Reality Crowd

What would happen if people disappeared suddenly from the planet? Not in some kind of nuclear war or global warming gone wild kind of way, but simply disappeared? How long would the evidence of our existence stick around? Would the earth eventually heal itself? These thought experiments have inspired a book and now a special on the History Channel.

The book, The World Without Us by Alan Weisman examines all types of different ecological and human made systems, and how they would react if people were taken out of the equation. The results are often surprising. Weisman talks to scientists from all types of disciplines from foresters to nuclear physicists. It turns out that the things that we intuitively think of as permanent would be the first to go. Within a few years our massive infrastructure would start to crumble, and most of it would be gone within a few thousand. It’s the stuff that we don’t think of that often… like plastic, that would stick around the longest.

In addition to the book the History Channel has a special out called Life After People. Clearly inspired by Weisman’s book, the show uses special effects to help imagine what the landscape would look like and how different structures would react over time without the upkeep of people. Visit the History Channel site to see some previews.

Read on to see some videos from the History Channel and from “The World Without Us”

A video from The World Without Us website showing the effects of time on a house:

Video from the Scientific American special “The Earth Without Humans”:

And the excellent trailer for the History Channel’s “Life After Humans”:

So what do you think? Would the world be better without us? How long would your stuff last? Without a conscious being to observe it would it matter? Let us know in the below.