paleontologist
Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...
Alexis Rockman
Alexis Rockman (born 1962) is an American contemporary artist known for his paintings that provide depictions of future landscapes as they might exist with impacts of climate change and evolution influenced by genetic engineering. He has exhibite ...
evolution
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes, which are passed on from parent to offspring during reproduction. Variation ...
The Time Machine
''The Time Machine'' is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively for ...
''.
According to Ward, humanity may exist for a long time. Nevertheless, we are impacting our planet. He splits his book in different chronologies, starting with the near future (the next 1,000 years). Humanity would be struggling to support a massive
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
of 11 billion.
Global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
raises sea levels. The
ozone
Ozone (), or trioxygen, is an inorganic molecule with the chemical formula . It is a pale blue gas with a distinctively pungent smell. It is an allotrope of oxygen that is much less stable than the diatomic allotrope , breaking down in the lo ...
layer weakens. Most of the available
land
Land, also known as dry land, ground, or earth, is the solid terrestrial surface of the planet Earth that is not submerged by the ocean or other bodies of water. It makes up 29% of Earth's surface and includes the continents and various isla ...
is devoted to
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
due to the demand for food. Despite all this, the oceanic wildlife remains untethered by most of these impacts, specifically the commercial farmed fish. This is, according to Ward, an era of
extinction
Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
that would last about 10 million years (note that many human-caused extinctions have already occurred). After that, Earth gets stranger.
Ward labels the species that have the potential to survive in a human-infested world. These include
dandelion
''Taraxacum'' () is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelions. The scientific and hobby study of the genus is known as taraxacology. The genus is native to Eurasia and Nor ...
s,
raccoon
The raccoon ( or , ''Procyon lotor''), sometimes called the common raccoon to distinguish it from other species, is a mammal native to North America. It is the largest of the procyonid family, having a body length of , and a body weight of ...
s,
owl
Owls are birds from the order Strigiformes (), which includes over 200 species of mostly solitary and nocturnal birds of prey typified by an upright stance, a large, broad head, binocular vision, binaural hearing, sharp talons, and feathers a ...
s,
pig
The pig (''Sus domesticus''), often called swine, hog, or domestic pig when distinguishing from other members of the genus '' Sus'', is an omnivorous, domesticated, even-toed, hoofed mammal. It is variously considered a subspecies of ''Sus ...
s,
cattle
Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ma ...
snake
Snakes are elongated, limbless, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping scales. Many species of snakes have skulls with several more j ...
s, and
crow
A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...
s to name but a few. In the human-infested
ecosystem
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
, those preadapted to live amongst man survived and prospered. Ward describes
garbage dump
A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...
s 10 million years in the future infested with multiple species of rats, a snake with a sticky frog-like tongue to snap up rodents, and pigs with snouts specialized for rooting through garbage. The story's time traveller who views this new refuse-covered habitat is gruesomely attacked by ravenous flesh-eating crows.
Ward then questions the potential for humanity to evolve into a new species. According to him, this is incredibly unlikely. For this to happen a human population must isolate itself and
interbreed
In biology, a hybrid is the offspring resulting from combining the qualities of two organisms of different breeds, varieties, species or genera through sexual reproduction. Hybrids are not always intermediates between their parents (such as in ...
until it becomes a new species. Then he questions if humanity would survive or extinguish itself by
climate change
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to ...
disease
A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...
, or the posing threat of nanotechnology as terrorist weapons. Ward ultimately concludes that humanity may last for hundreds of millions of years, overcoming every obstacle.
In the final chapter, Ward looks at how life on Earth will fare in the very distant future ( 500 million years in the future), where an ever-brightening Sun combined with decreasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels make the Earth too hot for complex life, resulting in the final devolution and eventual extinction of all life on Earth. Ward describes a small beach, with cactus-like plants growing and waist high armoured creatures resembling armadillos. The oceans have become hot and salty, and most marine life having gone extinct. Ward predicts that humans, if any exist at that time, will have to live underground and become the new ants of the Earth, much like the
Morlocks
Morlocks are a fictional species created by H. G. Wells for his 1895 novel,''The Time Machine'', and are the main antagonists. Since their creation by H. G. Wells, the Morlocks have appeared in many other works such as sequels, films, televis ...
from H.G. Wells' novel ''
The Time Machine
''The Time Machine'' is a science fiction novella by H. G. Wells, published in 1895. The work is generally credited with the popularization of the concept of time travel by using a vehicle or device to travel purposely and selectively for ...
'', knowing that like the remaining plants and animals, they too will become extinct as well.
See also
*''
The Future Is Wild
''The Future Is Wild'' (also referred to by the acronym ''FIW'') is a 2002 speculative evolution docufiction miniseries and an accompanying multimedia entertainment franchise. ''The Future Is Wild'' explores the ecosystems and wildlife of thre ...
''
*
Human extinction
Human extinction, also known as omnicide, is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline from sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact, or large-scale volcanism, or to anthropogenic ...