Introduction
Having examined the issue of climate change and the human effect on the planet in greater depth, it is clear that by the end of the twentieth century, the Earth’s population had surpassed 6 billion people, five times more than a century earlier. Everyone needs a place to live, food to eat, someone to work for, transportation to cities and towns, and the ability to travel.
Ensuring the life processes of such a vast number of people has impacted the production spheres: almost all of the Earth’s resources are now subordinated to man. This characterizes the Anthropocene period – there are no places or objects in the world, which have not been affected by man’s hand. Humanity’s greatest threat is the climatic catastrophe, which is accompanied by a reduction in biodiversity. Rising average temperatures are now considerably impacting the climate, and these impacts will become considerably more severe in the coming years.
Human Impact on the Earth
The reader can look at the situation from a future viewpoint by rereading literature on climate change and the Anthropocene. The author describes the Weisman experiment in “The Climate of History: Four Theses,” which argues that humanity’s extinction is a foregone conclusion (Chakrabarty 2009). This experiment shows how the current crisis might hasten a feeling of the present that separates the future from the past, putting such a future beyond the reach of historical sensibility (Chakrabarty 2009). Researchers frequently discuss how global warming might make the Earth an extremely miserable environment for people to dwell in.
However, human activity is the biggest driver of sudden climate change; therefore, it is fair to suppose that the Earth would look better without us. Carlton Basmajian, associate professor of community and regional planning and urban design at Iowa State University, depicted what the globe might look like if all people vanished instantly in new research (Ellis 2021).
Examining Earth’s Changes After Human Disappearance
In 1 Year
For example, if humans had just vanished and could have returned to Earth a year later to examine how the world had changed, the first item that startled them could not have been seen with their eyes. They would sense it with their ears – the world would be unusually silent. Humans generate a lot of noise, which would vanish along with them. Furthermore, the weather would have altered significantly: the sky would be bluer, and the air would be cleaner. Wind and rain would clear the planet’s surface, and the pollution and dust people make would vanish.
Animals would walk the streets of cities, making them no less remarkable. Most would be tiny creatures like mice, marmots, raccoons, skunks, foxes, and beavers. However, larger creatures like deer, coyotes, and sometimes even bears will follow them onto the streets. Concrete objects like roads, highways, bridges, and buildings will seem about the same in a year.
In 10 Years
However, decades from now, the roadways will have cracks through which small plants will crawl. This is because the globe is continually moving; with movement comes pressure, and with pressure comes fractures. The roadways will eventually become like broken glass, through which plants will sprout. Bridges with metal supports and fastened beams will corrode over time and may eventually collapse.
In 1000 Years
Concrete bridges and interstate roads, on the other hand, will survive for millennia. Human-made dams on rivers will also be dismantled, and vegetation that people used to consume will begin to disappear. Corn, tomatoes, and potatoes will be hard to come by globally. Farm animals will become easy prey for giant predators, and pets will likely adapt to their new environment.
A thousand years from today, the world that people remember will be dimly recognizable. Some things will be fortunate enough to survive, but they will be few and far between. People will undoubtedly notice how humans have handled the Earth and the ramifications of this when they return to Earth in a hundred years.
Human Activity as a Cause of Species Extinction
It is worth noting that numerous animal species have been extinct in recent years. One cause is the widespread slaughter of creatures whose fur and other body parts are valuable to thieves, buyers, fashion, and healthcare. They can also be destroyed by other invasive animal species in a given area and transported from other parts of the world.
Every ecosystem exists in a state of equilibrium in which predators regulate the populations of herbivores or lesser predators, which devour animals or plants lower on the food chain. However, if a species is purposely brought into a habitat, it may grow increasingly violent and proficient at hunting, begin to reproduce, crowd out rivals, and eventually change the ecosystem. However, the most significant impacts of this process are climate change and habitat degradation.
Humans are witnessing catastrophic deaths of seabirds, fish with no oxygen, sea lion poisoning owing to algae blooms induced by heat waves, and even a significant die-off of penguin chicks this year, with four out of five Antarctica colonies losing all of this year’s progeny. Even insect populations are declining at an alarming rate. If this trend continues, population aging and extinction will occur sooner or later.
Ecologist Gerardo Ceballos of the National Autonomous University of Mexico and Stanford University scientist Paul Ehrlich calculated and compared species extinctions since 1500 AD (Johns 2019). They discovered that humans had pushed 73 vertebrate taxa extinct in the previous 500 years (Johns 2019).
