September 16, 2003
How Important Are Humans?... Let's take five with Moira Gunn. This is "Five Minutes".
Most of the time, I think of the world from a human-centric perspective. In my mind's eye, I see the Earth with its 6 billion people, spread across all the continents - working and traveling, eating and sleeping, talking and relating. I incorrectly envision that we're all basically awake at about the same time, a perspective somewhat fueled by the media.
Whether reporting on politics or the stock market, entertainment or international soccer scores, what's broadcast and printed has either been collected during the daytime or shot indoors, which seldom leaves a clue as to what time it is.
Media also plays a part in another misperception: the idea that humans are really in charge here, an idea that can only be microscopically true.
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Think of all humanity, and ask yourself, where do all the people live? The answer is: On the surface of earth. In fact, we only live where there's land, which comprises about 30% of the Earth's exposed surface, and out of that land mass, nearly one-third is considered uninhabitable - not uninhabited, but uninhabitable. Humans really can't live in these places without the constant assistance of a great deal of very expensive technology.
So, if we envision where all the humans are - or could be - and we take away the Earth beneath their feet, including all the oceans. And we also take away all of the Earth's atmosphere and outer space, we can imagine that humans really only live spread out around a 20% portion of a very large empty sphere.
Looking at it that way, I have to ask, just how much damage can we possibly do? The answer is, of course, plenty. But in terms of scale, very little.
For one thing, we tend to measure the impact of anything - whether it's the actions of other humans, the effect of a dramatic technology like the atomic bomb, or the hand of Mother Nature, such as Hurricane Isabel - by their real or potential effect on humans.
And, why not? Who else is reporting the news?
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Let's recall the impact of the planetoid which came hurtling through space and smashed into the Yucatan some 65 million years ago. That collision caused an impenetrable worldwide cloud, which kept the sun from reaching the vegetation and ultimately caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. That little calamity would surely have made the evening news, except that it took place 63 million years before the first human ever showed up.
But what about today? Could we humans actually see another rogue planetoid headed in our direction? Actually, the answer is yes. And could we - with our incredible technologies - stave off such the collision, before it reached us? Unlikely. Very, very unlikely.
And there's more. There are minuscule life forms on Earth of which we have no idea, and there's the wide-open expanse of space that we have only begun to sense. The truth is we are but specks on the vast canvas of all of life.
To say that we humans are self-involved hardly needs to be argued. I think it comes with the package of being human, both individually and collectively. So I like to return to this "empty sphere" vision of who we humans are and how we fit into the greater scheme of things, especially when I get a little confused about what's important.
I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.
