What if Humankind disappears?
Some people will not be convinced of the usefulness of this question, why think about the disappearance of humanity. We have an essential place in the general ecosystem of the Earth, the world will not be as developed if we no longer exist. We possess powerful computers, we created tools that make our life easier. How can life get better than this, right?
At the moment, we are in a period that scientists call the Anthropocene “(Anthropocene comes from the Greek terms for human (‘’anthropo’’) and new (‘’cene’’).” This period means that humankind has impacted Earth’s systems, environment, processes, and biodiversity that it will leave an irreversible and probably lasting influence on them.
The problem is that we, humans, have the power. The power of changing things, but we are using it in the wrong way. We use it as we are the only ones who live on the planet or above all other species. But it is not the case, it is not even close. Earth is composed of a very complex series of networks/ecosystems where the survival of each species depends on the others. And in order to develop themselves, the human race causes changes in those networks without even considering the consequences that it can have. For our own sake, we are destroying the world and its networks that keep other species alive.
I would like to explain this in another way:
Our houses protect us from the outside like Earth protecting us from the Universe. But, we don’t take care of our house we spend our money and energy just for ourselves. A house needs maintenance. If there isn’t any, then it will start to degrade, it will slowly become a non-livable place. First, it won’t be visible, but it will send us some signals that something needs to be done, but we will ignore it as we are too concerned about ourselves. After a while, the problems will worsen, and they will reach a point where everything collapses.
Who cares? There are thousands or millions of other houses outside where we can move to in the future, right?
Why don’t we bring solutions to our problems?
We do bring solutions, but almost all of today’s problems are caused by solutions to yesterday’s problems.
For instance, planting trees in an area that was deforested can be seen as a recovery for nature, but there is a difference between a natural forest and planting a single tree specie. Diversity is what makes a forest a network, but if we plant only one type of tree, there will be no diversity, biodiversity, and ecosystem. The problem of trees capturing the CO2 is dealt but what about the networks?
After all of this, the only solution that comes to mind is that the human race needs to disappear, isn’t it? I suggest you to watch this video about what will happen if humans disappeared.
The thing is that we are not going to disappear anytime soon (I hope so), so it is our duty towards our planet to heal it. As I said earlier, we have the power to change things, until now we didn’t use it wisely. Today, thanks to the technologies that we have developed over the years. And as an individual, I don’t think that we can say that we don’t know the answer to a problem. We live in an era where the solution is just one click away, millions of information are in our pocket. We are in the possess of so much data that we are not even aware of them. We have to just take a look and make the right decisions about our planet.
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