How is life itself not a contradiction of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in that it seems to decrease entropy in a closed system (Earth).?

Entropy enjoys decreasing locally. Clearly the biosphere is not a closed system. Hopefully that part was a joke.

you need to run for public office or be an anchor on CNN!  You lie with the best of the my fellow good socialist!

How on earth did I find myself in the physics dept Stanley? BEATS THE HECK OUT OF ME. :-)

it is not a violation of the law because the entropy change is not universal across the system.  Any energy employed in decreasing energy has to come from somewhere else.  Order gained in one location has to be offset somewhere else.  the price is paid.

Earth is not a closed system, energy arrives from the sun, and heat radiates away to space. It's easy to miss that entropy most often increases as heat is added to the system. It seems like life is very ordered, but we are all little heat engines.

The decrease in entropy is powered by new energy from the Sun. In addition, the total entropy of the Earth is increasing, when you include rocks, water, dirt, and other non-living things.