The World Without Us

I recently finished reading The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. It was interesting to contemplate what would happen if all humans suddenly disappeared. How long would our presence be on Earth? Some things, like New York City's subway system and paintings, would be destroyed in a few years without humans to maintain them. Other things, like the waste from our nuclear experiments, would likely be around as long as the planet. The radio waves we broadcast would be fragmented, but around indefinitely.

Little scary to think that long after we are gone we will still be impacting the planet. That is something that no other species can say. Nature however is resourceful. It wouldn't take long for animals to begin to rebound and domesticated animals to disappear. Perhaps, one of the greatest predators that humans have introduced is the humble house cat. Long after humans and domestic dogs are gone, feral cats will continue to wreck havoc on the bird population. The only we can say for certain is that after humans are extinct, life on this planet will go on. Probably in forms we have never dreamed of.