Human beings have changed the earth in many ways, from driving other species to extinction to plundering natural resources to building massive cities. What would happen if all the humans suddenly were gone? We got a taste of that when scientists noticed wildlife moving into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone after the 1986 nuclear accident forced humans out. We've also heard stories of animals returning to places where they had been crowded out by tourists after the pandemic restricted travel. But there is a lot more to consider when everyone is gone. Author and journalist Alan Weisman tells us more.
In Weisman's own research, this question took him firstly into cities, where some of the most dramatic and immediate changes would unfold, thanks to a sudden lack of human maintenance. Without people to run pumps that divert rainfall and rising groundwater, the subways of huge sprawling cities like London and New York would flood within hours of our disappearance, Weisman learned during his research. "[Engineers] have told me that it would take about 36 hours for the subways to flood completely," he said.
Lacking human oversight, glitches in oil refineries and nuclear plants would go unchecked, likely resulting in massive fires, nuclear explosions and devastating nuclear fallout. "There's going to be a gush of radiation if suddenly we disappear. And that's a real wildcard, it's almost impossible to predict what that's going to do," Weisman said. Similarly, in the wake of our demise, we'd leave behind mountains of waste — much of it plastic, which would likely persist for thousands of years, with effects on wildlife that we are only now beginning to understand.
But that's just the beginning of the story. Nature will find a way to deal with our planet without humans, as laid out at LiveScience. -via Strange Company
(Image credit: Zenithwhy)
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