An Earth Without People (Scientific American)

**skysaw** · 07-17-2007 09:28 PM

July's Scientific American has a very interesting article that asks the question "what would Earth be like if people suddenly vanished?" It's speculation, of course, but based on fairly sound science.

It's a good a good read (6 pages) but I'll just share the basic supposed timeline here:

2 Days after the disappearance of humans: Without constant pumping, New york City's subway system completely fills with water.

7 Days: Nuclear reactors burn or melt down as their water-cooling systems fail.

1 Year: Street pavements split and buckle as water in the cracks freezes and thaws.

2 to 4 years: In New York and other cities, cracked streets become covered with weeds and, later, colonizing trees whose roots upheave sidewalks and wreak havoc with already damaged sewers.

4 Years: Without heat, homes and office buildings fall victim to the freeze/thaw cycle and begin to crumble.

5 Years: Large parts of New York may be burned by now; a lightning strike on uncollected dead branches in Central Park could easily start a catastrophic fire.

20 Years: Dozens of streams and marshes form in Manhattan as collapsed streets fill with water.

100 Years: The roofs of nearly all houses have caved in, accelerating the deterioration of the structures.

300 Years: New York City's suspension bridges have fallen. Arch bridges, especially those designed to hold railroads, may last several hundred years longer.

500 Years: Mature forests cover the New York metropolitan area.

5,000 Years: As the casings of nuclear warheads corrode, radioactive plutonium 239 is released into the environment.

15,000+ Years: The last remnants of stone buildings in Manhattan fall to advancing glaciers as a new ice age begins.

35,000 Years: Lead deposited in the soil from automobile emissions in the 20th century finally dissipates.

100,000 Years: The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere returns to preindustrial levels.

10 Million Years: Bronze sculptures, many of which still retain their original shape, survive as relics of the human age.

1 Billion+ Years: As the sun brightens, the earth heats dramatically, but insects and other animals may adapt.

5 Billion Years: The earth vaporizes as the dying sun expands and consumes all the inner planets.

Trillions of Years: Broadcasts of The Twilight Zone and other television shows, faint and fragmented, still travel outward through space.

**Neruo** · 07-17-2007 11:22 PM

LOL

Cool topic. End-of-the-world things are always funny. Like zombie movies...

Originally Posted by skysaw

7 Days: Nuclear reactors burn or melt down as their water-cooling systems fail.

Actually, they have this new kind of reactor that doesn't melt down when the cooling system is turned of. Turning it off just causes the reaction to stop, and it can passively cool enough, or something. They recently did a test in china, it worked... but I guess they don't have that in most nuclear power plants today..

35,000 Years: Lead deposited in the soil from automobile emissions in the 20th century finally dissipates.

LOL :0

Trillions of Years: Broadcasts of The Twilight Zone and other television shows, faint and fragmented, still travel outward through space.

Woow.. No way? Is this true? That would be awesome. Aliens must love The Twilight Zone..

But doesn't this mean WE might by now have recieved "the twighty blork" from some alien race by now?

**Howie** · 07-17-2007 11:41 PM

That is the greatest magazine that I get. That is except the American scientific MINDS issues.

That was a cool article.

You can listen to a podcast of the interview with Alan Weisman at www.SciAm.com/ontheweb

**Barnsey** · 07-17-2007 11:45 PM

I never considered all that would happen if we weren't here. I've always thought about the sun expanding in the end though.

**Howie** · 07-17-2007 11:56 PM

Originally Posted by Barnsey

I never considered all that would happen if we weren't here. I've always thought about the sun expanding in the end though.

I am pretty confident that we won't be around to see that.

**DeadDollKitty** · 07-18-2007 12:02 AM

whys it all about NewYork>???? WHATS SO GOOD ABOUT NEWYORK NEWYORK! obviously, i have to go there now.

**trigotron** · 07-18-2007 01:10 AM

Originally Posted by Neruo

Actually, they have this new kind of reactor that doesn't melt down when the cooling system is turned of. Turning it off just causes the reaction to stop, and it can passively cool enough, or something. They recently did a test in china, it worked... but I guess they don't have that in most nuclear power plants today..

um... i think that this is the new pebble bed reactor design you are talking about, not 100% sure though. And since they use enriched MOX fuel instead of just enriched uranium, the plutonium will continue to generate electricity for 100,000's of years =)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor

Woow.. No way? Is this true? That would be awesome. Aliens must love The Twilight Zone..

Yeah, but the only way they will have seen the twilight zone is if they are using the correct UHF/VHF radio technology that we used at that time, and only if they are using it within a 60 year window, it's very unlikely that even if aliens existed that they would ever see the twilight zone or other alalog TV signals, although it is completely theoretically possible, however it would be a hell of a lot more staticy than on earth.

But doesn't this mean WE might by now have recieved "the twighty blork" from some alien race by now?

For the same reason as i described above, but in reverse, also it depends on distance away from them, if they live 1000 light years away from us, they would have needed to develop the VHF/UHF technology exactly the distance away from earth (in light years) years ago for us to even see a blip on our TV screens. The window has now passed for us now, and very few people use "rabbit ears" TV sets now, so it is unlikely anyone will even see anything, however there are organizations like SETI which listen to all electromagnetic frequencies to search for intelligent patterns, however they have turned out no results yet. Practically, the only way that we would have been able to contact alien life is if when we turned on the first TV set, we got a picture from an alien TV station.

**Moonbeam** · 07-18-2007 01:23 AM

Originally Posted by Neruo

LOL
But doesn't this mean WE might by now have recieved "the twighty blork" from some alien race by now?

Hey, who's that guy with the crazy avatar? What's he doing here?

Maybe you don't have it on the right channel.

Interesting to think about. Of course if it happened, I like to be around to see it.

**LucidFlanders** · 07-18-2007 07:55 AM

R.I.P. animals and all non humans. They will be in for 1 wild ride and the dogs will all just chase thier tales.

**Mes Tarrant** · 07-18-2007 08:13 AM

That's really cool skysaw, thanks for sharing that!!

I wonder where we all disappear to. They should have a separate article on that.

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