Would planet earth be better off without humanity?

If people never existed, would planet earth be better off? I think it would, as animals would be able to live naturally, some wouldn't be placed on factory farms, and earth would exist with not as much global warming, deforestation, and destruction to the planet. What do you think?

Planet Earth have been doing just fine for the past 4 billion years without humans.

It's been doing fine those 300,000 years with humans, too.

What do you mean better off? The Earth is not conscious. It can't have preferred states.

@drekula2 As it relates to the wellness of the planet and its inhabitants.

I dunno, we gotta see how that works and then send in Will Smith with some kid nobody cares about when enough years passed.

@the_plan_man: Yeah it would, no pollution etc.

Of course, i thought this was common sense.

How would there be pollution without humans? Pollution is man made.

What do you mean by better? Because I'd imagine that any way we try to define it, it'll have huge human bias, and thus, it'd be undefined when applying it to a non-human situation.

I'd just like to point out that nearly every species that has ever existed has gone extinct before humans ever were a thing.

So, "living naturally" apparently usually doesn't tend to work out so well.

I'd also like to remind you that "planet earth" is not a sentient thing, and does not care one bit whether it's teeming with life or is a barren lifeless wasteland.

"Better off" is a judgement that only humans can make.

It doesn't mean anything with no humans.

This, essentially. Only intellectual beings are capable of conceptualizing moral rights and wrongs, and due to the subjective (and often corrupt) nature of morality, there's no definitive stance that humanity can rightfully take in terms of its influence on the natural world.

Sharks would kick even more ass probably extincting sea otters

What an absolutely pointless topic

Well, technically 299,800 years since the last 200 years have been rough on it, LOL. And yeah, I think the planet would be better off without us polluting and destroying everything. By screwing over the planet, we're screwing ourselves. This is our only home. Some people still think Earth has infinite resources, which is beyond sad. There aren't enough resources on the planet for seven billion people to all live like Americans and Western Europeans, unfortunately.

@thegerg: Uh, no. Humans HAVE been here for part of the past 4 billion years. WTF are you on about?

Yeah 25 thousands of a percent or .0025% out of 4 billion years. If you were to subtract that, you will still get about 4 billion years.

I would like to point out, there are other areas of the solar system humans does not regularly interact with. How have all the planets, dwarf planets, moons, asteroids, comets, and the sun, other then the Earth, been doing so far without interaction of humans?

Well I would say it would be better of without us

Overall, yes, the Earth would be much better off. But that still doesn't mean we shouldn't make the most of our pointless existence...

If it's not humans, it'd be a super volcanic eruption or some asteroid/comet that'll decimate life on the planet. Weren't there multiple times life almost disappeared on the planet during Earth's past before the time of humans? So.... No. I don't think Earth would be better off without humans.

Planet earth Would be better off without the bad part of humanity.

The planet would be a lot better off without us.

There's no definite way of knowing but I would think yes.

"destruction of the planet" that's a bit of an exaggeration don't you think? there isn't really a damn thing mankind is currently capable of doing to actually destroy the planet.

Who is going to shoot down killer asteroids if Ben Affleck or other A-List Hollywood human beings aren't here?

Define "better."

Yes.. since human are the worse kind of animals, we stole eveything else 's life.

No.

"Pollution is man made."

Fixed.

Definitive objective answer: yes

bwahahahaha

i cant wait for a global one child policy and forced abortions

Reptilian overlords would still **** shit up.

100% yes

but who would be here to eat all of the tasty animals

Or perhaps there would be some other invasive species even worse. Maybe a meteor strike or two. Then boom, your green dreams are all dead.

I think that's crazy. Earth is not a thinking, feeling being. It is no better and no worse off en masse by anything that is done to or for it, unless you are giving specific examples.

Would it be better able to hold more CO2 in the atmosphere before plants burned up? Probably.

Would it be better able to promote a new development of intelligent life? Sure.

Would it be able to grow freakishly large pumpkins, or have a backup plan for it's inhabitants (in the future,) or have a way to preserve extinct or dying species? Probably not.

The planet's fine with us. It's a big rock, I don't think it gives two shits one way or another.

Pretty much. Any damage we do will heal itself in a few hundred thousand years or so anyway, which is a blink on an eye in cosmic time.

Earth reverts to it's equilibrium no matter what happens to it.

Humans have no long-term impact on it's 'health'.

No. I just meant that we've already contributed a lot. We've already partially filled the cup.

It wouldn't matter. As good as we think that the Earth would be without us, everything will be dead in less than a billion years when the Sun heats up.

Think about it. If humans continue to exist until such a time, we may have spread throughout space and managed to save billions of potential species of life from our planet. If we never existed, everything WILL die no matter what.

It would be a hell of a lot less polluted. It would also be a whole lot more boring and incapable of casting a judgement on its condition as well.

It would be more polluted at this moment, but it would eventually be reverted back to it's unpolluted self. Your second statement is not only subjective, but you assume that humans are the conscience of Earth.