Living Planets: The Gaia Hypothesis
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
00:00
The Medea Hypothesis
The Huronian glaciation about 2.4 billion years ago is believed to be a series of ice age periods lasting around 300 million years, possibly with one or more snowball-orth events. Life existed before this, but was very minimal, as before that time life was anaerobic,. cyanobacteria evolved through synthesis and exploded due to this vastly more abundant energy source. The planet oxidized until it got saturated and we saw a rise of atmospheric oxygen. If the atmosphere was high in methane as we currently believe, then the oxygen would have bonded with it and produced water and carbon dioxide, same as when we burn other hydrocarbons, cooling the planet.
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