Off Topic — HabitableZone

Off Topic » in reply to I understand the facts, TB

"Someday when I have time..."
TB — (archived)

...I will research everyone of those extinctions and give you an update as to how they participated in the environment...and the ramifications of their no longer existing.

You might not want to do that. It's a rude awakening. The planet Earth has kicked off hundreds of thousands if not millions of species in its existence. About 99 percent of all known species in geological history, in fact. And life as a whole, and Earth's complex ecology, has gone on. Usually without even a hiccup, as other species happily fill the empty niches. Long-term ramifications? Pretty much zero.

Think about this: Without humanity to look and wonder at the many amazing creatures and plants that make the Earth what it is, nothing else alive would give a rat's ass if a species came or went--not even the members of that particular species.

No lion has ever wondered if it was eating too many wildebeest. No wildebeest ever wondered if the lions would starve if they succeeded in escaping.

You think the last dodo gazed in horror at the empty landscape around him, contemplating the ultimate doom of his kind? The last thoughts in the head of the last dodo were something along the lines of "look at all the extra food around here" and "where the hell are the girls?"

Look in the mirror. You are looking at part of the mind of Gaia. The only one she has. If humanity suddenly vanished, the Earth would still mostly go on without a hiccup. But the last species that ever knowingly cared about the survival of any species other than itself would be gone.

Someday humanity may kick a very large asteroid away from a deadly path, something no other living thing could do, and save a large part of the life of the world. Now that makes you think, doesn't it?

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