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What would happen if every human suddenly disappeared?

What would happen if every human suddenly disappeared?

By NiksPublished 9 months ago 3 min read
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There are people everywhere. We live in the most remote regions of Earth's rainforests, oceans, and tundras, with settlements on every continent. Since we have had such a significant impact, the majority of scientists think that we have permanently altered Earth's geological history. So what would happen if everyone on Earth vanished overnight? Some of our inventions are so unmaintained that they quickly fail. Oil refineries break down, causing month-long fires at facilities like those in western India, the southern United States, and South Korea, hours after we vanish. Hundreds of drainage pumps in subterranean rail networks in cities like London, Moscow, and New York City are abandoned, filling the tunnels in just three days. The majority of backup generators will have stopped working by the end of the first week, and the earth will experience its first centuries-long blackout once the fires have been put out. Once the first disastrous month is through, things start to alter more gradually. The roots of trees and weeds have destroyed sidewalks in less than 20 years. Around this time, streets above flooded tunnels turn like urban rivers.The seasonal cycle freezes and thaws these streams in temperate areas, causing pavement and concrete foundations to break. In concrete structures, leaking pipes have the similar effect, and within 200 winters, the majority of skyscrapers will collapse. These structures eventually totally wash away in towns situated in river deltas, like Houston, flooding neighboring streams with smashed concrete. Rural and suburban regions deteriorate more gradually, but in ways that are generally expected. All of the typical adversaries of the homeowner—leaks, mold, bug and rodent infestations—now go unchallenged. The supporting beams of most houses have deteriorated and sagged within 75 years, and the fallen heap that resulted is now a haven for local rodents and reptiles.But "local" now has a new significance in this post-human world. Imported plants have taken over our cities and are now wreaking havoc on their new surroundings. Shanghai's rivers are covered in a lush green carpet of water hyacinth. The banks of London's Thames River are overrun by poisonous huge hogweeds. Streets in New York City are overrun with Chinese Ailanthus trees. Additionally, as concrete from submerged skyscrapers is added to the newly formed forest floor, the acidity of the soil decreases, possibly fostering the growth of new plant life. The animal kingdom is included in this post-human biodiversity. Animals explore new habitats with the aid of our abandoned bridges, following the unrestrained spread of native and non-native plants. In general, some creatures are saved by our infrastructure while others are doomed.In their native tropical settings, cockroaches continue to thrive, but without our heating systems, their urban relatives would probably freeze and go extinct in just two winters. Only a small number of resourceful pigs, dogs, and feral housecats are able to survive without us among the majority of domesticated animals. In contrast, the lessened light pollution saves more than a billion birds annually whose movements were hampered by high-tension wires and blinking communication tower lights. And one of their favorite artificial nurseries, rubber tires, which last for approximately a thousand years, is where mosquitoes never stop breeding. The Earth's temperature progressively recovers from millennia of human impact as wildlife and vegetation proliferate. The last traces of lead left in the soil by the Industrial Revolution are removed by the plant cycle after 35,000 years, and it could take another 65,000 years for CO2 to reach pre-human levels. But even millions of years later, humanity's legacy endures. America's Mount Rushmore, carved in unyielding granite, endures for 7.2 million years. Over 10 million people have been able to identify our bronze sculptures thanks to their chemical makeup. And the ruins of towns constructed on floodplains have been preserved in time as a kind of technological fossil by being buried far down. These remnants will eventually be removed from the planet's surface as well. Humanity hasn't always existed, and it won't always exist. But perhaps we can learn more about the world we currently live in by looking into the world without us.

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Niks

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