It should be noted that the idea of “genus” differs from that of “species” in that it is slightly wider. A group of organisms is a taxonomic category that puts together species that are mainly directly related to one another, similar to siblings in a family tree. People, for example, are part of the “Man” (Homo) genus, comprising Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and many more kinds.
The present populations are 35 times larger than past extinctions at the genus level. Without human intervention, it would have taken 18,000 years for the same number of taxa to become extinct (Zamani et al., 2022). Other studies have shown similar mortality among fungi, plants, and invertebrates. The environment in which humans live is intricately linked. It has developed with all species, evolving and adapting to various climatic conditions, food availability, and the habitat of different creatures.
The Consequences and History of Species Extinction
The extinction of species that perform certain activities in an ecosystem causes changes in other creatures and can have catastrophic cascade impacts. It is predicted that the pace of extinction will accelerate. If humans continue on their current path, all endangered species will be extinct by 2100 (Meireles et al., 2023). A 300-year loss from 1800 would take 106,000 years at regular background extinction rates.
The most endangered species are usually the most distinctive but are also the most neglected globally. Humanity will lose thousands of decades of past evolution and the critical roles they perform in nature, such as maintaining homeostasis and biological cycles. Evolution is a gradual process. It has taken millions of years to develop adequate replacements for species that have perished in past extinction events.
The latest of the big five disappearances occurred 66 million years ago as part of the Cretaceous-Paleogene shift, thus the term Cretaceous-Paleogene. Extinction was roughly seventeen percent of all families, 50% of all groups, and 75% of all animal species (Borgerson et al. 2019). All ammonites, which are plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, died in the seas, and the proportion of stationary species decreased by around 33% (Borgerson et al. 2019). During this epoch, all non-avian dinosaurs were extinct.
The limiting event was large-scale, with significant variation in extinction rates. Mammals (synapsid descendants) and birds (theropod dinosaur descendants) emerged as the dominant land species, and all new animals no longer matched previous animals. So, it is reasonable to assume that any species that have gone extinct in contemporary times will never return until man “resurrects” them through technology.
The sixth mass extinction, sometimes the Holocene extinction, is more than just a vast catastrophic calamity triggered by climate change. From garbage to chemicals, habitat loss to hunting, humans are not letting wildlife rest. As a result, an immediate political, economic, and social effort on an unprecedented scale is required to avert species extinction and all of the potential repercussions that humanity will undoubtedly face. Humans, unlike the comet that killed off the dinosaurs, are conscious of their actions and have the potential to alter direction. This gives a chance for a solution to the problem, which is helped by the theoretical study of global warming and the Anthropocene.
The Consequences of Human Extinction
However, when the possibility of future human extinction is considered, it becomes clear that other species may suffer severely. It is indicated in the article “Geo-: What’s a Species to Do?” that diverse living forms are interconnected; therefore, the extinction of one species might imply the extinction of another (Briggs 2017). Many plant and animal species have developed to coexist with humans, which means that if they become extinct, people will suffer as well. Crops grown expressly for human use, which rely on pesticides and fertilizers regularly, would soon be supplanted by their wild forebears.
In response, the abrupt removal of insecticides will increase the insect population. This class is adaptable, reproduces quickly, and can survive in any environment. This “explosion” of insects would result in a rise in the population of species that eat them, such as birds, rodents, reptiles, bats, and spiders, and then an increase in the species that eat these animals, and so on up the food chain.
However, after the food left behind by people is gone, these communities will be unsustainable in the long term. In terms of larger creatures, echoes of humans will persist for some time until nature enters a new period. For example, some types of cows and lambs may survive, but most have been designed as “food machines” that will die off in large numbers. They would become quick prey for wild carnivores that would begin to multiply.
Scientific and Policy Efforts in Addressing Climate Change
As a symptom of the environmental problem, climate change poses a more particular question: the link between science and policy. Science holds a substantial portion of the blame for creating environmental and, in particular, climate-related challenges. The advent of the Anthropocene is partly owing to the enormous development of new technologies and their unregulated usage by economic powers. For the first time, human activities are causing changes in environmental parameters that affect the whole human population.
At the same time, science helps people comprehend the severity of the difficulties connected with the environmental catastrophe, and research has a leadership role in formulating viable development scenarios to help identify feasible solutions for addressing the climate crisis (Monroe et al. 2019). Science has the power to both kill and rescue humanity. A scientific approach combined with a broader understanding of the world around us remains the deciding element in tackling the climate challenge.
