One hundred years from now, it won’t matter what our world will be- because humans will have fulfilled the unimaginable feat of relocating to a different planet. Picture an entirely new earth, a completely new beginning, a society in which we can mold into our own utopia.
PSYCH.
The world in one hundred years, five hundred, a million, until the sun explodes essentially, will survive. It will thrive and recover- but humans will not. What people around the globe are blind to is the fact that, in our destruction of the planet and its resources, we are designing and consequently condemning our own fate— not the Earth’s.
The Earth has existed for four and a half billion years. Of it, humans have inhabited approximately 300,000 years within this time. This means that humans have been around for less than one percent of Earth’s history. We do not own the planet; we merely inhabit it. In our time on Earth, we have caused mass destruction of the resources available, and the problem is only getting worse. At this rate, the planet will still remain in a hundred years, but humanity may not.
The results of climate change, including rising sea level, droughts, heatwaves, increased levels of hurricanes and other disasters, disease, destruction of air quality, food security, and hundreds of other effects, will effectively destroy humans. Not the earth. The earth has experienced four and a half billion years of disasters and has carried on, regrown, and continued to exist. After the disappearance of humans, the process will become even easier, regardless of whatever destruction humanity has induced. We need this planet; this planet does not need us.
For a society focused on the success and power of mankind, people seem blind to the fact that our actions are detrimental to our own existence. Climate change deniers or people who simply don’t care enough are free to exercise their beliefs, but at the expense of every future generation until there isn’t a future generation.
If we care about ourselves, if we want to remain on this earth instead of experiencing total chaos and destruction before we can no longer live here, then we have to care about what is happening to the planet and examine our impacts right now. There is no longer time to turn a blind eye to what is happening.