I think chances are higher we all die, the microplastics get embedded in a layer of rock worldwide, and nature moves on without us. Evolution is way too slow to keep up with manmade horrors.
Or incorporate it. Basically what George Carlin said. Evolution will witness a new paradigm of life plus plastic and will keep evolving as if nothing matters.
It took 60m years for fungi to evolve to break down lignin (trees) and the eventual oxidation of the lignin decay products has caused the most rapid climate shift we have ever seen
That next 60 will breeze by as well
What kind of climate shift are you referring to? Like when fungi produce organic acids and aromatic compounds etc, how is that related to shifting the climate in any way?
The formation of fossil fuels that then got burned starting in the Industrial Revolution causing our current climate change
Oh, so that was fungi? TIL!
Are you referring to fossil fuels? A recent video from Howtown is messing with me.
Yup
Is 60 million years not too long?
On the grand scale of time it isn’t
…only a few million years
Maybe?
Evolution takes a long time and unless we are dealing with microbes and fungi, generations are counted in years or decades.
I wholly expect that some time from now humans will gather to talk about the moral implications of letting creatures that depend on microplastics go extinct due to our efforts to remove plastics from the environment or if we should be producing plastics to keep them alive.
Bold of you to assume we’ll still be around at that point.
I’d argue we’re like roaches. Most of us may die, but we’ll survive.
…or go extinct.
David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future takes a look at the idea
