Ecological Serial Killer

In his awesome book, Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari says that the “historical record makes Homo Sapiens look like an ecological serial killer”. He says that while the speed at which we drive species to extinction has gone to warp speed in recent centuries and decades, we even managed to wipe out species with just Stone Age technologies at our disposal! He says it would be a remarkable coincidence if the timing of extinction events in Siberia, the Americas and Australia just happened to overlap with humans landing in those areas. The usual other suspect in such extinction events, climate change, is probably not the culprit in those cases because it was always life on land that suffered when man landed, never life in the seas (an area in which our capabilities have built only in recent centuries). Ian Fleming one wrote:

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

Like it or not, humans have been the enemy for other life forms, long before modern technology. Remember that famous quote from Spiderman:

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

Looks like that “great responsibility” came even with minor powers to us humans! And boy, did we mess things up or what?!

On the other hand, weren’t most species in the history of our planet wiped out long before we came about? Dinosaurs, for example? Isn’t the fossil record full of species that died out long before we came on the scene? So are we exaggerating the impact of us humans on other species in the ages before modern technologies came about? Are we being too harsh on ourselves as a species?

Sadly, the answer to all of the above is a resounding No. Here’s the proof of that. Remember Chernobyl? The biggest nuclear accident in history? The exclusion zone, which extends 30 km in all directions, is considered unsafe for humans for 20,000 years. Ok, you say, but what’s that got to do with the topic at hand?

Here’s the connection. Wild life doesn’t know (or care) of such exclusion zones; so the animals are often living well inside that zone of Chernobyl. And guess what, they are thriving! I know what you are suspecting, but let author of that report, Jim Smith, disabuse you of any such straw you may be clutching at:

“This doesn't mean radiation is good for wildlife, just that the effects of human habitation, including hunting, farming, and forestry, are a lot worse.”

So let’s not kid ourselves about how bad we are for every other species. Hell, the animals will take living with nuclear radiation than be anywhere near us!