~~ Earth... humanity has disappeared completely! ~~

[glossywhite]

A normal sunrise, everything is exactly as it would be any other day, except for one major shock; humanity has disappeared COMPLETELY, overnight!.

Imagine the earth, from day one and onward, nature reclaiming back what was once lush, thick vegetation.... power plants shutting down from neglect... trains crashing and de-railing... rivers overflowing and bursting their banks... can YOU imagine what it would be like in a week, day by day.... a month.... 6 months... one year.... ten years.... 100 years.... 1,000 years.... 10,000 years.... spooky isn't it.... let's discuss it, I'd love to find out what people feel about this!.

 

[iJohnHenry]

Well, how many Chernobyls would you like to consider??

 

[benmrii]

This is freaking me out... someone make sure the battery backups for MacRumors are charged.

 

[xboxer75010]

Isn't there a show on the history channel about this?

http://www.history.com/minisites/life_after_people

What would happen to planet earth if the human race were to suddenly disappear forever? Would ecosystems thrive? What remnants of our industrialized world would survive? What would crumble fastest? From the ruins of ancient civilizations to present day cities devastated by natural disasters, history gives us clues to these questions and many more in the visually stunning and thought-provoking special LIFE AFTER PEOPLE.

Buildings Decomposing
Abandoned skyscrapers would, after hundreds of years, become "vertical ecosystems" complete with birds, rodents and even plant life. One small animal might be responsible for bringing down the Hoover Dam hydroelectric plant. Swelled rivers, crumbling bridges and buildings, grizzly bears in California and herds of buffalo returning to the Great Western Plains: In a world without humans, these would be the visual hallmarks. Our cars would shrivel to piles of dust, our house pets would be overtaken by flourishing wildlife and most of the records of our human story-books, photos, records-would fade quickly, leaving little evidence that we ever existed.

Eiffel Tower Decomposing
Using feature film quality visual effects and top experts in the fields of engineering, botany, ecology, biology, geology, climatology and archeology, Life After People provides an amazing visual journey through the ultimately hypothetical.

The 1986 nuclear power plant accident at Chernobyl and its aftermath provides a riveting and emotional case study of what can happen after humans have moved on. Life After People goes to remote islands off the coast of Maine to search for traces of abandoned towns, beneath the streets of New York to see how subway tunnels may become watery canals, to the Montana wilderness to divine the destiny of the bears and wolves.

Humans won't be around forever, and now we can see in detail, for the very first time, the world that will be left behind in Life After People.

 

[mpw]

BBC Focus Magazine issue 191 had an article on exactly this subject.

 

[xboxer75010]

BBC Focus Magazine issue 191 had an article on exactly this subject.

And also a book:

http://www.amazon.com/World-Without-Us-Alan-Weisman/dp/0312347294

If a virulent virus—or even the Rapture—depopulated Earth overnight, how long before all trace of humankind vanished? That's the provocative, and occasionally puckish, question posed by Weisman (An Echo in My Blood) in this imaginative hybrid of solid science reporting and morbid speculation. Days after our disappearance, pumps keeping Manhattan's subways dry would fail, tunnels would flood, soil under streets would sluice away and the foundations of towering skyscrapers built to last for centuries would start to crumble. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, anything made of bronze might survive in recognizable form for millions of years—along with one billion pounds of degraded but almost indestructible plastics manufactured since the mid-20th century. Meanwhile, land freed from mankind's environmentally poisonous footprint would quickly reconstitute itself, as in Chernobyl, where animal life has returned after 1986's deadly radiation leak, and in the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, a refuge since 1953 for the almost-extinct goral mountain goat and Amur leopard. From a patch of primeval forest in Poland to monumental underground villages in Turkey, Weisman's enthralling tour of the world of tomorrow explores what little will remain of ancient times while anticipating, often poetically, what a planet without us would be like.

 

[scotty96LSC]

All I hear is the background noise from Friday the 13th.

 

[glossywhite]

BBC Focus Magazine issue 191 had an article on exactly this subject.

I was browsing the net in the local library (on a Dell - ARGHH haha!) and I saw that EXACT issue - BBC Focus Issue 191 - the cover story grabbed my attention SO MUCH, I completely forgot about the 2Tb hard disk I was reading about!. That exact issue got my interest started in this!.

WOW!