You’ve seen what happens to the garden when you don’t tend to it for a few weeks; well,
imagine what would happen if you left it for a decade, a century, or a million years.
Things might get a little overgrown to say the least.
Would canine-kind survive our absence?
Would the birds and the bees and the fish in the sea be affected when we’ve gone?
That’s what we’ll find out, in today's episode of the Infographics Show, What would
happen if humans went extinct?
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Let’s imagine there was a “sudden departure” like the TV show “The Leftovers”, except
there are no leftovers.
Well, first of all, it would take some time for things to shut down.
All the power plants and various ways we get electricity would keep going, although anything
controlled with artificial intelligence might automatically switch off.
Even if a process is not automated, something would fail eventually, and the lights on all
of the Earth would turn-off.
Anything powered by solar energy would be the last of the electricity, but it’s fair
to say there wouldn’t be a hum in the world within a couple of decades.
Before that happens, most of our pets will die because they can’t get out of the house.
Some of those that can, will adapt to the great outdoors and become feral, much like
packs of wolves.
Pet-geddon will lead to a natural pecking order, and of course some pets will scavenge
as much as they can before they learn to hunt.
Some zoo animals might escape, but others would die in cages.
Farm animals would break out of their fields as electric fences would no longer be working.
A lot of those animals that can’t escape would soon die, so we can imagine at large
farms such as those run by McDonald's, there would be what we might call a period called
the Great Rot.
Many wild animals would enter the formerly human domains to seek out prey and feast on
what we left behind.
Some great predators kept by humans will no doubt get out, and so there is a possibility
of lions or tigers making cities of the world their home.
They will have no problem finding food, but will have a problem finding a mate.
The nuclear power plants within a month or two will meltdown, and this will expose the
Earth to a lot of radiation.
There will be explosions at oil refineries, and fires will break out.
There will be floods in subways as we have machines that pump out millions of gallons
of water every day.
In fact, because flood gates in some cities won’t be operational, many of our metropolises
will soon turn very soggy.
Any dry cities located near deserts will soon be covered with sand.
All this will happen in the first two or three months.
Fast-forward a few more months and weeds will start spreading around cities, while vines
will be growing up the sides of buildings.
Cities will look a lot greener as plant-life flourishes.
Indoors, mold will grow on the walls, and all houses will be overrun with insects, mites,
and mice.
The forests and jungles that we once cut back and depleted will encroach farther and farther
into the towns and cities.
Within three years, buildings will start to erode and crumble, satellites will fall to
Earth; the last batteries will run out, and a small animal will be startled as it hears
the final tick of a watch.
At about 20 years, 75 percent of the world’s cities will be completely overgrown with plant
life.
Many buildings will be crumbling, and animals that survived will be in vast numbers.
Bridges will have rusted; cars will, too, as vines wrap around them.
Plastic bottles will still lay close by them.
Many low-lying cities will now be flooded.
London will be part river, part swamp, but cans of food will still be edible as they
sit in the mud.
After 50 years, we hear the croak of what sounds like someone speaking English.
It is the last words of a dying parrot, the last living thing to use what was once human
language.
After 100 years, you can just about make out the skeleton of a car, almost unrecognizable
due to corrosion.
Washington DC is a swamp, and the White House has almost crumbled.
Insects and mites have eaten almost all of our great works of art.
A hundred years after that, and most of our great buildings have collapsed.
Earthquakes and hurricanes have transformed the surface of the Earth.
Many of the oldest structures still remain intact.
Stonehenge still sits amid long grass, where sparrows busily go about their day just as
they did when humans were still around.
After 500 years, cities such as Rio de Janeiro look like rainforests. 500 years after that,
and almost all cities have been overrun with vegetation.
Remnants of humankind are buried in this vegetation.
Some cities such as New Orleans are not buried, but completely underwater.
At 10,000 years, there isn’t much sign of anything we ever did, even the Pyramids of
Giza have been hidden by sand.
But in space, the Voyager Probes still remain, if not beaten-up by space debris.
In fact, even millions of years after the Great Removal, when Earth shows no trace of
humankind above ground, it will be these probes that can stand as proof we ever existed.
A billion years later, and the sun’s plasma engulfs the planet.
This is watched over by aliens.
These little green men know quite a lot about us, having studied the Golden Records that
we sent into space in the 1970s carried by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2.
So, what else do you think would happen?
Let us know what we missed in the comments!
Also, be sure to check out our other video called What If You Only Drank Soda and Nothing
Else?!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!