Moving Mountains

What would happen if the mountains of the Earth were all removed?

This is sometimes is a question given to geography students for an essay assignment. However, I have not seen any comprehensive answers yet in my teaching experience. In addition, I think that scientists are currently concentrating on other contributions to Global Warming and Space Exploration instead of the role mountains play on Earth and in Life.

I will offer my opinions from out of my science backgoround and personal experience. Please comment, because it wold nake for a good discussion. I will answer this question in the context of the mountains as they stand now, being suddenly and completely removed. I hope it is not copied for a school assignment somewhere in the world (LOL).

If all of the mountains and mountain ranges were removed from the Earth, there would be some dramatic effects on this planet's weather. Areas that were protected from severe storms and inclement weather arising from global weather systems that was trapped behind mountain would now suffer from those storms. The areas behind the mountains that had suffered from those storms would then not be affected as much. On the other hand, desert regions in front of mountains that desperately thirst for rain would have plenty of water if the storms were allowed past those mountains. However, that would not be workable. It would be destructive.

How can more water possibly harm a desert?

A desert deluge would result in a substantial amount of water runoff, with resulting erosion. Torrents of water would not soak into the ground to make plants grow faster and taller. Rushing waters do not stop to take the time to germinate a seed that has lain dormant.

In some styles of Tae Kwon Do, a form pattern ("kata" in Japanese styles) is named "Rushing Water." We teach our students the positive and negative effects of the power of rushing water. I point out that when you stand beside the Mississippi River in Missouri and Louisiana, it looks as though Old Man River is moving very slowly, because it is very wide and the water flow against a wide visual speed looks slow. However, if you fall in, you find out quickly how fast it is moving. Alternately, if an object like a tree falls in and you see it going by, then you can realize some of the speed that the Mississippi possesses. Spped here means power. Rushing water can possibly save a desert if it can soak into the ground and nurture new plants. Rushing water can also destroy New Orleans.

This all means that the desert could become more barren instead of more full of greenery and life if copious amounts of rain were allowed though. Some engineering and landscaping measures would need to be taken in order to stop the water runoff and direct the water into the underground water table. Most likely, more plants and trees would have to be planted first in the desert and then irrigated substantially before these mountains could be safely removed. Otherwise, the onslaught of rain, hail, snow and other precipitation would wash away the arid soils, the sands, finally coming down to bedrock. Even that would be eroded over the decades as well and the soils around the desert would be pushed back by the rushing water runoff. Bedrock would appear more frequently over more parts of the globe. That bedrock would be ground away by storms.

The Earth would become smaller and smaller and without plants, it would lose its atmosphere. People would die off. The world would become a lifeless planetoid in space.

Thus, if the mountains were all removed from the Earth today, after they have stood and influenced the weather for eons, there could be disaster on a major scale to add to the rest of Global Warming.

The planet would most likely become completely a desert and then a rock, lose its atmosphere, become devoid of all organic life, and die.

In addition, before the death of Earth, Humanity would suffer anxiety and hardships because of the negative results of removing the mountains and resulting floods. There would likely be increases in the rates of mental health concerns, such as depression and suicide, substance abuse of all kinds, co-occurring disorders (substance abuse in tandem with another major disorder), and so on.

If the mountains were suddenly removed, what will happen to the mountain climbers? From where will their new personal challenges come? Possibly from surviving the new bad weather - or learning to swim if they do not yet have that skill.

Without mountains, we would have no more Mt. Everest or Mt. Fuji.

Writers, poets, and artists would only be able to write and paint about the mountain that is no longer there. How sad.

Plaques and landscape portraits would be erected in commemoration on the sites where these mountains once stood. The plaques would then be washed away by floods.

During the massive deaths caused by the flooding and the loss of food in spreading barren lands - even increased heat - certain science fiction writers would compose stories about a planet that grew mountains. There is already a story written in the first part of the 20th century in which Mankind uses up all the resources of Earth, so the world government uses heavy machinery to scrape a layer of the planet up from time to time over the centuries to mines it for all its energy and food producing components. This goes on for so long that the future generations don't even know why the Earth is becoming smaller and they don't connect it with the mining.

In current times, what about Noah's Ark, proclaimed by some scientitsts to be lodged on Mt. Ararat? Before disaster swept it away in the weather resulting from mountain disappearances, some merchants may hack it up to sell its small peices for high prices.

Mountains figure largely inculture and scriptural references and all that would be lost with the disappearance of mountains:

The Bible

Matthew 17:20 NKJV:

So Jesus said to them, "... for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you"

Joel 2:1 "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD cometh, for it is nigh at hand"

Koran:

SURAT II. The Cow.

60. Call to mind also when We entered into a covenant with you, and lifted up the mountain over you:--"Take hold," said We, "on what We have revealed to you, with resolution, and remember what is therein, that ye may fear:"

Zen

The Religion of the Samurai,

Kaiten Nukariya

Chapter 8. The Sermon of the Inanimate.

"The Scripture of Zen is written with facts simple and familiar, so simple and familiar with everyday life that they escape observation on that very account. The sun rises in the east. The moon sets in the west. High is the mountain. Deep is the sea. Spring comes with flowers; summer with the cool breeze; autumn with the bright moon; winter with the flakes of snow. These things, perhaps too simple and too familiar for ordinary observers to pay attention to, have had profound significance for Zen." [FN#135]

Ancient Korean Proverb:

(For your answer) Bow one thousand times to the mountain (and contemplate).

Earth needs its mountains, its plants, and its animals of all kinds in order to support life at all, including human life. Having the Earth as our home and domain, humanity must view it with the eye of stewardship.