Jan
24
After missing the broadcast on History television earlier this week (a long session of gaming made me forget) I finally sat down last night and watched the 2 hour event.
It was a look at what life would be like without people, not what wiped out the human race. It was great to see all the CGI and to witness just how fast mother nature takes back what is hers. Within a few days of humans leaving the planet, power has gone out in 90% of the planet. With no one to operate the power plants, and cycle charges and what not, power depletes immediately. Our household pets lap up what has gone sour or melted onto the floor, before finding a way out of the house and the yard to fend for themselves. The house pets that are too small to do anything without our assistance, die within a week. There will be a 40% loss of canine life in the following weeks we are gone. Only the ones capable of hunting will survive.
Four days after we are gone, New York is already flooded. The New York subway system has a series of pumps that are constantly pumping out water from the tram system. Without the pumps being cycled, the water has no where to go, and within days it hits the surface, flooding by up to 5 meters in some areas.
Five years after we are gone, there is already signs of mother nature taking back the streets. With no cars rolling over pavement, and an army of gardeners, trees and grass is growing onto, and through the pavement in major cities. Degeneration and corrosion starts to move in, and animals come closer and closer to the city looking for any sort of food source. One system to provide power, is still online. The Hoover dam. A virtually limitless supply of power as water travels through the turbines. But, with no one to clean the cooling duct beneath the water level, fresh water muscles that came over from Europe are feeding on open space. The holes to the cooling ducks eventually get sealed from muscle growth, and the turbines go into shutdown mode from over heating. Without the turbines turning, water levels rise and flow over into the spillways on the side of Hoover dam, causing mass flooding.
20 years after people is simple. Take a look at Chernobyl. A once developing community of 50,000 is now nothing but twisted metal and heaps of concrete. What hasn’t fallen, planets have rooted themselves into the concrete of buildings, splitting the concrete apart and with time, it will eventually fall. The only thing that is at Cherynobl now is returning plant life, and… animals! The nuclear explosion released chemicals into the soil that worked with nitrogen being pulled down from the air, and with time was able to regrow. With plant life comes herbivores. Deer, Red Deer, and even Russian boars have come back to claim the land. Still not safe for people to ever live, but animals and plants will prosper in that area in due time.
Let’s jump ahead, and hit 500 years after people. The first 500 years is the corrosion period. Lack of maintenance and weather causes metal to grow tired, expand, rust, and fall. Many cities are reduced to scraps, and the Eiffel Tower lies in a heap of nothing. Plant life has taken back so much of what’s left, that its hard to recognize things. Remaining stairways, concrete buildings that still stand, anything, is just covered.
10,000 years after people. Nothing is left that suggests humans were ever on Earth… Evolution will continue…
My comments: I think there should have been less information, and perhaps taken 30 minutes to hypothesize what wiped us out, and include what Earth would be like without us. Over all I found it very informative, and I left a lot out because I wanted to just review and recap the show, not type it all out for you, thats no fun!