When seeds buried thousands of years ago could still germinate, when a single bacterium could multiply into billions in the time it takes to plant a tree, and when the exigencies of evolution could turn a mouse into the equivalent of an elephant or a tiger, Earth was not dying. Earth was sick, however: the disease was called manswarm and, with the Scour, Serene Galahad had administered the antibiotic, whilst her sprawl clearances were the salve applied to Earth’s scabrous hide. But, even if manswarm had not been so reduced by her activities, the resource crash would have served the same ends as the Scour – and Earth would have regenerated itself, in time. This is a fact of biology and not of blind optimism. Earth has seen numerous extinctions throughout its existence, and in every case that engine called life has never stopped. It was in fact a kind of arrogance to suppose that humans could be so supremely destructive. And, even with that data, much of the life of our present time will still be little more than fossils in rock, a billion years hence.
