Charlton warned us all about this over 30 years ago, you can either go out with a BANG or a wimper

If there were no humans on Earth, there would be no stupid animals writing senseless articles like that. It's a PETA pipe dream, however "logical" it may sound to the gullible few. Who is paying people to write "dreams"? (Probably the same people spending tax money for artists who aren't qualified and skilled enough to sell their "art" [like scrap metal welded together with no theme or end vision] on the free market. Us!)

FYI,

The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis is a research center of the University of California, Santa Barbara. It has no affiliation with PETA.

Funding is provided by the National Science Foundation, the State of California, and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

NCEAS supports cross-disciplinary research that uses existing data to address major fundamental issues in ecology and allied fields, and their application to management and policy. NCEAS is a unique institution with an explicit mission to foster synthesis and analysis, turn information into understanding and, through effective collaboration, alter how science is conducted.

They are trying to help us.

bsmith

No, it's not sponsored or written by PETA, but it remains a PETA pipe dream, I think.

No, they're not trying to help us with this article, no more than they'd be trying to help us if they hypothesized Earth without PETA.

- Thank you for agreeing that PETA does not sponsor nor did not write the article.

PETA website: PETA focuses its attention on the four areas in which the largest numbers of animals suffer the most intensely for the longest periods of time: on factory farms, in laboratories, in the clothing trade, and in the entertainment industry. We also work on a variety of other issues, including the cruel killing of beavers, birds and other "pests," and the abuse of backyard dogs.

Granted their sometime terrorist style affronts common decency. But so did the American Revolutionaries. Point is, sometimes people have felt it necessary to do the outlandish to capture attention.

I am not a member of PETA. I don't know what they stand for. Their website statement, I can agree with..

- If people did not think about what could or could not be - we would never have walked upright, nor walked on the moon. That's what the article is about - imagining what earth would be like w/o us - and then perhaps thinking how we can change our daily living to ensure that we don't cause our own extinction w/toxic waste, pollution, nuclear waste, and all of the man-made 'things' we've created that could kill us all.

I try to remember that although we are currently on the top of the food chain, it wouldn't take much to change that. For most people that would be to go in the woods after dark.

I applaud the scientists - and i hope they keep thinking.


bsmith

Just in case any B.E.M. is planning something, I've set all the reactors to go prompt critical and the ICBM'S are now in fail deadly mode.............

Hmm, I think I have a far different take on the outcome of non-human future for this planet... annihilation.

If there is any hope for this little marble for the next few million years, it rests singularly with us. Of all the species to have come and gone on this planet, we are the only ones who've made it to a technological condition whereby we possess the capability to actually avert the effects of a natural cataclysm. It may well rest with us whether or not the pushing of nature's reset button can be pre-empted, and most life on this planet can be spared.

I do not subscribe to the chicken little inuendo of the author, though I would tend to affirm his posit that our relative impact on our planet's ecological dynamics have, to date, been rather modest and superficial. Alarmists have a tendency to grossly exxagerate the size of our footprint so as to disproportionate the environmentalists' argument. Were it not for the author's opening statements, I would conclude this article has appropriate perspective. Alas, the theme doth run a bit droll.

Sorry, but the entire slant of the article implies that the earth without humans is "natural" and somehow we are an alien species that may or may not "leave its mark".

I find it funny that the same camp that believes humans are just an evolved hairless ape also believes that humans are the only species that is not part of "nature".

Oh, and it’s obvious that the purpose of the entire article is to get to the sermon on "Carbon dioxide, the biggest worry in today's world". You gotta laugh at the statement "There will be CO2 left in the atmosphere, continuing to influence the climate, more than 1000 years after humans stop emitting it" I hope so, otherwise everything would die.

They say that it would take over 1000 years for CO2 concentration to get back to 280ppm "pre-industrial levels" as if that is the "correct" level of CO2 in the atmosphere. In fact the only other time in the past 600 million years that the CO2 level has been below 400ppm was the Carboniferous period, 300 million years ago. Why don't they tell us how long it will take to get back to the "correct" 7,000 (that's seven thousand) ppm of the Cambrian period?

How about an article on how long its going to take for the effect of pre-historic life to be erased. You know, all those plants sucking CO2 out the air, they dying, becoming buried and turned into fossil fuel, depleting our atmosphere of an essential gas?

imagine... a world without chihuahuas, cows, persian cats, and thoughts of other specialized breeds which could never exist naturally.

"I'm still trying to understand why anybody would consider this article relevant."

Relevant to what? This is Around the Campfire, so can't we talk about anything? We could talk about the color preferences of mice ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6W9W-49SFF11-2&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F2003&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=bb1d58c83b7a76ed709579ecd5bc943d ) or recipes for cooking your own dog food. We COULD even talk about zombies and pirates!

Sue