects. I hope that the time capsules will last long enough that, by the time that they disintegrate, the planetary environment will be ready to begin the process of reestablishing itself. My plan is that, when the capsules begin to disintegrate, they'll release their seeds into the waiting environment. When the seeds germinate, the necessary recovery time for the planetary environment will be shortened by millions of years. The project won't be very expensive, compared to the other loony things that people do. Even if it won't work at all, it still won't be very much of a waste of resources. In either case, I don't see what harm it will do to try. I'll need some funding and the help of one or more botanists and some people who're familiar with fabricating things with concrete, or whatever other materials we might decide to use. I'll probably need some help from somebody who knows how to preserve seeds. It wouldn't hurt for some geologists to help me decide where to put the time capsules. I'm waiting for offers of help or funding and, of course, technical
suggestions. Please contact me.
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