Comment on Spidey Senses
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoFor me, it was the fireflies. I grew up in suburbs at the edge of a city, where the rural land started, just about as far as city water and sewer reached. It grew pretty quickly, and by the time I turned 18, I was about as close to the city center as I was to the outskirts. In that process, every summer, there were fewer and fewer of them until one year they were just gone. I was busy, so I didn’t think much of it at the time, but looking back, I regret not making an attempt to make a habitat for them in our garden.
Evil_Shrubbery@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
That’s so sad.
It’s hard to argue how we aren’t an infestation. The reach & environmental effects of humans per individual is outstanding even without factoring the explosive growth (globally only a few 100k or a few millions for 4 billion years, then a billon in a single millennia, then 9 billon in just 200 years).
Remember_the_tooth@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If it helps, some models are showing it level off. If we advance climate science and use it to inform policy, we might be able to slowly contract our population while avoiding a “Children of Men” style collapse. I assume it would take a few thousand years to reach an equilibrium that allows us to maintain a habitable environment while still developing space-faring technology. The bonus is that the time it would take might change our practices into something a little more worthy of spreading to other planets if that ever becomes possible. I think with our current energy and pollution situation, we’ve guaranteed ourselves future hardships for many generations, but I don’t think it’s hopeless yet.
Regardless, other life has done similar stuff before. It resulted in mass extinction, but life moved on in some form. I hope the earth will be great with us in it, but if not, it will probably be fine without us, too.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Oxidation_Event
Evil_Shrubbery@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yeah, 400 million years.
We are already into the mass extinction event caused by humans, the hardship for biodiversity is measured in millions of years in event we give nature back the space.
And three are no plans anywhere about that.
The hardship for humans seem irrelevant in comparison, if we have a war & kill 4 billon people that is still a 50 year setback (1975).
Also even if human population is starting to level (geopolitical prediction still point to 12bn, it’s more about the economy & living status), we will each year consume more of everything, space/surface included.