History Has Shown Us the Path of Destructionwhy on Earth Would We Go Down It Again

Could humans really destroy all life on Earth?

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The seemingly insatiable man tendency to consume is irresolute our planet and the life on information technology, but tin we alter our behaviour?

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Among the many global catastrophic risks known to humans, some are entertained in the media more than the others. Asteroid impacts, supervolcano eruptions and climatic change accept all received the Hollywood handling. And each of these have taken a devastating toll on our planet's life in the past. Yet, unknown to many people, a new global threat capable of destroying life itself is brewing in the shadows of our everyday lives. It's driven past the immense human desire for material consumption. And paradoxically it is a consequence of homo life itself.

Just look around – you lot are inseparably surrounded by fabric objects ­– whether they are needed in your life or not. For every bit of this textile we utilize, in that location is a growing spider web of global deportment that is slowly stripping human's emotional health, depleting Globe'south resources and degrading our planet's habitats. If left unchecked, is there a risk that human consumption may finally plow the Earth into an uninhabitable world? Do nosotros take it in us to stop before it is too late?

A squad of researchers from Weizmann Institute of Sciences, State of israel, recently published a study that compared human-made mass – aka anthropogenic mass – with all the living mass, or biomass, on the world. They revealed that for the first time in human history the quondam has either surpassed the latter or is close to doing so in coming years.

The Weizmann Institute study estimates that on boilerplate, each person on the world at present produces more anthropogenic mass than his or her bodyweight every week. "The finding that anthropogenic mass – human made stuff - now weighs every bit much as all living things, and the fact that it keeps accumulating rapidly, gives another clear perspective on how humanity is at present a major player in shaping the face of the planet," says Professor Ron Milo, whose laboratory conducted this study. "Life on Earth is affected in a major quantitative manner past the actions of humans."

Our species is creating so much textile that it encroaches on the infinite of other creatures (Credit: Munir Uz Zaman/AFP/Getty Images)

This revelation comes as no surprise to many who consider that humans have already ushered in a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene – the age of humans, a term popularised by Nobel Laureate and chemist Paul Crutzen. While the exact beginning of this era is debatable, in that location is no denying that humans have get a dominant force on this planet, altering every other form of life through our actions.

The scale and size of the anthropogenic matter is alarming. Take the instance of plastic – the birth of the mod plastics era came only in 1907, but today we produce 300 million tons of plastics every year. Further, the realisation that later on water, concrete is the well-nigh widely used substance on World is beyond comprehension.

The massive geoengineering process initiated past humans took an accelerated upswing when materials like concrete and aggregates became widely available. These two materials brand up a major component of the growth in anthropogenic mass. Fifty-fifty the relatively recent human adventures of space exploration, which began about lx years agone, is triggering a disastrous space junk problem. Alongside this nosotros haphazardly discover polar cap melts, permafrost thaws, and global temperatures getting hotter.

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Then, why has this happened? Are humans genetically inclined to be materialistic to the point of our own destruction? Is the aggregating of anthropogenic thing merely a measure of humans' annihilation charge per unit? Or volition nature equip humans to cope with this problem? These are highly unsettled questions.

Although there is evidence that materialism is learned and shaped by culture, there are some who argue that natural choice may accept predisposed our species with a desire to accrue stuff. Our belongings tin offer us a sense of security and status that doubtless played a more important function earlier in human history.

Somehow, creating new stuff has become a divine word in the collective homo psyche. Information technology's obnoxiously seated in all our endeavours from ancient stories to mod research and evolution rooms. "In the first God created the heaven and the Earth…" goes the Genesis story in Bible. Humans have been conditioned to believe that creating something new is a meaningful purpose of life and is the but way to accelerate their ambitions. Yet we forget to put a cap on the utilize.

The limits of scientific discipline have never been more than glaringly apparent when trying to solve this puzzler. Reliance upon green technological solutions solitary is flawed because the focus is still based on new stuff and more than use – non to alter lifestyles or business models that handed u.s.a. this problem in the first identify. Even if we can replace all fossil fuel-based vehicles with electric ones, for case, cities are already struggling to have route space from cars and electric vehicles have their own footprint on the world'due south resources due to the materials needed to build them.

"The accumulation of anthropogenic mass also relates to urban development, along with its associated ecology implications, already witnessed worldwide," says Emily Elhacham, ane of the authors of the Weizmann Institute of Sciences study. "I hope that raising awareness would promote behavioral modify that would enable finding a better rest point. Every step in this direction volition have a positive result."

Expect at the carbon footprint of our gadgets, the internet and the systems supporting. It accounts for about iii.7% of global greenhouse emissions, and is predicted to double by 2025. It's possible to cut downwardly emissions with one less electronic mail or avoiding an unnecessary photo sharing on social media – it may seem like an insignificant reduction from i individual but so add billions of such small-scale actions together. (Read more about the touch on of our internet activity on the climate.)

Big technology companies claim they are going green or gear up goals for carbon neutrality but they rarely encourage people to spend less fourth dimension on social media or order fewer products. Rather advertising and marketing models convey powerful messages that reinforce the motto: create and consume more.

