Rise and shine!
You've been asleep for 1,000 years!
And the view outside
is not how you remembered it.
Trees,
wildlife,
fresh air,
fresh water.
Oh, right.
Rising temperatures,
rising sea levels,
declining air quality,
more extreme weather,
more animal extinctions,
more diseases.
These are just a few of the consequences
we can expect
if we continue to pollute the Earth.
And our time to act is quickly running out.
So what can we do
if we want to save our planet,
and fast?
Strangely enough,
the best thing to do might be
Not
"sit back and watch the world burn"
nothing.
But everyone going to sleep
and doing nothing for 1,000 years,
while the world repairs itself
from all the damage we've done.
We can pretty much guarantee that
Earth will be better off.
But can we guarantee that you'll wake up?
Sweet dreams.
There are almost 300
cryogenically frozen individuals
in the United States,
and 50 in Russia.
And yet, no one has ever
been revived from cryosleep.
The hope is that the technology to
wake people up from cryosleep
will be available sometime in the near future.
"Wait, what?"
The idea behind cryonics
is that humans can be preserved
at super low temperatures,
and later be restored to full health.
Support for cryonics
is based on the fact that many living things,
including human embryos,
can be successfully cryopreserved and revived.
Existing cryopreservation techniques
can even preserve
the fine structure of the brain.
However, we can't unfreeze a brain
and make it work again
yet.
But suppose we perfected the process,
and made it possible to cryogenically preserve
our world's population of 8 billion people.
Where would we put everybody?
The most practical setup
would be to have cryosleep chambers
in big facilities around the world.
This would make it easier to respond
to any technical difficulties that might arise,
while also protecting people
from the inevitable decay
of our infrastructure.
But it's not like every human-made structure
would fall apart and disappear,
because not everyone would be asleep.
We'd need some volunteers,
appointees,
or "lucky" winners of a draw
to keep everything running smoothly.
Australian geneticist Ian Franklin
and American biologist Michael Soulé
suggest that you need at least 500 people
to maintain a stable population
with enough genetic variety.
But with most of the world's
population in cryosleep,
our impact on the planet would be rolled back.
Global warming would continue
for another 40 years
after we go to sleep.
But within a few decades,
our homes would break down.
And within 100 years,
wood structures would be gone,
and steel structures would begin to rust.
Our cities would start to fill with plants,
trees, and vines.
And new rivers would form,
since subway tunnels would flood
without pumps working to keep the water out.
After a few hundred years,
many species of plants and animals
would bounce back to their original levels,
before we evolved and took over the planet.
After 500 years,
the forests would be the healthiest
they've been in the last 10,000 years.
When we'd finally wake,
1,000 years in the future,
we wouldn't recognize the world outside.
The planet would be lush and green.
But our homes and most of our cities
would be gone.
There'd be lots of rebuilding to do
once everyone awakes.
But it wouldn't go back to the way things were.
The whole reason why
the Earth's population went into cryosleep
was to repair our planet.
We'd likely put strict laws and policies in place,
to ensure that our new way of life
doesn't waste our critical second chance.
After all,
we'd still have some poignant reminders
of our toxic legacy.
It would take more than 1,000 years
for our carbon dioxide levels
to return to normal,
while radioactive material
and long-lasting organic chemicals
could be around for much longer.
Microplastics, for example, will still exist
hundreds of millions of years from now,
unless we find a way to help them decompose.
While "sleeping off"
the effects of climate change
sounds like a relatively easy way
to undo the damage
we've caused to our planet,
we probably won't have the technology
to do it anytime soon.
But can we really afford to wait?
The consequences of climate change
are already causing major problems
around the world.
Are you prepared for
a lot more extreme weather?
Do you know how to survive
a tsunami or an earthquake?
Well, we’ve got some tips for you
on our new show,
HOW TO SURVIVE,
so be sure to check it out.
And if you're looking for a more
hypothetical take on survival,
like a timeline to human extinction,
well, that's a story for another WHAT IF.