The World Without Us

I came across this across this article from Discover Magazine, dated 2005 called, "Earth Without People" by Alan Weisman, that questioned how the planet we would live in would thrive without us. At one point, he mentions the events of mass extinction, polluted oceans, and global warming, and wonders what the planet would be like without humans.

Our world is populated by a whopping 7 billion and is growing as the years go by. It's a fact; the society and environment we live in now is nowhere near similar to how it was a hundred years ago. We've evolved into an age of technology; our gadgets and gizmos are unlike any other. The advances we've made it the medical field and in the lives of consumers is something to be proud of. But along the way, we've forgotten to cherish the ground we live on.

An article in the National Geographic entitled, "Farming the Amazon" states that during the past 40 years, about 20 percent of the Amazon rain forest has been cut down; 20 percent of homes to the wildlife there have been cut down. We're a society that takes advantage of the water we have at use--taking showers that could last up to an hour and participating in water schemes such as the ice bucket challenge. It's not news that the polar ice caps are melting either; there are images from NASA satellites that the area of permanent ice over is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade. Would all of this happen if humans weren't around anymore?

This isn't to put down the entire human race. I believe that we're an impressive species; we truly are the most complex. But think about it. We thrive off of bettering ourselves by bettering the world by bettering the technology that we are accustomed to. The behaviors that animals exhibit are innate; they are born, they reproduce, they die, and so on. The idea of survival of the fittest is so that the most adaptable traits that can survive the worst are passed down generations to keep them from being extinct.

Think about it. We also use animals in experimentation in order to better our products such as medicine or makeup. Animals are our main source of energy. Without plants, the whole process of carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange would not be successful. We need wildlife to exist, but as our age goes on, we're only tearing them down. We need plants and animals to thrive as a species, but do they need us?