What if humanity suddenly vanished from the Earth?
Would our bustling cities, once full of life, become sprawling, metropolitan ghost towns?
Would our highways, the crowded thoroughfares of a busy civilization, lay desolate and bare?
If humanity suddenly disappeared, how would the Earth change in our absence?
What would become of our planet a hundred, a thousand, or even ten thousand years in
the future?
Humans have dominated the Earth for over 7,000 years.
Since the rise of agricultural civilizations, our species has colonized every continent
on Earth.
We’ve adapted to extreme environments, constructed elaborate settlements, and harvested innumerable
resources.
With a population of 7.8 billion and counting, humanity has evolved from simple primates
into a global force.
We’ve shaped the Earth’s topography.
We’ve cut down forests and manipulated the Earth’s ecosystems, disrupting food chains,
eradicating species, and in many ways toppling the laws of nature.
In fact, the rise of humanity, thousands of years ago, started the first geological epoch
dictated not by the evolution of the natural world… but by a single, globally dominant
species.
What if, in the blink of an eye, humanity ceased to exist?
Imagine a mass extinction event annihilated every human being on the planet—all 7.8
billion of us.
If humanity suddenly disappeared, what would happen next?
After the sudden extinction of our species, the world becomes unnervingly quiet.
Without planes, trains, and automobiles—the noisy workhorses of humanity—the Earth breathes
a sigh of relief; but it doesn’t take long for the remnants of humankind to wreak havoc
on the world.
Without human oversight, 443 nuclear reactors across 30 countries climb to dangerous temperatures.
Most nuclear power plants in the world today are designed to decrease power in the absence
of human management, thereby reducing the risk of nuclear meltdowns, like the 1986 Chernobyl
disaster.
It’s unlikely any of our reactors will explode, but each power plant will irradiate the atmosphere
for thousands of years—damaging ecosystems, eradicating wildlife, and gradually poisoning
our planet.
Like nuclear reactors, precautionary systems prevent our factories, wellheads, and drilling
rigs from bursting into flames; but those systems may fail, sparking industrial fires,
releasing pillars of black smoke, and further polluting the atmosphere with greenhouse gases.
At first, the ocean bears some of the burden.
For decades, the ocean has diminished global CO2 emissions, absorbing excess carbon dioxide
from the atmosphere.
Between 1994 and 2007, the ocean absorbed around 31% of anthropogenic carbon dioxide,
but even the ocean has its limits.
Eventually, an overabundance of carbon dioxide will acidify the ocean, killing marine life
and crippling vital ecosystems.
As the ocean slowly acidifies and industrial plants poison the Earth, every drizzle and
thunderstorm inundates our largest cities with torrents of natural run-off.
Subway networks, no longer drained by underground pumps, fill with millions of gallons of rainwater.
Violent floods rush through subway tunnels, sweeping away train cars and erupting from
stations and stairwells in the once crowded streets of London, Manhattan, and Beijing.
Within decades of our extinction, human infrastructure crumbles.
Cities fall to their knees as water erodes support structures hidden underground.
Overpasses and bridges collapse into piles of rubble.
High-rises and homes sink into the ground.
Around the world, our urban spaces give way… and Mother Nature reclaims the Earth.
Tropical rainforests, like the Amazon and the Congo, gradually bury the remnants of
humanity under a dense layer of green.
Tropical vegetation creeps into every window and doorway, and diverse wildlife, like birds,
monkeys, and rodents, fill the void humanity left behind.
In frozen deserts and snowy taigas, buildings and roadways break down under the wind and
extreme cold of successive winters.
In regions with heavy snowfall, like Canada, Scandinavia, and Northern Asia, entire towns
disappear into the icy tundra, entombing human structures in mountains of white snow.
As nature slowly reclaims human settlements, new ecosystems develop in our absence.
A changing hierarchy of animals survive, and even flourish, in the relics of humanity.
Wild dogs and cats, no longer sheltered by humans, become apex predators in urban and
suburban spaces.
Other city-dwellers, like raccoons, mice, and bats, thrive in abandoned buildings, where
they feed on humanity’s trash and organic waste.
But few animals boom in our absence like the world’s insects.
Without humans, insect species feed freely on farmlands, no longer threatened by pesticides.
The insect population, which has steadily declined over the last few decades, surges
to new heights, launching an ecological domino effect.
Rising populations of insect species attract hungry insectivores, like birds and reptiles,
who entice larger carnivores and apex predators.
Many insect species are also prolific pollinators, stimulating the reproduction of angiosperms
or flowering plants.
The disappearance of humanity, and the absence of artificial toxins, may rejuvenate entire
ecosystems, stimulating a burst of biodiversity around the world.
Pesticides may fade, but not every toxic remnant of humanity disappears.
Mounds of non-biodegradable waste, which humans abandoned in dumps and landfills, will remain
piled high for a thousand years at least.
High levels of greenhouse gases, like methane and CO2, will persist for several millennia,
long after humans have disappeared.
Global warming, the product of heavy deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, continues
to radicalize the Earth’s climate, melting the polar ice caps and raising temperatures
around the world.
Once our buildings decay and our infrastructure crumbles, will garbage and chemical pollution
be the only remnants of our species?
Think about the cradles of civilization, like the Sumerians or the Ancient Egyptians.
Their stone wonders stood tall a few thousand years ago, but only a small amount of physical
evidence remains.
If our species vanished tomorrow, no one would maintain or preserve the relics we leave behind.
They would be destroyed by Mother Nature and overrun with wildlife.
Eventually, human achievement might disappear into the analogues of history—a history
no other species learns or remembers.
Millions of years in the future, long after humanity’s sudden extinction, it’s possible
another highly intelligent species evolves on Earth.
This species might research the planet’s history.
They may uncover a handful of human relics, but the great majority of our legacy would
be lost forever.
Despite thousands of years of global dominance, we may not be remembered as scientists, artists,
or visionaries.
If humans suddenly disappeared, we may only be remembered as a species that poisoned the
Earth.