I heard about the book "The World Without Us" by Allen Wiseman today while I was listening to my Science Friday podcasts.
He talks about a world suddenly without people. What would happen to our works, what would happen to the animals, and what would be notable and interesting.
He was explaining the premise of his book and talked about the fact that humans would disappear suddenly, maybe from a virus. Then he mentioned that some people believe that this will happen in the rapture, the biblical end times for humans.
Later, he talked about zones that were left completely alone with no human maintenance or interference, such as Chernoble, the Korean DMZ, and a Greek Cypriot seaside hotel walled off by the Turks. Typically, many forms of wildlife thrive without people around.
I thought about how this effect could be engineered. You would keep humans out on purpose. Not like a park where you can't kill animals or cut down trees, but a true area that was completely unmolested by people. Nature Preserves in the purest sense, but not like anything we do now. I was imagining how you could get people excited, how you could sell the idea. I tend to believe that most religious people are conservative, and most conservatives think that global warming and conservation of species is some kind of liberal plot, and that they would probably resist efforts to set areas aside to never be developed. I thought these areas could be called "Rapture Zones" in order to get them to understand and accept the concept of leaving some corners of the Earth untouched by human interference.
I wrote a previous post, titled Destined for Destiny. It is the post I most worry about when I imagine lots of people reading my blog (not much chance of that!) and taking offense to what I say. My point was not that religious people do not have a right to participate in politics, or that I am hostile to religion, my point was that people that believe that the end of the world is right around the corner should not go making government policy. You want people that believe and want the world to be around for a good long time making the plans for the Earth. I have thought about what I would say to these hypothetical people, those that believe in the end times and are also politically active. This is one of my first ideas on how to bring them into the fold. What do you think?
