John Anderson Poet Free verse

Notes About The Poem

Mars once had an atmosphere as thick as Earth's during an earlier stage of its development. This was lost via a reverse greenhouse process and its atmosphere was shed into space. But, there is abundant water in ice and carbon dioxide in dry ice on the frozen planet. An induced climate change induced by greenhouse warming, and solar reflectors and collectors, could transform Mars and restore its warmth and atmosphere, fill its rivers lakes and seas with water again. It could be terraformed to a New Earth of sorts. But, the missing ingredient required by humans to survive there is oxygen. Plants could change that - Here's How.

see   How Plants Changed the Atmosphere on Planet Earth

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In 100 Years, Mars Terraformed

In 100 years Mars will be an Earth-like clone
with a thick breathable, transformed atmosphere, rich in oxygen.
There will be clouds in the sky,
rain will fall again and the rivers will run.

Billions of years ago,
Earth had virtually no oxygen in its atmosphere.
No human could survive here.
The atmosphere was choking; rich in carbon dioxide.
Humble plants changed all that.
For plants consume carbon dioxide
using sunlight to make sugar,
releasing oxygen as a waste product.
In time, with all this pollution,
the oxygen levels rose, to today's 20 percent.
Creating the atmosphere this sustains 
respiring animals like us.

In 100 years this will happen again on Mars
which will be terra-formed to be Earth-like and habitable.

Ironically, over 100 years,
humans learned much from the uncontrolled
greenhouse effect that destroyed Earth's climate
making it uninhabitable.
Humans were too selfish to stop this process
until it was too late and irreversible.
Conservation was dumped forever, as a concept,
because it threatened human survival.

Releasing carbon dioxide and water frozen in the Martian soil
will see the atmosphere thicken and get warmer
Plants will be engineered to survive on a new Mars,
to consume the carbon dioxide and make it rich in oxygen.
Mars will become green again, the rivers will flow.
Mars will get warmer, inhabitable and livable.
A new home for humans, freed from their spacesuits,
by a plant-driven transformation.
Mars terra-formed,
reborn, rejigged and renamed as Earth II.

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