Environment

What Earth Will Look Like Millions of Years After Humans Are Gone

June 1st 2016

If every human were to disappear from the planet, how would Earth survive without us?

Better than you might think, actually.

In a video produced by #Mind Warehouse, we're shown a simulation of what would happen to our planet if we were to all disappear. It's definitely not one of the more lighthearted YouTube videos out there, but it's a good, albeit depressing, look at how we treat our planet — and how our planet treats us.

24-48 Hours After Humans

  • Lights will have gone out.
  • Nuclear power plants will switch to energy-saving mode.
  • Windmills will keep working until they're no longer lubricated enough to keep turning.
  • Solar polars will keep working until they are too dusty too function. "A dust layer of 4 grams per square metre [sic] decreases solar power conversion by 40 percent," Dr. Malay K. Mazumder, a leader in solar energy study, told ABC science
  • Power will be cut pretty much everywhere, unless they're powered by hydro electric stations, which would buy more time.

3 Days After Humans

  • Subways will be flooded. There are pumps underground that humans activate to prevent water from seeping in. New York Magazine says, "few realize that on an average day—even when it’s dry outside—about 13 million gallons [of water] are pumped out of the system," and that's just in New York City.

10 Days After Humans

  • Our pets are gonna have a bad time. Any animals locked in our homes will, sadly, die of starvation or dehydration.
  • Any animals that we use as a food source, like chickens and cows, will also die.
  • For animals that manage to escape, they'll either have to kill or be killed. Small dogs and cats will be the first to be eaten by other animals.
  • Big dogs will create their own packs.

About 1 Month After Humans

  • Nuclear power pants use water for cooling, and this water will have evaporated, which will trigger explosions bigger than those at Chernobyl and Fukushima.
  • This will result in the deaths of millions of animals due to cancer (sorry).
  • However, the planet will, overall, actually recover from the contamination fairly quickly.

One Year After Humans

  • Satellites and whatever else we've sent into space will fall. It will look like really cool shooting stars that will be seen only by packs of wild dogs.

25 Years After Humans

  • Streets will be reclaimed by vegetation growing underneath the pavement.
  • Pet dogs and wolves will have mated, creating a new breed of badass dogwolves.
  • The air will be so much cleaner.
  • Las Vegas will be covered with sand.
  • Basically, nature will reclaim everything that we've built over it.

300 Years After Humans

  • The Eiffel Tower will fall down.
  • The Golden Gate Bridge will collapse.
  • Anything that's made of metal or steel will fall apart, because no humans are around to maintain the structures and protect them from corrosion. And steel within concrete structures will swell to three times their size, causing more things to collapse.
  • Swamps will make a comeback, thrilling birds everywhere.
  • So much whale sex. Without humans, marine life will expand their population.

500 Years After Humans

  • There will be no trace of modern cities. They'll look like this:

Here's what Times Square in New York City would look like:

10,000 Years After Humans

  • The only sign of human life on Earth will be the stone statues we've created, like the Pyramids, The Great Wall of China, and Mt. Rushmore. Our stone presidents will remain "mostly intact" for "several hundreds of thousands of years," according to #Mind Warehouse.

50 Million Years After Humans

  • By now, the only trace of our entire human existence will plastic bottles and pieces of broken glass.

100 Million Years After Humans

  • The plastic bottles and pieces of glass will finally be gone.

300 Million Years After Humans

  • There will be no trace of us at all. If another species comes to our planet, they won't even know we were there.

You can watch the entire video, "What Would Happened If Humans Disappeared?" below.

[H/T Good]

Share your opinion

Do you think it's important to take care of the Earth even if we won't be around to experience it?

No 8%Yes 92%