PHOTOPEOPLE; Coming of the Greenbacks.

Our human ancestors of a dozen different varieties roamed Africa for over several million years. They all shared a majority of the same DNA. Yet they varied in a few ways as their genetic codes changed through mutating over the ages. But eventually all the many varieties except one became extinct. We are the sole survivors of the many kinds of ancient humans. We are the only way life can understand itself despite all other living things being made of the same basic DNA structure. The only differences are the codes inside our cells. Some human scientists can understand the basic plan of life inside cells; however, this coded plan is very tiny, mostly beyond the microscope, and is slowly changing over vast time through mutations. Homo sapiens’ DNA changed bit by bit over millions of years. Amazingly these many gene changes have given rise to thought and memory. We are the only creatures on earth whose cellular genes, holding our DNA codes, give us a brain that allows us to understand life itself, to think highly, to learn complexly, and to remember long term and then -- of all wonders -- to be able to pass on our memories, new ideas, and thinking to future generations. We are such special creatures, but we have our many shortcomings. In spite of being able to understand life on the earth, by 2040 humans had fouled their own nest because they abused their personal right to have too many offspring for generations. Their numbers had far exceeded the carrying capacity of their earth. Land, water, and air were slowly degraded by this bursting human population. People mostly ignored the dangerous situation despite dire warnings from scientists, leaders, and educators. Humanity failed to act as their environment changed around them in drastic ways degrading the planet’s ocean coral reefs, increasing the earth’s deserts, losing vast lowlands to ocean expansions, suffering intense droughts, and tolerating hotter temperatures, and suffering extreme storms and floods worldwide. These and other climate changes uprooted massive populations plunging them into poverty and hopelessness. Yet most people kept producing several hundred thousand new humans each day which meant eighty some million new people each year in the earth’s crowded nest. This was devastating, adding more misery to the already suffering and hungry humans in the poorer failing nations across the globe. The impact of people had become the greatest catastrophic force on earth, slowly degrading all forms of life and the planet’s future. New human numbers helped sap up dwindling resources worldwide. Because of religious thinking, traditions, greed, and ignorance, little was done to limit the human desire to extend their own kind. Scientists had long raised red flags about the creeping environmental fouling, but governments didn’t change policies, fearing a loss of power politically. Humans continued to smother the earth with new people. Combustion byproducts were the humans seemingly incurable addiction as fossil fuels degraded the environment slowly. The environment declined before their eyes. Beyond all logic, they still continued producing more and more people to consume the earths declining resources and adding to the chaos. It was a losing battle worldwide trying to educate the bloated earth populations about the coming and worsening disasters. People still wanted new young for many reasons and to make their lives more meaningful. Can the earth be saved from the mounting human defiling, or will humans disappear as did the huge megafauna of elephants, sloths, and thousands of other beasts in the last 20,000 years? Will human extinction make way for the next wave of new evolutionary nonhuman life as people vanished by their own hands? Let us follow a new trail starting in 2044 with engineered changes happening in humans, and see if their ideas of living on their planet change.