What Would The Earth Be Like Without Photosynthesis?

Written & Researched by Leila Battison. Check out her channel:-
Script & video edited & by Pete Kelly. Check out his channel:-
Narrated by David Kelly. Check out his channel:-

Thumbnail Art by Ettore Mazza
Artwork by Khail Kupsky

Leila's video on space telescopes:-

Image credits:-
An artist's rendering of the 380 million-year-old forest at Gilboa, New York.
(Image: Frank Mannolini)
Photograph: Charles Ver Straeten/PA
Photograph: William Stein/Christopher Berry/PA

References:-

[DoubleDimensional]

I want a video in this series where the tangents just keep getting farther and farther from the main topic, and it just goes on for hours and never resolves.

[kenmorris]

I knew an old gentleman who had worked in a quarry in South Wales. He told me of the time when they blasted a rock face and couldn’t believe their eyes. The entire quarry face was a fossilised forest of ancient trees some fifty to sixty feet tall and so tightly packed together they were like grass.

[jvcyt]

The narrator David Kelly has such a calming voice, when I play these videos I sleep like a baby.

[interlooper]

Love this series. Wanna add: the reason we have these huge coal deposits from the Carboniferous is that fungi and bacteria took a long time to evolve the enzymes needed to break down cellulose. So not much chance was needed to fossilize early trees, hence huge coal deposits today.

[warbuzzard]

I have been an Earth Scientist for about a decade. I've prepared very nice presentations and lessons on the history of the Earth... These folks have done such an amazing and professional job, and utterly without errors or misconceptions being delivered to the audience.

Fantastic!

[nestor]

This was the prettiest, non-annoying advertisement for renewables ever :)

[francoislacombe]

There was another form of photosynthesis that developped before the one that dominates today. Its color is purple, and it processes sulphur compounds instead of oxygen. Had chlorophyll not evolved to outcompete it, life on Earth would also have developped in a very different, yet possibly just as diverse way.

[Tom-bmkt]

Conventional wisdom: you must have your intro within the first few minutes of your video.

History of the Earth: Hold my beer...

[airplayn]

Brilliant work - but I'd have to argue with your description of the chemotrophic Archean world as COLORLESS! Those mineral acid pools all heavily laced with numerous different ionic minerals would have caused a rainbow shower of brilliant colors that changed with the Ph and local chemical brew, perhaps even seasonally, which would easily rival if not outdo our emerald seas, summer's greens and fall's reds.

[tyberfen]

I get the distinct feeling, that once a life has been established, it always finds a way. One way, or another

[Ken]

Halfway through this video and he's still not talking about what the earth would be like without photosynthesis.

[jasimine_b]

it feels like we're slowly edging towards the final episode: "How the Entire History of the Earth culminated in Country Music"... Apart from that another great 35 minutes in the history of my life, thank you!

[Bloodknok]

I love the sweeping majesty of this series’s narrative, it’s so all-encompassing and yet so accessible. Continues to be required watching each time a new episode comes out.

[DocSeville]

Really well done! You guys rock. I am SO glad we non college people have access to this stuff! We may have had to work instead of study but we still have that intense curiosity that you help satisfy!

[wyqtor]

Just a small correction: Pangaea hadn't formed yet in the late Devonian, there were still the two major continents of Euramerica and Gondwana (as well as a few smaller ones).

[almm]

Just a heads up. Coal did not form because trees got buried. All coal formed during the same period because there was nothing that could break down the deadwood of those first ancient trees. It would be some time before fungi adapted to break down lignin which makes up wood. So dead wood would pile up on forest floors with nothing to break it down. It would gradually get buried and crushed. Coal no longer forms now because fungi are now very efficient at breaking down fallen trees.

[wobblybobengland]

So you're telling me that Dudley wouldn't be the post industrial s-hole that it is today if it wasn't for photosynthesis?

[tristanfletcher]

Commenting on a video within minutes of it being posted and claiming to know more about the video than anyone else is simply online heroics.

[puntedhat]

Alternate video title:
What would the Earth be like with Photosynthesis?

[Dionaea_floridensis]

"Lobsters are older than trees" -Canadian frog professor