What if man would disappear off the face of the earth? How would it change our planet? How long would it take before man’s traces would disappear completely? NewScientist looked into it in a recent article titled “Imagine earth without people”. The Times of London added a timeline chart, accompanied by Piranesi-inspired imagery. Reactions online show that many people are amazed by the speed of the whole process. This shows once again how perception of time and change and projection of such dynamics as we know them from the past (no, not only dinosaurs) on our present context, can often make us look at reality in a different light. Describing and visualizing ‘what ifs’ such as ‘a planet without humans’, may trigger some healthy reflection as well.
Experience learns that sustainability is a wonderful trigger and grateful subject for future thinking. As in scenario-building, often you need extremes in order to open up and sharpen up people’s minds, make it clear that you are describing a totally different context, etc. Yet, they are instrumental to a certain aim. If the aim of this thought experiment were to find ways to reach a preferred future in which man’s footprint(s) on earth is minimalized, one would be curious to explore other possible pathways to achieve this – as we all know there are -, alternatives to ones with an outcome being as apocalyptic as man’s extinction. This way, lessons learned from a thought experiment such as this could become a trigger and lead to strategies for action.

Our friends over at worldchanging.com commented along similar lines.

Via: NewScientist

Related posts:

1. a travel guide to planet earth

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 at 10:11 and is filed under envision, scenarios, sustainability, visions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.