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We Will Go Extinct but the Earth Will Be Fine

Or why eco-terrorism is pointless

By Nik HeinPublished 2 years ago 5 min read
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We Will Go Extinct but the Earth Will Be Fine
Photo by Muhammad Numan on Unsplash

The idea for this article came to my mind after watching a few episodes of an action TV show (I won't say which one, for it doesn't matter). In these episodes, the idea of eco-terrorism is actively exploited. Fanatical zealots are going all-in to save the planet from humanity by eliminating a significant part of the human population (preferably not less than half).

The idea is as delusional as hackneyed, a typical cliché of modern commercial cinema and literature. However, I found some concepts it spawned interesting enough to be written down and formalized as an article.

So, are we to blame for what we are facing, and are we facing anything at all?

The paradoxical answer to these two questions is that it doesn't matter.

If I say it in public (but wait - I'm doing it right now), the Greenpeace movement led by Saint Greta will strike me down with great vengeance and furious anger, for we are destroying the planet, causing pollution, warming, and so on and so forth, amen.

So here it is: relax. Nothing new is going on. Well, species are dying out at such a rate that biologists are talking about a new ongoing Great Extinction. Just let me remind you that this is the sixth (or even tenth, depending on how you count them) Great Extinction in the history of life on Earth. And the previous extinctions opened windows of opportunity for species that previously occupied more than modest ecological niches; for example, mammals got their chance after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

It is highly doubtful that we will be able to completely sterilize the planet despite all our carelessness and assiduousness. Of course, the scenario of the total sowing of Earth by cobalt bombs can not be excluded, but it is unlikely. The rest... Let's assume that we will so contaminate everything that 90% of animal and plant species will go extinct. Some would say that this is too much, but it happened before, even without human efforts. During the End-Permian extinction, the oceans lost 96% of species diversity, and terrestrial ecosystems lost over 80%. So what? Here I am, typing these lines on my laptop, which you will soon read on yours (or whatever you usually read articles on).

By Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

Earth's biosphere is a system with a massive safety factor. Even during the Oxygen Catastrophe, some organisms managed to survive the poisoning of the atmosphere by oxygen (they became our bacterial great-great-grandparents). Besides, human notions of progress and improvement do not apply to evolution. It is just a natural process that has neither goals nor objectives. It is no different from the process of fusing hydrogen into helium in the core of stars: you can't say that turning into a white dwarf is the goal of G5-class stars. Evolution will continue whatever happens: extinction or, on the contrary, an outburst of species diversity.

If you look at the history of life from this point of view, the hysterical cries that we're killing the planet seem ridiculous. Species have always gone extinct, sometimes almost overnight, for various reasons. One of the main reasons this is happening right now is one exceptionally numerous and very dodgy species: humans. So what? Life on Earth has survived changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere, asteroid falls, monstrous volcanic eruptions, methane poisoning of the ocean, ice ages, and more. So why do we think we are scarier than any of the above?

And now to the most important thing. The irony is that the biosphere, of course, will survive, but we will not. The only question is what will be destroyed: modern civilization or homo sapiens as a species. In both cases, evolution will have a vast field of activity, launching the restoration of species diversity. It is possible, for example, if warming continues. Our shaky civilization collapses (which automatically means, if not extinction, then a radical reduction of the human population), and the aridification of Central Africa will start. Our closest relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos will have to follow the same path our ancestors took: survival under constantly changing conditions that require more and more thinking effort.

By Anders Jildén on Unsplash

So the hypothetical eco-terrorists really don't have the slightest reason to be hysterical. The laws of nature do not need to be helped - they will deal with both the overbred species and the restoration of diversity afterward.

By the way, the process may proceed relatively peacefully. The birth rate statistics in the world now show a persistent downward trend, so much so that scientists predict a considerable drop in the population by the end of the twenty-first century. The trick is to catch the moment when humanity shrinks to an ecosphere-safe number and not make it uninhabitable before then.

Frankly speaking, I am as pessimistic about our future as I am sure the planet and life on it will be fine after us. For our civilization's successful mutation into something compatible with the Earth's biosphere, I give the probability of no more than 5-10%. But again, this is primarily a problem for us, not the biosphere. It is sad, of course, that polar bears, Amur tigers, and penguins will disappear. But eventually, all species will go extinct. It happened before with the trilobites, belemnites, dinosaurs, mammoths, and a half dozen species of humans.

Photo by Author

So what to do? Alas, I have no answer to this question because I see no way out and am not the only one. Many scientists believe that we have already passed the point of no return; the only question is how much time we have left. All the talk about green transition is a fashionable commercial idea, nothing more, because the real problem is far from just warming. Pollution, deforestation, overfishing, and countless other factors are working against the odds of survival. Eco-terrorism would not work, as it only changes numbers using the same force-oriented approach to the problem. Humanity already showed its ability to quickly restore its numbers. And no, the emotional speeches of Saint Greta will not work either. After all, even the most active eco-propagandists don't give up air travel, iPhones, and warm toilets...

Maybe our only remaining option is to make our extinction as painless as possible, going by way of slow fading instead of catastrophic collapse.

And don't worry about the planet. It will be fine after we're gone.

ClimateHumanityNature
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About the Creator

Nik Hein

A sci-fi reader, writer and fan. If you like my stories, there's more here

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