Very interesting article on what could / would happen to our planet if all human life ceased to exist tomorrow.

Humans are undoubtedly the most dominant species the Earth has ever known. In just a few thousand years we have swallowed up more than a third of the planet's land for our cities, farmland and pastures. By some estimates, we now commandeer 40 per cent of all its productivity. And we're leaving quite a mess behind: ploughed-up prairies, razed forests, drained aquifers, nuclear waste, chemical pollution, invasive species, mass extinctions and now the looming spectre of climate change. If they could, the other species we share Earth with would surely vote us off the planet.

Now just suppose they got their wish. Imagine that all the people on Earth - all 6.5 billion of us and counting - could be spirited away tomorrow, transported to a re-education camp in a far-off galaxy. (Let's not invoke the mother of all plagues to wipe us out, if only to avoid complications from all the corpses). Left once more to its own devices, Nature would begin to reclaim the planet, as fields and pastures reverted to prairies and forest, the air and water cleansed themselves of pollutants, and roads and cities crumbled back to dust.

"The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better," says John Orrock, a conservation biologist at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, California. But would the footprint of humanity ever fade away completely, or have we so altered the Earth that even a million years from now a visitor would know that an industrial society once ruled the planet?

Full article here.

What a bunch of misanthropic garbage. I suggest that these people who imagine the utopian world without humans lead by example.

What a load of crap!! Another self-hating doofus, just like those PETA freaks, so many hungry & suffering children in this world but they dedicate their lives to saving animals....total morons!!

Small problem with that theory- a bunch of toxic matierals. Without humans to maintain the facilities, it will dump in the local enviroment in massive quantities, creating massive dead zones.

Now, if you want to talk about an Earth were nothing human, human-like, or even sentient developed... Someone might enjoy the quiet, but I doubt anything would have the brain power needed to make such an conclusion.

There was a scenario something like that in a book called Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart (1951). I thought it was kind of stupid, as the "hero" was mostly just a philosopher, not the most productive member of a tiny society.

But the destructive capabilities of Man weren't quite as extensive then as they are now. The first nuclear power plant didn't exist until a few years later.

As whacked-out as I think the leaders of PETA are, they certainly aren't the cause of any of the hungry and suffering children of the world, who are more the victims of human politics than anything else, IMHO.

"Without humans to maintain the facilities, it will dump in the local enviroment in massive quantities, creating massive dead zones."

We've already created them. Chernobyl, Love Canal, previously fertile land that has been decimated by overgrazing, the application of thousands of tons of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides. That stuff doesn't just disappear like the stray bullets on TV; it's all still there. We've got genetically-modified crops that animals don't want to eat, and if they are forced to eat them or starve, their health seems to be deteriorating, but they are still feeding them to us.

Who knows? Maybe the scenario that Sherpadog offered is on its way.

Sue

There was a scenario something like that in a book called Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart (1951). I thought it was kind of stupid, as the "hero" was mostly just a philosopher, not the most productive member of a tiny society.

But the destructive capabilities of Man weren't quite as extensive then as they are now. The first nuclear power plant didn't exist until a few years later.

As whacked-out as I think the leaders of PETA are, they certainly aren't the cause of any of the hungry and suffering children of the world, who are more the victims of human politics than anything else, IMHO.

"Without humans to maintain the facilities, it will dump in the local enviroment in massive quantities, creating massive dead zones."

We've already created them. Chernobyl, Love Canal, previously fertile land that has been decimated by overgrazing, the application of thousands of tons of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides. That stuff doesn't just disappear like the stray bullets on TV; it's all still there. We've got genetically-modified crops that animals don't want to eat, and if they are forced to eat them or starve, their health seems to be deteriorating, but they are still feeding them to us.

Who knows? Maybe the scenario that Sherpadog offered is on its way.

Sue

There was a scenario something like that in a book called Earth Abides, by George R. Stewart (1951). I thought it was kind of stupid, as the "hero" was mostly just a philosopher, not the most productive member of a tiny society.

But the destructive capabilities of Man weren't quite as extensive then as they are now. The first nuclear power plant didn't exist until a few years later.

As whacked-out as I think the leaders of PETA are, they certainly aren't the cause of any of the hungry and suffering children of the world, who are more the victims of human politics than anything else, IMHO.

"Without humans to maintain the facilities, it will dump in the local enviroment in massive quantities, creating massive dead zones."

We've already created them. Chernobyl, Love Canal, previously fertile land that has been decimated by overgrazing, the application of thousands of tons of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides. That stuff doesn't just disappear like the stray bullets on TV; it's all still there. We've got genetically-modified crops that animals don't want to eat, and if they are forced to eat them or starve, their health seems to be deteriorating, but they are still feeding them to us. The human cancer rate is skyrocketing, but who cares?

Who knows? Maybe the scenario that Sherpadog offered is on its way.

Sue

[yawn]

These comments make me wonder if you even read the article, or just the quote. No where in the article does the author suggest that humans should start killing themselves off. The article isn't about the world being a better place without humans, it's about a hypothetical situation, what the world would be like if humans disappeared. The article isn't about humans being "bad".

The article asks how humans have affected the world, what the mark we would leave behind is, and what impact we've already had.

Another self hating doofus? Believe it or not, human activity does have an impact on the world. Foreign animals are introduced into new ecosystems, forests are cut or burned down, plants and animals are domesticated.

However, unlike some articles which state that humans are destroying the world, this article says that our mark would be almost unnoticeable. If humans disappeared, the world would continue. The end of humans is not the end of the world. You could look around the planet, and find almost nothing that suggested we impacted the world.

Having issues with the conclusions they've drawn is one thing. Argue the science of the matter. But don't argue "the person is stupid for saying the world would be better this way", when they haven't even said it! Judge the article in it's entirety, not on one quote in the beginning. A quote used to introduce the idea of humans disappearing.

I’d rather imagine the reverse situation… people without Earth. Think of all the survival gear and skills you’d need for that!