Self-Hating Human

Ronald Bailey | October 24, 2006

The New Scientist is running an article entitled, "Earth Without Humans." It asks what would happen to Earth if all 6.5 billion of us simply disappeared.

"The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better," says John Orrock, a conservation biologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California.

Just how do things get "better" when you've subtracted the only creatures that are self-conscious enough to know better from worse?