The Environmental Consequences of killing all humans

I'm near positive it doesn't count when you say it about humanity as a whole.

Then again, as a Black man, I wouldn't like someone saying that stuff about my people, so yeah, I'm a Hypocrite.

I guess I was hoping we actually had something to contribute to the planet beyond fixing the problems we created.

Considering how most of the things we produce can only be used by humans, I doubt that.

Well, nobody ask me to write a pro human story....ever.

I don't know, it sounded pretty biased to me.

Only in the favor of science.

No, it's not, and you're frankly full of it. All humans have an interest in a functional biosphere, because all humans have an interest in continuing to breathe, for example.

Interesting Night.

You got a point there. Do you have any suggestions for any possible negative affects of destroying humanity outside of the stuff mentioned?

I'm still wondering if there's some justification.

....then again, in a fictional story, you can just make one up.

Well, we'd have more of a biosphere without humans, because there won't be any humans cutting down trees and polluting the sky.

That's more in favour of killing us!!!

You aren't helping!!!!!

Or am I helping more than you think?

You're totally not!!!!

What do you mean "think"?

• Turn it around: what does any one other species contribute to the planet that humanity doesn't? They're part of the biosphere, consuming others and being consumed in turn, and humans are similar—albeit with greater control over the process.
  
  It's true that humanity does damage—but as pointed out, humanity is also starting—slowly, perhaps—to turn around on that, especially as technology improves.

• What does the planet want for? Positive contribution calls, I would think, for some lack or want—what does the planet lack? (By analogy, this is a little like attempting to buy a gift for someone who "has everything".) The genomes of other species could perhaps be curated, reducing the occurrence of harmful mutations—but that might stifle evolution.
  
  Two things do occur to me:
  1. Developing defences against some of the nastier external threats that could seriously damage or even destroy the biosphere (asteroids, gamma ray bursts, etc.). And, well, humanity is working on at least one of those, as I recall (after all, such things seem likely to affect humanity, too!), but human technology isn't there yet.

  2. Should humanity advance to the stars (whether simply to explore and expand, or to escape the death of Earth when the sun enters its next stage of life), samples of Earth's biosphere could be taken along and used to seed (hopefully unoccupied) alien planets, thus potentially saving the biosphere from Earth's death. Again, however, human technology simply isn't there yet, and we don't know whether such seeding will be done, should humanity ever so expand.

• What would be the environmental consequences of killing all of some other species? I'm far from an expert, but my impression is that, for a single species, the answer is "not an awful lot": the local ecology would likely wobble a bit, then stabilise. Life is pretty resilient, I think.
  
  That's not to say that I feel that the loss of a species to human action isn't a negative thing. However, to my mind, the negative aspects of such a loss are in the potential for the loss of rather more than one species, and the loss of the creatures that we treasure.

• Why is the measure of the killing of all humanity environmental? What makes that the touchstone relative to which we judge the removal of a species—especially a sentient, sapient one?

edited 17th Aug '14 7:42:44 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

We're also doing more harm to the environment than ever before. Look at places like China.

Uh, Night, you do realise that there are very powerful people in this world who either believe that pollution does not matter or do not care, yes? I am not of the mind that the world would inherently be better off without us, but I will say that whether we endure as a species or not, the planet will continue without us. We've barely been a blip on the radar, chronologically speaking, and were we to wipe ourselves out... certain traces would remain for a very long time, of course, but after a couple millennia, not much would be there of our recent accomplishments.

Well yeah. There's no real excuse for racism. There's nothing specific to blacks or Jews that is worse for the environment than any other group of humans.

But so few people actually care. Sure, nobody wants an uninhabitable planet, but nobody really wants to do anything about it. And even the most environmentally conscious person will be a part of a system that rules the earth with an iron fist and is incredibly destructive. It's just our nature.

Just because it wasn't favorable doesn't make it unbiased.

I think the the more interesting question isn't how efficient a plan it would be, but how the villain would try to justify their agenda.

After all, the earth/nature have no desires of their own, "better or worse" mean nothing to nature. So do they claim to act on behalf of all the non-human species on earth? Is there any reason to think that a tiger would prefer to "naturally" starve to death rather then be shot by a human? Do they just want to minimize suffering? To keep life in some form going until the sun dies?

Or prehaps it is just a general disgust in humanity (likely accompanied by self-loathing) that is driving them forward rather then any genuine concern for the non-human world.

As for the reason why someone can argue about not killing all humans... Try to look outside the environmentalist box.

Saying that humans can harm the planet to such levels that it can become completely uninhabitable seems wrong to me. Nature has shown a destructive power far beyond what we have (we'll need Warhammer 40K technology to make the planet uninhabitable when we have volcanoes with the strength of thousands of bombs), and yet the ecosystem managed to recover under time. It is true we can affect nature, but to a very small degree to actually matter in high scale.

Also, I'm pretty sure we have been, on these last years, searching for alternative sources that are more ecofriendly than the rest. Not because the "mean capitalists" suddenly felt like "saving the planet", of course, but because they realized that wasting all their resources will end their business (an example is how a few companies have their own private forests to draw wood, and how they preserve it). Attempts are being made to substitute petroleum to solar energy busses and cars (granted, we're only just beginning, but it is a sign nevertheless); and before petroleum, we used coal, which is much more harmful to the environment.

If anything humanity has, through science, the potential to compensate for whatever resources they consumed and fix whatever damage they have done.

—-

Imo it is easier to deconstruct the accusations of a villain about humanity being harmful to the environment rather than come up with your own for why humans are beneficial to the planet. It can also be argued that the villain wants an extreme solution for a problem that can be solved through more reasonable ones.

Very nice.

Perhaps I've been tackling it from the wrong angle. I'd like to hear more on deconstructing those accusations. Maybe it's something I can use.

edited 21st Aug '14 4:36:10 PM by HandsomeRob

Hm, I didn't think about it very well... =P

Let's see. Suppose a villain says "Humans destroy nature, therefore they must be destroyed to preserve nature". We can argue that he is wrong because he sees the destruction of humanity as the only way to preserve nature, when there are other ways. He is ignorantly appealing to the most extreme solution as if it were the only one.

As well as why she/he cares so much about "nature" in the first place. Exactly what is it about nature that is motivating the villain? We may all feel some affinity with the rest of the natural world, but it isn't enough to drive the average Joe to take such extreme measures. How does this guy differ from the average Joe?

What inherent value does nature have that is not attributed to it by humans?

Sentient cows in gas masks. Mook my works.

As long as we're talking about what makes Humanity unique, I think it's relevant to point out that Humans are the only species on planet Earth that are sufficiently intelligent to invent the abstract concept of values- which are the means by which we judge something to be good or bad. Therefore, Humanity would need to exist in order for the concept of environmental degradation being a bad thing to even exist.

If you have a long enough view, you might well say that the behaviors of Humanity that are leading to nature's destruction were imparted in us via evolution, a wholly natural process. Therefore, Humanity's present trend of ecological mismanagement and exploitation is just a way of nature committing suicide.

Plenty for everything else that lives in it, methinks.