One blink of the eye and we’re gone.
Or that’s how it struck me!
Just to put this into context, if you watched the George Monbiot speech that was the highlight of my post last Tuesday, The Goon Show, you might well have been forgiven for wondering if these are starting to feel like the end-times for species homo sapiens.
Almost perfectly on cue, on Monday, John Hurlburt down in Payson, AZ., sent me the following. It does make one think!
Time Required for the Earth to Heal if the Human Race Disappeared Today
(While John over the telephone read out the URL that was the source of this ‘chart’, I was unable to link to it. Thus apologies for not recognising the author.)
Then if you are up for more of the same theme, here’s a film that will ‘entertain’ you.
Published on Sep 2, 2012
What will happen when humans disappear from the face of the Earth? This movie will certain make you think about the impact we have made on this beautiful planet. But when humans are gone… Earth does continue.Imagine if one minute from now, every single person on Earth disappeared. All 6.6 billion of us. What would happen to the world without humans?
How long would it be before our nuclear power plants erupted, skyscrapers crumbled and satellites dropped from the sky?
What would become of the household pets and farm animals? And could an ecosystem plagued with years of pollution ever recover?Similar to the History Channel’s special Life After People (recommended), Aftermath features what scientists and others speculate the earth, animal life, and plant life might be like if humanity no longer existed, as well as the effect that humanity’s disappearance would have on the artefacts of civilisation.
FAIR USE NOTICE: The material on this channel is provided solely for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material, the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Infringement of copyright is not intended. The material is made available to help educate people about health related issues. It is believed that this constitutes a ‘FAIR USE’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17, section 107 of the US Copyright Law. The material is distributed without profit to those who would like to use such material for research and educational purposes.
Sleep well tonight!
Learning from Dogs 
Great chart though I must admit that after the “Immediately” my interest tapered off quite noticeably… in fact even at a faster rate than Janet Yellen’s QE tapering 🙂 …
But then I got to 100 years and “Wooden buildings decay”… is that a good thing for the environment? Is not wood a great carbon sequester?
Which took my mind to a recent article (might have been FT) where Bill Gates had expressed great interest in the growth of cement consumption as an evidence that China’s eco omy was getting to be bigger than USA’s by the minute… only to be sort of rebuked by a letter from a reader some days later… mentioning like “that is nonsense – in China they build with cement and in the US with wood… look at the consumption of wood statistics!”
Which leads me to sort of give “Learning from Dogs” some homework… namely to prepare a 200 word essay on the theme of… what would happen to the environment if only China, and some others, like Brazil and Mexico, stopped building houses and offices with cement and used wood instead?
As a side benefit I think that could also signify the creation of plenty of well paying jobs as firemen for our unemployed young!
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Per, once again a delight to turn on my tablet first thing, it’s 0545, and read your lovely comment; albeit a tad tongue in cheek!
The chart serves best, in my opinion, as a reminder of the awesome power of time and nature. The other thing that comes to me is the saying I am wont to use too often: “Never underestimate the power of unintended consequences!”
I haven’t had the courage to watch the film!
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I think the “1,000 years” for CO2 to disappear is over optimistic.
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What would be your estimate?
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Sorry… who wants CO2 to disappear?
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It’s a big debate among specialists.
Some have presented a cogent case that there will be no glaciation for the next 50,000 years… From the present situation.
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Well as I shall be setting out in next Monday’s post, the sixth great extinction is likely to be well under way! Ergo, it will cease to be a concern to mankind!
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Loved the chart.. and this is why It so appals me that governments promote Nuclear when they know full well that its waste products can not be made safe..
Earth will Go on.. and prosper!.. 🙂
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Thanks Sue. Totally agree with you.
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It could be that nature can recover even faster than the estimates considering what I have seen here in Colchester happening to areas overrun by nature.
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I think that’s an entirely reasonable assumption.
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