Imagine a World Without Us

Since a large slice of humanity went into hibernation to dodge the coronavirus, the world outside our habitats has changed. There is much less noise. Birdsong can be heard. The air is cleaner, more breathable. The skies are bluer. It is as if by sequestering us, the world is being purified. It is as if nature could apply a bleach that sanitized it against us, it would be whole again.

And indeed it would. We do pollute it. We do foul the water, the land and the air. We do commit holocausts upon entire species. We do make a lot of noise. We are, in many ways, a plague upon nature, a pandemic upon the rest of life. It isn't difficult to conceive of the world without us—a cleaner, quieter place where almost every other species could thrive without fear of an ultimate predator.

A place where oceans weren't acidifying, warming and filling up with plastic. A place where forests weren't disappearing. A place where species weren't being systematically driven into extinction. A place where water was clean, the skies were blue and you could always hear birds sing when the sun shone.

Imagine!