It’s the end of the world as you know it.
Every human on Earth
suddenly went extinct.
And it's time for nature
to make its ultimate comeback.
Whether it was a global pandemic,
a planet-wide volcanic event
or a gigantic space rock,
we reached the end of the line
for our species.
Every single human on Earth is gone.
For good.
Now, while there's no hope for humanity to make a comeback,
we'd be leaving behind a lot of stuff.
Cities.
Highways.
Waste.
Time to see just how long it would take
for the last remaining traces of human life
to disappear.
But first, here's one thing that will help you survive
any kind of apocalypse, Bespoke Post.
It's a monthly membership club that delivers you top-shelf goods
from under-the-radar brands.
Or as I like to call it, a “box of awesome”.
Check these out.
Bespoke Post sent me a Point Box and a Pickled Box.
Now, anyone who knows me knows that I'm about 70% vinegar and about 30% salt.
So a Pickled box? Right up my alley.
Check this out.
First of all, sucker punch, kosher dills.
Are you kidding me?
That's what I'm eating first.
There's the pickling spice.
Pickled onions? I love.
Pickled cactus?
I've never tried that, but that's amazing.
Oh, and pickled jalapeños.
The point box, check this out.
This is for your EDC, your everyday carry.
You got to have a knife.
And this pocket samurai keychain knife,
this is so cool.
Super sharp, though. Watch out.
This brass graft and mini twist.
It's a pen and it's the coolest pen I've ever owned.
And check out this closed helix keyring.
This is how I get into the office every day.
Bespoke post offers you awesome new boxes every month.
You fill in a preference quiz and they introduce you
to brands and products you didn't know of before.
From outdoor gear to live oysters.
Every box of awesome has around $70 worth of goods inside
but costs you only a fraction of the value.
Now, before you get your box,
you can preview it and decide
if you want to keep it or swap it for a different one.
And if you didn't feel like any of the options,
you can always skip a month or cancel any time.
And now you can get 20% off your first box of awesome.
Just click on the link in the description
and enter WHATIF20 at checkout.
Or go to Bespoke Post dot com slash WHATIF20.
Hey, with Bespoke Post you might just last in this scenario a little longer.
The first week of life on Earth without humans
would be tough for all the pets.
Without you, your furry companions
would need to get outside and find food for themselves.
So hopefully you left a window open for them.
Your peace lily would stand no chance.
But that wouldn't be the only thing at stake
with you gone for just one week.
Soon the world would become radioactive.
The thing is, our nuclear plants produce nuclear waste.
These pools of spent nuclear fuel
need to be constantly cooled off with water.
And that water needs electricity to circulate.
Without humans to maintain the electrical infrastructure,
soon nuclear facilities around the world
would start losing power.
And that would cause a disastrous chain reaction.
The water that used to cool down nuclear waste
would stop running and begin to boil off.
This would expose nuclear waste,
causing it to catch fire.
All this waste would explode,
covering the planet in deadly radioactive chemicals.
Ecosystems around the world
would start dying from all the radioactivity.
And many of these chemicals would remain dangerous
for 300 years.
And some, like plutonium,
would stay radioactive for the next 240,000 years.
But let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.
OK, about one year after we’re gone,
nature would begin to reclaim our roads and highways.
Moss and fungus would grow everywhere.
And when the first winter hit the planet,
these roads would start to crumble.
All the freezing and thawing
would cause water from melted snow
to flow into the cracks.
In these cracked vacant streets,
new plants would grow.
There would be weeds like mustard and shamrock.
And in a few more years, grass.
In forests poisoned by radiation,
there wouldn’t be any birds singing this year.
But further away from these deadly areas,
animal populations would start to boom.
There wouldn’t be any humans to hunt them
or force them out of their natural homes anymore.
Without pesticides, insects would reproduce quicker,
taking over the globe.
This would mean much more food
for all kinds of animals,
like reptiles and rodents.
OK, fast-forwarding a bit,
you’d start to see our empty cities
undergo major changes.
London’s Trafalgar Square would be growing young trees.
Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate would be surrounded by forest.
In New York City,
a lot would be going on underground.
Half a century would have gone by since
the last time anyone from a maintenance crew managed
any of its 753 subway pumps
that prevented rainstorms from flooding the rails.
There would now be a network of underground rivers
below New York's concrete landscape.
Steel columns supporting the streets above would buckle
and create waterways through Park Avenue and Wall Street.
Your abandoned house and your neighborhood
would all be in pretty bad shape.
Roofs would leak.
Nails would rust.
Buildings would start collapsing.
In major cities,
streets would be littered with glass
falling from decaying skyscrapers.
All those skyscrapers would crumple
into massive piles of rubble.
Despite the city being flooded,
New York's Grand Central Station
and other stone buildings like it
would still be intact.
And good news, I guess.
All your now-worthless money
would still be safe and sound in bank vaults
that would never be reopened.
But famous works of art wouldn't be so lucky.
Without climate control and electricity,
museum vaults would be less fortunate.
Water would leak in and mold would cover everything.
Ironically, thousand-year-old ceramics
would continue to survive,
just like fossils.
Five hundred years later,
a forest would now cover where your home once stood.
But buried in the dirt
could still be the remains
of many of your aluminum appliances
and stainless steel cookware.
Sadly you wouldn’t be around
to cook any good meals with them anymore.
With every stretch of black asphalt
now overtaken by trees and grasses,
temperatures would drop all over the world.
The atmosphere would undergo changes
as it continues to recover.
Without humans,
there would be less carbon dioxide in it.
The initial boom in animal populations
from after our disappearance
would stabilize by this point.
Predators, like wolves,
would once again roam around Europe
hunting in packs.
Jumping way ahead into the future,
would anything remain of human civilization?
Well, you’d still be able to make out
the faces of former U.S. presidents
in the granite of Mount Rushmore.
But don't expect many facial features.
A lot of the rock would significantly erode.
There would also be some remaining pieces
of Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza
and the Great Wall of China.
But time wouldn't be kind to them,
and both would be barely recognizable
versions of the former world wonders.
At this point,
everything that humans left behind on Earth
would be consumed by the Sun
as it expands and destroys the planet.
But if you're worried about humanity disappearing
into nothingness,
well, there still could be a human footprint to be found.
The Voyager space probes
would be somewhere out beyond our Solar System.
Maybe some alien civilization would find them
and learn that once upon a time,
there was human life on Earth.
But what if those aliens discovered us
a little sooner.
Like tomorrow.
Well, that’s a story
for another WHAT IF.