However, given that we are an animal species, history suggests that eventually our species will become extinct, presumably on a timescale comparable to the period during which we have evolved in the past. Our species has lasted a quarter of a million years and our distant ape-like ancestors lived only millions of years ago. If the evolutionary forces remain natural ones in the future, this suggests that, in a similar time, we will have descendants but they will be as different from us as we are from our ancestors. There are those who argue, however, that this transformation of our species and our environment will happen much more quickly, since changes are taking place at an accelerating pace, driven by rising population numbers and increasing technological capability.*

然而，既然我們也是一種動物，依照過去的歷史，我們這個物種終將滅絕，時機在未來大約相當於我們一路演化而來的時間跨度。我們這個物種在大約25萬年開始出現，而像猿猴的祖先則是始於幾百萬年前。如果演化一如既往的速度往未來發展，那麼我們和古代祖先的差異幅度就會體現在我們後代和我們的差異上。有人認為我們後代和環境的改變會發生得更快，因為變化正在加速，被爆炸性的人口總數和科學技術的突飛猛進所強力驅策。

The range of possible ways in which humans might self-inflict extinction is wide, including not least:

*   widespread starvation and thirst due to unfulfilled demands by the increasing human population on agriculture and natural resources;

*   pandemics like Ebola, influenza and Covid-19, caused by malpractices in animal husbandry and the crossing of viruses and other pathogens from wild animal and bird populations to human beings;

*   release (accidental or otherwise) of toxic industrial products, such as the CFC chemicals that, until banned from use in refrigerators, depleted the ozone layer when they escaped;

*   all-out nuclear war; and

*   anthropogenic generation of carbon dioxide and methane that will, if unchecked, cause damaging global climate change.

人類自導自演的自我滅絕戲碼，可以有各種各類，舉其犖犖大者：

1. 飢餓和缺水危機。

2. 流行病。

2. 工業有毒排放物。

3. 全面核子大戰。

4. 全球暖化。

The last-mentioned climate catastrophe is widely described as imminent: it is a matter for debate whether we will be able to generate the political will that can make changes on a scale and with a speed to control anthropogenic climate change. It seems certain that the Earth’s atmosphere will not be able to respond enough and quickly enough to mitigate the immediate effects of human activity, although there is some hope in James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis that life will, on a longer timescale, be able to adjust the environment to maintain itself (see page 242), although that may not favour humans.

最後一項關於全球暖化的災難，常被稱為迫切的危機：爭議在於我們是否有足夠的政治決心，採取重大的決策行動，來及時控制人為所造成的氣候變化。地球的大氣層似乎無法及時反應來減緩人類活動所造成的立即影響。James Lovelock 的Gaia hypothesis主張，在夠長的時間跨度中，生命會自我調整來適應環境的的變遷，這為我們帶來些許希望，但是那並不必然對人類有利。

Our species may thus become extinct rapidly, or at least have its capabilities reduced enough for humans to cease to dominate environmental changes. If so, the present Anthropocene epoch will be quickly over. In retrospect, as viewed by surviving descendants, it will be marked by the significant changes in the landscape that human beings made to favour their own activities like agriculture, mining and transportation, and the control of flowing water.

我們族類可能因此迅速滅絕，或至少使得人類不再有能力繼續主宰環境的改變。如果是這樣，現在的「人類世」將迅速結束。我們苟延殘喘的後代回顧起來，「人類世」的特徵是，地景的大幅改變，人類為了一己之私，所從事的農業、礦業、運輸、控制水流等等的活動所一手造成的。

Additional changes will have been made by the unexpected consequences of human activity, such as alterations of the coastline that will have shrunk the area of dry land as a result of the rise of sea level, itself the result of the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

人類的各種活動，也造成意料之外的其他改變，諸如海平面上升淹沒海邊土地改變的海岸線，增加了大氧中二氧化碳的濃度等等。

The geological characteristics of the epoch will include rather thin but distinctive layers in the Earth’s geological record. The strata associated with the Anthropocene will comprise human-made scrap, such as building rubble, worked metal and long- ＇lasting plastic. Other components of the strata will include carbon ash from energy generation from fossil fuel, radioactive elements from nuclear bomb tests and the waste and accidental discharges from nuclear energy generation and from medicine, and, eventually, the decay products of plastic, both in localized earth-based deposits and in more widely dispersed, thin layers in sedimentary deposits at the bottom of the ocean.

「人類世」的地質特性，是很特別的，但在地球地理記錄中，只是相對較薄的地層。和人類相關的地層，由人造的東西所組成，譬如建築廢棄物、用過的金屬器和長期不腐的塑膠。其他還包括石化燃料產生的碳灰、核彈試爆的輻射麈、核能發電和醫療意外洩出來的廢棄物質，然後最終是還在降解之中的塑膠產品，既集中在地方的掩埋場，也更廣泛地分佈在海底薄薄的沈積層之中。

…

If we represent the biography of the Universe as a timeline that is as long as all the writing in this book, strung out into a single row, the Earth was born somewhere in the middle of the words of Chapter 7. Homo sapiens occupies the book’s last word or two, and human civilization less than the width of the last letter. Your lifetime, as part of that cosmic history up to the present moment, is represented by a small fraction of the last full stop.

……

如果把宇宙的歴史比擬為這本書(按：共288內頁的英文書)，地球誕生在第七章中間(按：約第150頁)，人類的存在只佔據這本書最後的一個或二個英文字母。你的生命長度，比起宇宙從開天闢地至今，只是本書最後的那個句點很渺小很渺小的一部分而已。

**：Paul Murdin,”The Universe, A Biography,” 2022, Thames & Hudson Ttd, London

P.S. 相片是2024/2/10 所攝，飛入新北汐止民家內的昆蟲，屬「擬金花蟲亞科 Lagriinae」。據說，如果人類未來糧食嚴重缺乏，像擬金花蟲這種昆蟲類，就是很好的食物來源。不要感到想吐，現在東南亞就有不少人習於吃昆蟲呢！

2024/2/19 Your lifetime is a small fraction of the last full stop of a book Damakey #擬金花蟲亞科