Keenan Coffey Journalism : the world without us essay

Homo sapiens have been roaming the Earth for thousands and thousands of years. Advancements in technology and ways of life have led our species into a flourishing industrialized world. It was a scientific marvel for species like us to evolve, and to create such amazing, beneficial tools such as buildings, roads, schools, etc. Although, with all great advancements comes setbacks. Industry and commerce has been overlooked from an ecology standpoint. Pollution is a huge repercussion from factories and create atrocious problems for urban and marine ecosystems. The world without humans would be drastically different all in all.

Humans alter with thousands of natural occurrences on our Earth. We pave over grass and already living beings to create roadways and railroads just because of our need for fast transportation. We also disrupt the flow of evolution and extremely tamper with the natural equilibrium of organisms. Each species is bound to die off due to natural disasters, or other natural means of extinction. We kill off species in an unnatural way, and in a barbaric, accelerated way. This being said, adaptation in certain organisms are done away with or thrown out. Other species cannot adapt fast enough to our growing need for food and luxuries such as fur coats, shoes, leather, etc. Not to mention the diversity of our world has decreased over the past 300 years from a worldwide standpoint. Our misuse of the soil is also a contributor to extinction and decreasing population rates in animals. The current rate of deforestation is 160,000 square kilometers per year. This makes it impossible for most organisms to survive in a drastically changed ecosystem. Our world was not made just for humans to keep destroying every natural resource and accommodation possible. One could not argue that what we are doing is beneficial to the world we live in.

We produce tons of toxic waste every year, and it all ends up somewhere. Humans create factories that either pollute the air we breathe, or the water marine animals live in. Pollution is a huge risk of having conveniences that ultimately could be replaceable. It puts toxins into our lungs, and kills millions of animals per year. In an anonymous survey, students from Norton high school were asked what their thoughts were about the impact humans have on our Earth. 90% of students believed that the world would be better without us. Also, 25% of students said pollution is completely our fault, and would decrease substantially without us. Many impactful things would change in urban areas such as cities. Cities would deteriorate and become jungles and inhabited with trees once again. Alan Weisman, author of "The World Without Us", was scholarly in saying, "Floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the world’s cities crumble, asphalt jungles give way to real ones." Without the skyscrapers and cement jungles, the actual jungles would recover and flourish. Maybe this shows how cement and skyscrapers should not be disrupting our underground jungles in the soil beneath. Maybe it shows how life would be better in urban and industrial areas without our never ending shadow being cast upon underestimated and under appreciated soil. Humans complicate the general flow of life in urban areas with pollution and cement blockades, thus retreating the overall process for all living things.

Marine life would benefit greatly from the extinction of humans. Crustaceans, fish, mammals, etc. would live in a very different place without Homo sapiens. Pollution affects every means of life in our oceans, and bodies of water. One cigarette butt can kill and create problems for a 100 foot radius of water around it. It can contain toxic carcinogens and chemicals that aren't organically made or ingested in any way shape or form. Taking this into consideration, one cigarette can be a small scale factor in a large scale problem. Pollution in our oceans can contain millions of cigarettes, and other harmful liquids, and chemicals. This does not make for a healthy relationship between a marine ecosystem and humans. We have been slowing the natural code of marine animals evolving as well. Our constant killings to animals have slowed down their ability to reproduce and live like they were made to. We use their skins, organs, and other body parts for material items and an alternative means for food. In other cases, we don't use fish for anything after killing them. We hunt them and just end up doing it for recreational reasons. Possibly because its just a pastime for some, or because of how fun it can be. The ocean would experience huge changes without us, and would benefit and thrive by being much cleaner and more efficient.

The food chain would change ten-fold without interference with humans. Predators would flourish, whereas, prey would over populate and there would be more nutrients for predators. There wouldn't be scarce numbers of food for animals, unless of a natural distaste or natural occurrence. Although, that is the "beauty" of it. It is completely natural for problems to evolve in that sort of way. Not in the way we make it for creatures that live on the same planet as we do. Relatively speaking, there would be many more animals that would thrive and reproduce without humans present. They would flourish, and intelligent life would evolve from other animals. Over millions of years, another species like ours would evolve and possibly create the same huge problem we cope with today.

"Given the mounting toll of fouled oceans, overheated air, missing topsoil, and mass extinctions, we might sometimes wonder what our planet would be like if humans suddenly disappeared." There's no argument in saying humans have been harmful to the world we were put in. We are a very curious, over intelligent species that have advanced farther than ever expected. The Earth is like a delicate glass vase, and people are like an infant playing with it. Someday, at sometime, it is bound to break or shatter. Therefore, the beautiful world we inhabited would be completely different without us living in it.