Downsizing

I watched a silly but lovely movie on Netflix the other day called Love and Monsters about a post apocalyptic reality where the aftermath of a planet saving dissolution of an asteroid leads to nuclear rain. This debris ends up creating enormous insects making bugs the apex predator. Humans are moved to a lower run on the food chain and relegated to small colonies, sheltering and doing their best to survive the forces of nature.

It is now generally agreed that there were at least 23 hominid species on earth but only one has survived. Sapiens came about on the planet around 300,000 years ago but something changed in our cognition and ability to organise around 40,000 years ago. Homo Sapiens began to take over the planet. Currently we as a species are facilitating the 6th mass extinction on earth.

Perhaps the only way for us to not destroy our environment is for us to disappear or diminish ourselves in some way. In 2012, three Oxford researchers published a paper titled ‘Human Engineering and Climate Change’ making the case for biological adjustments to make us more environmentally friendly. Their stand out proposal was to make humans smaller so that we eat less and consume less. These modifications would be voluntary, they argue, possibly facilitated by incentives.

To my mind, the idea is more humane and less resource intensive than colonising Mars.