Introduction

In this publication, I will explore what nature on Earth could look like in the future. I will be researching many related topics and dig into big questions such as “what will the Earth look like in the best-case scenario”, “what will the Earth look like in the worst-case scenario”, and “what happens if we do nothing”. These questions are extremely important to me because nature is something that I highly value, and I believe it should be important to anyone else who cares about humanities lasting survival.

The reason I care deeply about nature is likely due to my upbringing. I was born and raised in a small town in Northern New York and spent a lot of my childhood outdoors, playing with and learning about all the plants and animals I came across. I can remember countless days of my brother and I running around in the backyard and looking for frogs and snakes and even salamanders! As I grew up, I continued to love the outdoors. Every chance my friends and I had to go camping or hiking, we would take (living close to the Adirondacks was undoubtedly a big help). Even now, living and studying in Buffalo, I try to spend as much of my time as possible outside. In fact, I have a trip up to the falls planned for this weekend.

Moving to Buffalo made me realize how much of a negative effect humans have on our environment. Looking up at night and not being able to see the stars was quite the surprise. This helped me realize how bad it would be if this were to happen everywhere. The goal of this research project is to learn ways I can help to prevent this. I would also like to provide a refreshing new view on this topic by not relying on the ever so popular ‘we need more government mandates’ argument that is used by many.

I look forward to learning more about this and sharing my findings. My goal is to think deeper about this problem, and I hope that you learn as much from it as I do. I believe there are solutions to all problems; we only need to try hard enough to find them.