Could the most terrible war be the only thing that will save our planet?

[Animedude5555]

The most frightening thought came over me just now. I fear that the only thing that will stop humans from destroying ALL life on earth, is if we destroy ourselves first. With the greed of oil companies, the only thing that will force them to stop refining oil, and start manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels, will be when people on a massive scale stop using oil based products for things, and start using green energy instead. Oil companies will NOT respond to mere protests, even if 100 million people protested against them. They are just too monetarily powerful to be affected by protestors. And on the other side, we have people who drive cars, who COULD put the hurt (monetarily speaking) on oil companies, by one day just deciding to ride bikes (or at least drive electric-only or ethanol-only cars) from now on. Yet the average person is not willing to inconvenience themselves for the sake of saving the planet.

This leaves only one solution. Humanity has to go. Otherwise, humans will make extinct all non-human life on earth, and without any food sources humanity will die off too. At the end of that scenario, planet Earth will be a lifeless barren rock like Mars. I fear the only way that that that scenario will be prevented, is if the most awful thing happens, and that is the destruction of all humans. Without humanity, all other life on earth will continue, and even flourish, for all eternity. What could possibly lead to the destruction of humanity, ironically, such a thing is only possible at the hand of humans, and that thing is a nuclear war. As terrible as it is, a nuclear war may be the only thing that will save all other life on this planet.

[Lightfighter]

You first.

[daft]

true. we humans do have a long-running habit of being a cancer to the earth. and yeah, we'll probably be the bringers of our own doom (or be destroyed by some stupid meteorite). but i have to ask: once we humans wipe ourselves out, who will be here to witness the planet flourish?

[Metaphasic]

Humans do not have to go. However, we are far too spread out and dysfunctional as an entire species. I'm not advocating a war though for the following reasons.

1) While it would reduce our numbers, it would ultimately not unify us, as the remaining humans would still have diversified locales.
2) There are other, more mature way, to bring people together. No need to take two steps back when you can take one forward.

[Lightfighter]

Meh. An extinction level event will happen again eventually and humans will most likely die off. But the sun will expire some time also, and everything in this solar system will die.

Nothing lasts forever.

[Cross Avantgarde]

We're the only beings that we know of that can ponder our own existence. The loss of that would truly be a great loss indeed, the terrible things people choose to do notwithstanding.

Some good news: fossil fuels have veritably jumped the shark. Not only are some green methods now viable, they're actually getting cheap.

To wit: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/marke...ver/ar-AAbZhP2

Granted the article is primarily concerned with basic energy needs as opposed to fuel for mobility, the chart shows that fossil fuels will drop lower and lower in demand.

Don't worry. The oil tycoons will have to move to another swamp eventually.

[Clayton_n]

Nonsense. Sure we'll probably destroy a lot of life on Earth, but we'll be dead LONG before all of it goes--