Day 6: The Sun; What Would We Do Without It?

The Sun

            The Sun. Light. These are things that we've come to take for granted because we've always been exposed to them. For generations we have depended on the Sun, and from the looks of it, nothing will change. In fact, throughout my whole life, the world as I know it practically runs off the Sun. It's something that I, personally, have always taken for granted. From when I entered the world, to this very second, the Sun has always been present. It brings back many memories when I recall countless times that I played outside during the summer, when it was hot and sunny out. I would always bike, or play basketball with my neighbors, or lacrosse with my dad, or baseball with my mom. Whatever I was doing, it was always thanks to the warmth of the Sun. But what would we do without the Sun?

Well, for starters, without the Sun, we wouldn’t even be here in the first place. If you look closely, you will indeed find a direct correlation between the Sun and life. Believe it or not, not all of the dinosaurs died from the asteroid’s impact. Yes, many of them did due to the colossal amounts of energy emitted from the impact. However, most of them died because the asteroid kicked up so much debris that it blocked out the Sun’s light, which in turn killed all of the photosynthetic plants and, eventually, crashed the food chain. This left the dinosaurs with little food.
If the Sun were to suddenly disappear we would still have energy, just not collected from the Sun. For the most part, initially, things would continue on. It would be very dark but we would still have lights. People could still drive with their headlights on, just like at night, except a bit darker. Kids would no longer play outside as much, and the temperature would drop. Doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Let’s analyze further and see what would happen after time goes by. Many plants would die, which would lead to the death of other animals that eat those plants. Animals that prey upon the plant eaters would die. People would have almost no food. The local farms and grocery stores would sell out of all their food in a few hours, and wouldn’t be able to resupply. After all the food is eaten, you may think that people would die. Honestly, I don’t even think that people would make it up to that point. With no sunlight, not only would the plants die, but also they wouldn’t be able to continue producing oxygen, because sunlight is required to perform photosynthesis. A few lucky plants that may live in greenhouses would still produce oxygen, but the amount wouldn’t be enough for humans to live off of. I imagine that people would shine all of their lights on the plants, but in all honesty, I don’t think it would work. Humanity would be doomed.