What would happen if humans destroyed the wild entirely?

[YUPPIE]

so what I mean by that is the world has forests (among other things like deserts, mountains, etc) and wild animals.

What if humans completely destroyed or upended all the forests and other uninhabitable wild areas in favor of making golf courses and resorts and captured and dislocated all the animals for zoo exhibits or entertainment? And at the same time, humanity killed off most of the insect population because they felt it was unpleasant.

What kind of consequences would we be looking at in this scenario?

[Daedius]

Be a boring world

[Shadowferal]

No green is a death sentence. Slow but eventual. Not a world most would want to live in.

[Grimbold21]

Well ask yourself how hot cities with little to not greenery get

[beanman12345]

so what I mean by that is the world has forests (among other things like deserts, mountains, etc) and wild animals.

What if humans completely destroyed or upended all the forests and other uninhabitable wild areas in favor of making golf courses and resorts and captured and dislocated all the animals for zoo exhibits or entertainment? And at the same time, humanity killed off most of the insect population because they felt it was unpleasant.

What kind of consequences would we be looking at in this scenario?

What even is this thread, what do you think will happen?

[PC2]

What kind of consequences would we be looking at in this scenario?

Depends, if it happened all at once right now then it would cause a chain of events that diminishes the means of civilization. It would be our demise. However if it happens incrementally over time we could easily be fine and increase prosperity because people have the ability to adapt to and innovate past all of our current problems.

[Orange Joe]

Depends, if it happened all at once right now then it would cause a chain of events that diminishes the means of civilization. It would be catastrophic. However if it happens incrementally over time we could easily be fine and increase prosperity because people have the ability to adapt to and innovate past all of our current problems.

Your naivety is amazing sometimes lmfao.

[PC2]

Your naivety is amazing sometimes lmfao.

M'kay, as a pessimist you can plan your life around the idea that people must inevitably destroy themselves and that we cannot adapt and innovate past our current problems. Where as I'll plan for continued economic growth and technological advancements.

To each their own. *shrug*

[Orange Joe]

M'kay, as a pessimist you can plan your life around the idea that people must inevitably destroy themselves and that we cannot adapt and innovate past our current problems. Where as I'll plan for continued economic growth and technological advancements.

To each their own. *shrug*

Wow. Where did I say any of that? I just don't subscribe to the idea that someday in the future humans will be able to magically fix any current problem.

[PC2]

Wow. Where did I say any of that? I just don't subscribe to the idea that someday in the future humans will be able to magically fix any current problem.

Growing our scientific and engineering knowledge isn't magic. And yes we absolutely can solve any current or future problem unless the solution is forbidden by the laws of physics. But none of our current problems require us to violate the laws of physics so it's not an issue at all.

[Shadowferal]

Where as I'll plan for continued economic growth and technological advancements.

Considering your refusal to accept scientific authority and your inability to understand that science and technology...engineering, are all under one umbrella, I think we can plan ahead without your type of cheerleading.

[Stormspark]

The answer is...the planet would turn into a 100+C desert and would be completely uninhabitable.

[Raetary]

The planet would turn into a bigass hellhole devoid of life.

[Draco-Onis]

My main concern is that we need general and grand solutions, not ones that try to subvert common society further.

History has a tendency to repeat itself, back in the 14th to 15th century there was a sudden explosion of the amount of non-nobles that managed to make themselves wealthy with trade, in fact, large populations of such commoners with a lot of cash tended to live in cities back then, not under the direct rule of nobles. It used to irritate the nobles and even the church to no end, because they could no longer see any noticeable difference between themselves and the commoners. Up to the point they start issuing laws and decrees that did not allow the commoners to:
- eat more than one or two meals a day
- not allowed to wear jewelry or expensive garb
- etc.

Back then it was also hailed as to reduce sin and to prevent the world from ending. I'm getting similar vibes from all this 'go vegan' or 'stop owning stuff' advertising I'm seeing nowadays.

You kind of lump things that don't belong together, the wealthy make more money by destroying the planet than stopping that's why even after decades of warning it's hard to get anything major done. When it comes to eating people get cult like about food "go keto", "go vegan", "go carnivore" , I am not sure where you are getting don't own stuff.

Either way most of the misconception about climate change is because it is better to get plebs like you fighting over who is saying don't own stuff so you can ignore the fact that mega corporations are responsible for the vast majority of the waste and pollution.

- - - Updated - - -

The planet would turn into a bigass hellhole devoid of life.

So Florida

[Zan15]

We would probably be fine. Astronauts survive in space without any plants too - even at ungodly high or low temperatures.

You realize the only reason they survive is because all of the things they are provided from our planet currently.

I would guess that the majority of their food and water would be gone without "plants" and what the current environment provides

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

One only needs to look at what China looked after the Great Leap Forward...

[Polyxo]

So I can kind of answer this definitively in a relatively vague way. What happens to humans if nature were to be 'gone' would depend on how humanity handles replacing 'natural services'. So, existing on the US depends on nutrient cycles to keep plants growing, and water cycling and oxygen cycling. You'd need to be doing that all artificially, or from some other source. So a case in point would be if all forests were gone, you wouldn't have nearly as much plant matter fixing carbon, or emitting O2. You would either need to rely on other natural sources like marine algae, or you'd have to build huge industrial level 'oxygen plants' to scrub CO2 out of the atmosphere and put out O2, or the air composition would just slowly become inhospitable. Another problem would be nutrient cycling, and the lack of nutrient pumps. You'd need to be able to grow and make food, so you'd need to be able to artificially put in nitrogen and phosphorus and other nutrients, even more than is done now. Ultimately, you'd kind of see a slow, soft apocalypse, similar to fiction in "World Made by Hand", "The Rover", "Years and Years", and some aspects of "Blade Runner."

[Shadowferal]

At least half of the world's oxygen comes from the oceans. So far. Dead zones are growing...

[Egomaniac]

so what I mean by that is the world has forests (among other things like deserts, mountains, etc) and wild animals.

What if humans completely destroyed or upended all the forests and other uninhabitable wild areas in favor of making golf courses and resorts and captured and dislocated all the animals for zoo exhibits or entertainment? And at the same time, humanity killed off most of the insect population because they felt it was unpleasant.

What kind of consequences would we be looking at in this scenario?

We'd have a sudden and profound appreciation for Oxygen...

[Kokolums]

so what I mean by that is the world has forests (among other things like deserts, mountains, etc) and wild animals.

What if humans completely destroyed or upended all the forests and other uninhabitable wild areas in favor of making golf courses and resorts and captured and dislocated all the animals for zoo exhibits or entertainment? And at the same time, humanity killed off most of the insect population because they felt it was unpleasant.

What kind of consequences would we be looking at in this scenario?

That's pretty far out of reach. I mean, do you know just how big Alaska is? Is REALLY big. The bulk of Alaska would almost cover the entire west coast from California and cover half of Texas. If you want to count all the islands, then Alaska is almost as wide at the lower 48. And its almost COMPLETELY uninhabited. Nothing but forests and wildlife. The only way to deforest that in our lifetimes would be to carpet bomb it with nuclear weapons. And that's just one chunk of land. We've not talked about most of Canada being wilderness, or most of Russia being wilderness.

I think we don't need to worry about all of that getting turned into putt-putt courses just yet.