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If humans went extinct, what would the Earth look like one year later?
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this post was submitted on 01 Jan 2024
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"Nice" is a human concept so if all human beings are gone, is it really "nice" and does it matter?
Because Mother Earth don't give a F. Most of what we say about saving the Earth is in the sense of making it sustainably habitable for us humans and not to f up the economy too badly.
Mother Earth don't care if it gets 30 degrees hotter and if the atmosphere turns into sulfuric acid because for the vast majority of its lifetime, it's been human free anyways.
Well, the earth as a geologic entity doesn't care about what we do or wether we exist, but it makes a hell of a difference for the living species we have as roomates. So for the earth as an ecosystem, it does matter whether we exist or not - and it's better if we don't.
Well that's what I mean. OP says it's kinda nice if we'd be all gone, and my response was what's the point of things being "nice" if there are no humans to observe or affirm it? The only thing that is meaningful for us is if we find a way to sustainably coexist with everything, and not self-loathe our species into oblivion.
Earth will be here long after we've all gone the way of the dodo.
I always say this when people start harping about mother earth and climate change.
Before I go further and get downvoted. I BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE AND I WANT TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT.
There is literally nothing humans could do currently to actually destroy the planet, even if we set off all the nukes at the same time in the worst places. There's nothing we could do to truly eradicate all life either. Plenty of places bacteria and small animals could survive until it's chill again to evolve. What we can do is make it unlivable for ourselves and our offspring. Not that I personally care much since I don't want kids and neither do my siblings but we still do our parts to at least minimize our impact.
I always find it arrogant that humans right now always say that we are destroying earth. We cannot destroy earth. Even if we detonate all our WMDs at the same time earth will endure.
I don't think anyone uses the "we are destroying the earth" in a litteral sense. Common acception is more along the lines of "we are destroying the ecosystem we live in".
That's an interesting question though. How much WMDs do we need to destroy earth. Like really fuck it up. I suppose if we concentrate enough explosions on one side of the earth we may be able to alter the mass of the earth. This might change its path temporarily this leading to collision with either the moon or other planets.
Kurzgast (or however you spell it) did a video on this. In short, not enough fissible material on earth (well, I guess technically it'd be "in the earth") to completely destroy the planet. Which is kinda remarkable cos that's equivalent to 10 billion of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
Since you're being pedantic, I will be too. According to the Cambridge dictionary, the word destroy can mean "to damage something so badly it cannot be used". I'd argue making the planet incompatible for life is a pretty fucking good example of it being damaged so badly that it cannot be used. And we are doing that, it's predicted we could lose up to 70% of all plant and animal species by the end of this century if we continue the way we are. Dunno how long after that it'd take to kill 100%, but I'd say taking out 70% is giving it a red hot crack...