Life After People: The History Channel's Post Humanity Series

From the network that brings us such shows as Gangland and Monster Quest comes a new series that tells us what is going to likely happen after people are gone. I find this a nice change up from the usual "this is how we are all going to die" shows that are often brought to us by the History and Discovery channels. In this series they seek to explain what changes are going to happen after man is gone rather than trying to explain what is going to cause us to be gone. The series spans from one day after we are gone all the way till 10.000 years after. What will be left of mankind's footprint on the Earth Milena after we are gone?

The show states that after day 1 the world will revert to darkness because almost all fossil fuel burning power plants (our countries main power source) would be shutting off without man the feed the furnaces, leaving only hydro and nuclear power sources working. The next power plants to shut down within the first week would be the nuclear power plants, which would automatically shut down to prevent meltdown due to the excess power build-up. The longest lasting power sources will be wind solar and hydro energy, but these too require maintenance to continue to operate and would likely shut down within the first year. The Hoover Dam will likely be the longest working plant but will indefinitely be shut down by small mollusks that will clog the cooling intakes when there is nobody left to remove them. The Hoover Dam itself however will be one of our longest lasting structures, built to be strong as the canyon walls that surround it.

What happen to all the animals? Well, the series says that all household pets could only survive inside the house for up to a week, so they will soon be looking to escape and find sustenance in the wild. Most household pets will sadly die off because of the very traits we bred into them, which are not traits that support survival in the wilderness. Mice. rats and other rodents the depend on human waste will suffer an initial die off from lack of food and have to go back to foraging for food in the wilderness, where they are easy prey. Roaches which are known for their resilience will suffer an initial population drop due to losing their free meal ticket and heat sources from man, but they will continue to thrive due to their ability to take sustenance from any decaying organic matter. Wolves will most likely be the dominant species when they take back all the land they once called home which is most of the U.S. The oceans without man to fish and pollute will also once again be vastly populated.

What about our Structures and Technology? All of our structures made out of metals wood and glass require great amounts of maintenance to remain structurally sound. Without man to paint, seal and replace parts all the bridges worldwide would likely come down in the first 100 years. Our skyscrapers would eventually become giant vertical ecosystems with only there skeletons remaining intact, but even these will crumble and fall within a few hundred years with no maintenance. Concrete and stone structures will be the longest lasting but will eventually succumb to the elements such as salt, erosion, and thy prying roots of plant life. Cars will rust away in the first 100 years of our absence and will be reduced to piles of scrap. Some of our longest lasting structures will be The Great Wall which traces of will be around for thousands of years, and The Pyramids which are so thick that they will be buried by the sand before the are eroded away. The longest lasting structure will be Mount Rushmore due to the durability of the granite its carved in and the conditions of the area it could possibly last 20,000 years.

As far as the legacy we will leave, The shelf like of unmaintained paper documents is less than 200 years, and cellulose film is even less given its extreme sensitivity to heat and light. Our digital media will be our longest lasting but is also degraded easily over time. Radio waves once believed to carry our legacy to the the ends of the universe are found now to simply dissipate into sound and may not even be intelligible a short distance past our galaxy,.So in actuality if some alien race came to planet earth only a couple thousand years after we are gone they would know nothing of the technology we once possessed

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