However, democracy and technocracy are not synonymous because, in a democracy, politicians make choices. The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) identified two spheres: the world of values and the sphere of facts. A scientist draws information from facts; he analyzes different circumstances and provides scenarios suitable to environmental realities.
On the other hand, the politician is guided by the ideals he is devoted to maintaining in his activities. The legitimacy of political decisions in a democratic society originates from the electoral character of power: the politician is chosen by the people to select the one that best matches their value system among all potential scenarios. However, climate change requires rigorous technical investigation, and the conclusions of this research do not always correspond with political agendas.
Combating climate change forces economic officials to make tough decisions. Relying only on fiscal expenditure and scaling up to reach ambitious climate objectives would become increasingly expensive, perhaps raising debt by 45-50 percent of GDP by mid-century. High debt levels, rising interest rates, and dwindling economic growth prospects will make managing public budgets much more difficult.
However, if inertia persists, humanity will risk extinction. Carbon pricing allows countries to produce cash to lower debt loads; however, depending only on this policy may be politically untenable. While only some policies can meet all climate goals, carbon pricing is a necessary but not necessarily adequate tool for reducing emissions. It should be an essential component of the policy mix.
New technology also creates concerns, as has been shown with genetically engineered foods and pesticides. Biofuels are currently a source of tremendous optimism, as they appear to diminish the demand for oil as a source of energy. A deeper examination reveals, however, that the shift to biofuels is plagued with increasing competition for land, water, and other resources, higher food costs, and less food production, and hence increased hunger in the poor nations of the South.
As a result, it is a matter of developing new technology to decrease harmful emissions and shifting the development model away from overconsumption and waste. Of course, this does not imply a complete halt to growth. It remains a precondition for development in underdeveloped nations. Without growing material output, overcoming poverty with a low baseline and a multiplying population is challenging. However, with a reasonably high degree of societal development and a steady population, the need for economic expansion for prosperity is lessened.
Conclusion
Thus, looking at contemporary issues such as climate change and human impact on nature from a future perspective can help push humanity to recognize them. Theoretically, considering what might happen and how events would unfold without the cause of the problem helps scientists, public figures, and governments to take action. The realization of the seriousness of the problem and the need for urgent action is gradually creeping into world politics. If figures such as politicians with universal influence become aware of what inaction can lead to, they will focus on the urgent problem. Considering how to address a global problem such as warming helps steer action in a direction that can produce the most effective and quickest results.
It is also discouraging that governments and prominent corporate executives are putting all their hopes on new technology and market mechanisms for distribution and implementation in their search for solutions to combat climate change. However, neither technical advancement nor the market alone will solve the challenges necessitating a shift like social and economic growth. The selection of development policy is critical.
The prospect of minimizing the impacts of global warming is essentially related to changes in lifestyle, culture, behavior, and consumer attitudes. Recognizing the need for a shift in development confronts significant challenges due to the nature of modern societies. However, without such a transformation, it is doubtful that the disastrous implications of global warming would be averted.
References
Borgerson, Cortni, BeNoel Razafindrapaoly, Delox Rajaona, Be Jean Rasolofoniaina, and Christopher D. Golden. “Food Insecurity and the Unsustainable Hunting of Wildlife in a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems 3 (2019). Web.
Briggs, Robert. “Geo—What’s a Species to Do?” Ctrl-Z. (2017). Web.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh. “The Climate of History: Four Theses.” Critical Inquiry 35, no. 2 (2009): 197–222. Web.
Ellis, Kevin. 2021. “The role of ecosystem services in urban agriculture and planning in Austin, Texas.” PhD diss., Iowa State University.
Johns, David. Conservation politics: The last anti-colonial battle. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2019.
Meireles, Ricardo C., Leonardo E. Lopes, Gustavo R. Brito, and Ricardo Solar. “The Future of Suitable Habitats of an Endangered Neotropical Grassland Bird: A Path to Extinction?” Ecology and Evolution 13, no. 2 (2023). Web.
Monroe, Martha C., Richard R. Plate, Annie Oxarart, Alison Bowers, and Willandia A. Chaves. “Identifying Effective Climate Change Education Strategies: A Systematic Review of the Research.” Environmental Education Research 25, no. 6 (2017): 791–812. Web.
Zamani, Alireza, Davide Dal Pos, Zdenek Faltýnek Fric, Alexander B. Orfinger, Mark D. Scherz, Alena Sucháčková Bartoňová, and Hugo F. Gante. “The Future of Zoological Taxonomy Is Integrative, Not Minimalist.” Systematics and Biodiversity 20, no. 1 (2022): 1–14. Web.