What is

HUMANITY

and what is our purpose?¹

Growing up I have always thought of our world as being it. There was nothing more to life than Earth. As I grew up and matured, I discovered that there is more to life than just our world. The thought of that opened my eyes. Space is never ending. We live in a small world we call home. All that we have ever known is Earth. Scientists, researchers, etc. have always believed that we are it. There is no life out there but us, our world. How are we to conclude that there could or could not be something out there, something more. Us humans have only ventured through not even a fraction of space and taking this into consideration we have a lot more to discover.

Space

Is there more?²

Interstellar

One of the best movies I have ever watched was Interstellar because of its ominous Sci-fi plot. The setting takes place in the near future where crops are dying and fires and dust storms are common. It tells of a dad who travels through space and time in hopes to find a similar planet to save humanity. The first time I watched this movie I was little. At a young age, watching Interstellar wasn’t easy to comprehend due to its complexity. I didn’t think to wonder why or how something happened. Now, wandering back to the present, watching Interstellar a second time opened my mind. I understood more of the movie because I had mattered more. After watching Interstellar all these questions began bombarding me all at once: why did that happen, how did that happen, why are we here on Earth, is there a meaning to our life, what is the meaning of my life? I began wondering more: were humans placed on Earth for a purpose, if we are, what is that purpose? Why do we exist, is this a start of the sixth mass extinction?

Humans

Are we different from other species?³

Life On Earth

Humans, what exactly are we and the bigger questions, why were we placed on this planet? Why did we evolve the way we did? Is there a purpose? We think of ourselves as different from other animals, but why? Us humans have the ability to reason, making us number one on the list of the smartest species on planet Earth. Not too long ago, I watched a documentary about life on Earth written and performed by David Attenborough. The title of the documentary is A Life on Our Planet. The reason this movie was so jaw dropping was the fact that everything happens for a reason.

The film starts off by introducing the narrator, David Attenborough, and his opinion on humanity and our existence. We all know as a fact that all life started off in the ocean: from unicellular organisms. After that, land masses began to form, creating new species including: mammals, insects, and all different types of organisms. As the years went by, these organisms began evolving and adapting to their surroundings. Earth was at its peak. Now here and their Earth experienced several mass extinctions, but nothing was as devastating as the ice age. In the ice age many different types of species began to go extinct. They couldn’t survive the cold. Only a few species were able to survive during this extreme weather. Earth was covered in ice for millions of years until volcanoes released enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for Earth to begin warming. As Earth warmed its biodiversity began to return. New evolved forms of the extinct animals began thriving in their new warmed Earth. Then we showed up. Humans weren’t the most positive outcome toward our planet’s health.

One of the most crucial differences between humans and other species is that we build while animals adapt. For example, let’s say there is an animal who isn’t able to outrun its main predator. Some of those animals die out while others don’t, those animals produce offspring with better running abilities. That’s evolution. Another great example of evolution are cheetahs. Cheetahs probably weren’t always the fastest land animal on planet Earth, but they adapted that way because of their surrounding predators. If this were to happen to humans we wouldn’t wait millions of years, we would build cars and automobiles to make our lives easier. That’s the problem, we don’t let nature do its work. When humans started settling down into one place and farming, nature wasn’t able to carry out essential tasks. We started cutting down trees to make room for more farms and planting one type of crop (known as mono-culture) which degraded natural soil. As medicine became a common practice in the 1900s less people started dying and our birth rate became higher than our death rate. We started over populating, and as our population increased, so did our need for more nonrenewable resources. We started polluting the environment in a harmful way. The carbon in the atmosphere began increasing exponentially. It’s just amazing how a species so small can invoke havoc on the world around them. The Earth gives us so much, but in return we ruin it. Why you may ask … because of money.

