What if the Human Race Suddenly Disappeared?

Editor's note: This was originally written before the television series Life After People. I'm in the process of migrating old articles to the new website, so this is included here. It was originally published in January of 2007.

by Chuck Hall

Suppose that one day we just disappeared from the face of the Earth. What would happen to the environment?
Within the first three months a large part of the nitrates and sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere would be gone. Within ten years or so, atmospheric methane produced by industry would disappear. Within fifty years, the nitrates and phosphates in the waterways from industrial runoff and dumping would be gone. Within a hundred years, the cities would be overgrown and most of the wooden buildings would have decayed. It would still take a thousand years for the organic material in our landfills to decompose. It would also take a thousand years for man-made carbon dioxide to totally disappear from the atmosphere. All of our glass and plastic wouldn’t be completely gone until 50,000 years later! Even this wouldn’t signify the end of signs of our presence. Some man-made chemicals could last for up to 200,000 years, and some man-made radioactive materials could take millions of years to completely decay.
Whenever I host a workshop on sustainability, there are always those who like to point out the problems with the topics discussed. They often offer valuable insights into the environmental impact of alternative technologies, and their input is welcome in the discussion, but I think that sometimes we focus too much on the problems involved in implementing new technologies at the expense of actually taking action. It’s always easier to point out problems than it is to make a change. While seeing all sides of the issue is a good thing, endless debate and negativity can sometimes stall any positive results.
A recent example discussed previously in this column was the topic of wind turbine generators. People point out that wind turbines kill birds, and some think they mar the landscape. But have we considered the environmental costs of the alternative? Currently, over half the electricity in the United States is produced by burning coal. Would you rather have a bank of windmills outside your window, or a row of smokestacks?
The fact is that by simply existing we consume resources. The goal is (or should be) to minimize our stress on the environment as much as possible while maintaining a reasonable quality of life. We have to take the information we have and make informed decisions from there. There will always be tradeoffs involved. By educating ourselves into which tradeoffs are acceptable and which are not, we can protect and conserve our resources.