Insects and the Future

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The earth millions of years in the future still teems with life forms, but humans are not among them. Our dominion has ended and other creatures have filled the open spaces that we have left behind. The vast pools of carbon dioxide that we produced are retained in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years s. And then, without humans around to harvest them, plant life has flourished and diversified. So we now have an atmosphere that's richer in oxygen than the one that we have now.

A recent study of tens of thousands of birds has shown that birds are growing smaller over time. It could be due to climate change, and if so, we ought to consider: How else might humans be altering the literal shape of life on Earth — now and in the future?

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