if we all vanished tomorrow

[niyad]

If We All Vanished Tomorrow
What would *really* happen if all humans disappeared? The Earth grins at the thought
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Friday, October 20, 2006








Of course you already know. Of course you can merely look out the window and see the traffic and the plastic and the smog and the bad haircuts and the war and the Paris Hilton and the Bush and say, well duh.

But imagine the result anyway. Imagine for a moment that every human on the face of the planet was suddenly whisked away to the divine gurgling ether in one big blast of cheery Armageddon nothingness, all the Bible-waving True Believers carted off to a giant sex-free harp-filled cosmic Wal-Mart while the rest of us leap to the next luminous transformational echelon of timespacelove.

What would happen, really? How would the planet respond if all bipeds disappeared tomorrow?

You can probably guess. Almost immediately, the planet would shudder, shift, align itself anew. Immediately, all endangered species would begin to recover. Light pollution (that is, pollution caused by industrial light) would soon vanish, followed by a great reduction in air pollution, methane gasses, chemicals in fresh water. Soon, all bridges and dams would collapse, roads would become overgrown, buildings would decay, corals would regenerate, most organic landfill would decay and vanish. And that's just the beginning.

In other words, as the fascinating/depressing cover story in the recent issue of New Scientist points out (along with this nifty graphic from the Times U.K.), the Earth would quickly begin to recover mightily from the deep disease that is human existence. What's more, the planet would, by every estimate, quickly become a whole lot healthier, more balanced, back in harmony with itself.

. . . . . .

http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/

[shanti]

1. the insects would rule the world!

hahahahahahahahah! :evilgrin:

[leftofthedial]

2. I thought you meant DUers

disappearing into concentration camps

[cautiouslywaiting]

4. Yeah

That's what I thought at first too. That will happen before the global destruction begins.

[niyad]

8. it's a terrible situation we face, looking at such a headline, and realizing

it just MIGHT be talking about us being amoung the "disappeared"

[cautiouslywaiting]

9. It's really sad...

that this country has become a place that something like that could happen. And does happen. I just hope we get a chance to turn this all around.

[cautiouslywaiting]

3. Seriously.

It's sad what we've done to this planet. I just hope we can do something before it's too late. The delusional global warming denials are just ridiculous. How can anyone not understand what we're doing to our planet?

[displacedtexan]

5. Actually, our nuke waste sites would corrode and...

eventually the crap would leech out and poison everything.

Wouldn't it?

[shadowknows69]

11. So the cockroaches would be

super mega radiated cockroaches. No one would mess with earth after that.

[Warpy]

6. Believe it or not, we're part of the web of life, too

If we disappeared, think of all the creatures that would go with us: domestic pigs, chickens, sheep, cattle, and other critters that depend on us to keep them healthy until it's time for some of us to eat them. Bacteria that are programmed as human pathogens would likely die out. I know people don't consider that a big loss, but the bacterial ecosystem might. Malaria would be carried by mosquitoes for a while, but with no human hosts, even it would eventually die off, a loss to them if not to us. Whole plant species could die off, also, as we're not around to create the conditions for them to flourish in.

That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. If we all disappeared, the law of unintended consequences would kick in and a lot of other species would disappear along with us.

[niyad]

7. off the top of my head, I cannot think of a single species that

flourishes as a result of our creating such conditions for them. please clue me in.

the "law of unintended consequences" applies to deliberate actions. if we as a species vanished or died out, that law wouldn't necessarily apply, as the assumption was that Mother Nature would do the vanquishing.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Nuclear Explosions. Oil Spills. Chemical Leaks. *Not* a good idea.

There are all sorts of technological artifacts that need regular human maintenance to prevent them becoming grade A ecological disasters. I'm not sure of the exact science, but I suspect that if all humans vanished overnight the result would be an absolute calamity.