In amongst the rubbish we throw away, some species are evolving to thrive in the polluted environments we are creating (Credit: Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images)

This irrational savage materialism is ingrained so deeply with traditions and cultural symbols likewise. In the United States, Thanksgiving is followed by another carnival called Black Fri. During this ritual, long lines of customers hitting the malls and often go injured or trampled – just people are convinced that it's an try worth the trouble.

In the age of Anthropocene, humans may feel entitled to pivot promise on technology to fix any issues so that they can proceed to practice what they are doing. Faced with the accumulation of long-lived plastic in the environment, for example, a spurt of innovation led to biodegradable coffee cups, bags for life and reusable straws. But while it is truthful that a sustainable growth model that includes our surroundings has much larger potential to persist, we need a different approach to sustainability that addresses our massive consumerism.

The Covid-xix has reminded usa how frail and unprepared human being civilization is when it comes to even known knowns like a pandemic. It has likewise taught united states that homo behaviour can be modified with minor actions similar wearing mask to mitigate the intensity of global tragedies. The passive arroyo to proliferation of anthropogenic mass is not merely due to the lack of knowledge about its impact, but in full general, it has too to do with human inclination to dismiss facts that don't fit their worldview. Humans are naturally tending to disregard bug that are non challenging their daily lives or those which dilute their convenience.

Additionally, humans might find the solace in the thought that nature might equip organisms to survive, no thing what nosotros do. It is true that the wearisome and gradual, Darwinian-style evolution through natural selection is often overtaken in certain extremely polluted environments. In 2016, a team of scientists in Japan constitute a strain of leaner from canteen recycling facility that can break down and metabolise plastic. On the other hand, this finding shows the subtle and powerful ways in which human actions are changing the life on this planet.

The adaptation of organisms in response to pollutants is a complex phenomenon. "In the long term, a sustained increase of anthropogenic mass would lead to the loss of habitats through physical dislocation and alteration of habitats such as contamination with pollutants resulting from the production and disposal of anthropogenic mass," says Alessandra Loria, a biologist at McGill University, Canada, who is the pb author of this written report. Research indicates that negative effects induced by pollution often worsen over multiple generations, although the coping mechanism vary in different species.

The rapid depletion of natural resources and biodiversity is not a normal evolutionary race that nature is used to. While some species tin certainly adapt to the changes taking place in our environs, humans are no longer a mere species that follows Darwinian development but a much larger force that has come up to bulldoze development on this planet.

Studies have shown that for most species, evolutionary adaptation is not expected to be sufficiently rapid to buffer the effects of ecology changes being wrought by act. And our own species will exist no exception to this.

While at that place is no proof that we will destroy ourselves, there are clear indications that we ignore the furnishings at our own peril. For example, some of the mass extinctions in the Earth's history are related to acidification of oceans. The oceans absorb almost 30% of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, which in turn increases the sea acidity. The oceans may exist acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, primarily due to homo activities.

Can the species we share the planet with adapt fast enough to cope with the new earth nosotros are creating for them? (Credit: Yuri Smityuk/TASS/Getty Images)

"Human life will be negatively affected because of the loss of the many ecosystem benefits and services provided past biological diverseness," says Loria. "For example, h2o pollution may affect provisioning services, such as food and water, by causing a reduction in food diversity and/or in its quality and safe. Widespread deposition of ecosystems threatens the atmospheric condition of life on Earth, in particular the long-term survival of our own species."

Our impact on the planet is much is deeper than carbon footprints or global warming. It points to a hereafter where the effects of anthropogenic matter volition accept over – if information technology hasn't already – the identity of the Earth and its life. In the face up of this, humans themselves might lose out in the evolutionary race.

Eliminating materials like physical or plastic or replacing them with alternatives is not going to address the primal problem with human attitudes and our unparalleled appetite for more. This is exactly where materialism can seamlessly transform into a known unknown chance factor in global catastrophe. The myriad of ways in which it can plough this planet into a mundane globe is something our civilisation has never experienced before.

In the absenteeism of a fully secure evolutionary shield, we could depend on our intelligence to survive. Even so, as Abraham Loeb, professor of science at Harvard University and an astronomer who is searching for dead cosmic civilisations puts it, "the mark of intelligence is the ability to promote a better future".

"If we continue to behave this way, we might not survive very long," he says. "On the other hand, our actions could be a source of pride for our descendants if they sustain a culture intelligent plenty to endure for many centuries to come."

The story of Bhasmasura in Hindu Mythology offers an eerie parallel to the affect of materialism. As a devotee of Lord Shiva, he obtains a boon from Shiva, which empowers him to turn anyone into ashes with a mere touch on the head. Immediately after gaining this magical ability, he tries to test it on Shiva himself. Shiva manages to escape, the story goes.

But humans may not be lucky plenty to abscond from their own actions. Unless, we offer a different vision rooted in reduction of consumption, the flames of our ain materialism might consume both us and our Pale Blue Dot.

* Santhosh Mathew is a professor of physics and astronomy Regis College, Greater Boston, and a scientific discipline author who has authored 2 books.

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Source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210520-could-humans-really-destroy-all-life-on-earth

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