Money

From day one, humans have relied on some type of currency: either being trade, cash, or some sort of benefit. People will do anything for money. It doesn’t matter if it will hurt their own planet in the long run, they will do anything. Why are we so greedy? It’s just our natural state. It’s how we were built. How we evolved. All organisms are greedy, but mostly for a purpose, for the great or good. Let’s put this into perspective. Let’s say there is a lion, we’ll call him lion 1, with his newly caught prey. The lion may have some sort of connection toward his meal. It may be his first meal in weeks. Lion 1 decides to take his meal to a safe place where he can thoroughly enjoy his meal. Suddenly another male lion, we’ll call him lion 2, jumps out from behind a bush and starts harassing lion 1 for his meal. That’s greed in the animal world. If one animal catches food, other animals who also want that food will do anything in its power to retrieve it. This results in greediness or maybe even fighting. Survival of the fittest what can I say. Of course this is just one example, but you get the idea.

Humans get greedy too. It may not necessarily be with food, but with money. As I said before, people will do anything in their power for money. In fact most of the food we eat is imported from other countries. Addictions are a common way to get money like: coffee, alcohol, or smoking. Lots of companies feed off of individual’s addictions. For example, if a company knows that drinking is highly addictive, they will take advantage of that and make more alcohol for the public. This may be very unhealthy, but to the companies it’s just another way to get money. Most companies don’t care about your health, they are just greedy for money. Our whole world revolves around money if you really think about it. Companies try to get more reviews while spending less money for their supplies. For example, let’s say company 1 wants to make money. They reach out to their supplier and ask how they can get supplies from them for the cheapest price. Company 1 ends up negotiating the price and retrieves the goods to put in local stores. Now that company 1 owns those supplies, they can sell them for more than they were initially. Sneaky companies. Now the public has no choice, but to get those overpriced goods.

OUR BEAUTIFUL OCEANS

Are we different from other species?³

Impacts

Our oceans are amazing. They make up roughly 71% of our planet, 95% of life on Earth, and hold more photosynthesis than all the rain forests combined. Sadly, with all the pollutants in the air and inside our oceans cause marine organisms to die. Our oceans are dying because of us. Our usage of fossil fuels have skyrocketed since the industrial revolution. Since humans have removed all threats such as predators, disease, and famine, our usage of nonrenewable resources have exponentially increased. Because of this, our population has increased resulting in more of everything. More crops need to be grown resulting in a loss of biodiversity in that ecosystem, farms are growing resulting in a loss of wildlife, and all our excess trash is being dumped into our beautiful oceans. The usage of fossil fuels is being released into the air resulting in climate change and higher acidity in the oceans. Glaciers are melting causing floods. Climate change is warming our oceans causing organisms that live in colder climates to become extinct.

Plastic

Trash can be made up of many different kinds of harmful substances. One of the worst is plastic. The reason plastic is so bad for the environment is because it isn’t biodegradable. Plastic is widely used because it is bendable which allows it to basically become anything. Our whole life revolves around plastics. What can we do to help? We can be more conscious about our plastic usage. For example, instead of using a store’s plastic bags, bring your own bags. Maybe set a reminder on your phone to “put bags in the car” next time you head to the grocery store. The next time you get a drink with a plastic cup or straw, make sure you rinse it out and place it in the recycling not the trash. If put in the trash, there is a chance that those plastics can end up in the oceans. When plastics enter our oceans they don’t biodegrade (as stated earlier), but they can become micro plastics which are tiny microscopic plastics.

This is a picture of a bird who ate plastic thinking it was food however, it didn’t end up that well. This poor pelican was found on a beach with its stomach open. The bird looks to have consumed bottle caps, cardboard, and other micro plastics and microfibers. Sadly, this is the case for a lot of marine mammals living close or far away from human contact. You can help by limiting your plastic usage. Even the smallest bits of plastics can result in mass extinctions of many beautiful animals. By 2050 there is calculated to be around 850 to 950 million tons of our oceans to be covered in plastics if we don’t stop now.⁵

NOW LETS ANSWER THE BIG QUESTION

What is Our Purpse?

Well, in my opinion humans are naturally greedy which means we were placed here on Earth to destroy and conquer. Us humans are most likely going to the start of a new mass extinction. I have come up with three scenarios of what might happen. First, if we keep continuing what we are doing and pollute the environment more and more, all living things will die, including us. Second, we somehow find a planet similar to Earth to colonize and populate. Third, we can stop polluting the environment and live a sustainable life just like our ancestors did. I personally believe in the third scenario because if everyone becomes conscious of our impacts we can live a more sustainable life and be one with nature.