Will Mother Nature miss us when we’re gone?

Ihopped on my trusty motorcycle last week and headed south to visit two wilderness areas that were new to me: the Capitan and White Mountains. The ranges are sky islands that emerge out of the parched, drought-stricken desert to around 10,000 and 12,000 feet. The tops are relicts of the past ice age when humans hunted mammoths and coexisted with giant ground sloths and saber-toothed cats. These animals, except for man, are gone, but the mountaintops are precious jewels remaining from that bygone era.

Upon crossing the wilderness boundary, my nostrils filled with the delicious scent of spruce, fir and pine, and my ears with the rustling sound of maple, oak and aspen leaves. I saw flowers in bloom and the seemingly ecstatic flights of birds, bees, butterflies and other insects. A trickle of water in the canyons supports mosses, ferns and aquatic creatures such as water striders and even trout. These areas soothe my soul. I can relax into the comfort of Mother Nature and forget my little troubles and inconveniences for a while.

When the ice age ended 10,000 years ago, temperatures warmed and glaciers melted, leaving behind geologic evidence of their passing and the unique and fragile community of life that persists to this day. For several millennia, humans enjoyed a period of relatively stable climate, which allowed the domestication of plants and animals and the rise of civilizations. Later, our clever ancestors figured out how to unlock fuels from previous geologic eras, which allowed me to travel hundreds of miles in a single day.

But we humans may be too clever for our own good. Our inventions are changing the climate once again as temperatures and coastlines are rising, droughts and floods are becoming more severe, and massive wildfires are ravaging forestlands. The majority of the areas I visited have already burned and, sadly, the pretty, unburned canyons I explored could be one lightning strike away from going up in smoke.

I couldn’t help pondering if the precious ecosystem inside my own body may also be one lightning strike away from oblivion. My life is fragile, too, but I’m here now and so are these beautiful wild areas, so I intend to fully experience them both until our time is up.

Mother Nature has been through a lot since the initial spark of life happened miraculously on Earth over 4 billion years ago. Life has endured five extinctions already, including the most recent — 66 million years ago when a giant meteor crashed into the ocean near the Yucatán and obliterated the vast majority of all organisms living at the time, including the dinosaurs. Mammals survived that extinction and evolved from small, rat-like creatures into larger rat-like organisms like the one writing these words today.

Scientists tell us that 99 percent of all species that have ever lived on Earth have already gone extinct and, arguably, homo sapiens will someday be added to the list. Mother Nature is resilient and will survive in some of her diverse and changing forms of life through the current extinction we are causing and on to the next. But the fate of humankind is less clear. I wonder if she will miss us when we’re gone.

Jim Norton worked for The Wilderness Society and Environment Department in New Mexico. He is retired now and enjoys hiking, biking, gardening and exploring from his home in Santa Fe.