Disease, famine, climate change, and unstable despots with access to weapons of mass destruction – these are just some of the ways the humanity can get wiped off from the face of the planet.
Extinction, after all, is an inevitable part of nature and no single species is safe from it, not even the human race. It is a way of nature to “reboot” itself and start over.
Unfortunately for the human race, despite all our advancement in technology and science, it would seem that we are speeding up our time here on earth rather than making it a bit more worthwhile.
Hurricanes of incalculable power and several powerful earthquakes have rocked cities across the world. Ferocious conflicts in war-torn regions continue to plague its inhabitants, indiscriminately taking away their lives seem to see no end in the near future. Large cities in developed countries – countries that you would expect to find a more efficient and environmentally safe way to produce energy – contribute more to the depletion of natural resources and the worsening conditions of the climate.
Whatever our grisly end may be in the future, Mother Nature will continue to live on without the human race. So in today’s list, we are counting down 10 likely scenarios that can happen once humanity is completely gone from the planet earth.
10. DARKNESS
Within a few hours of humanity’s disappearance, the entire world will go dark – not in the Biblical sense though.
Since we have made great accomplishments in the fields of energy and technology, it comes as no surprise that there is no corner of the globe that ever goes dark because of our use of electricity to power our homes and cities.
However, when we finally get wiped out, there will be no one left to keep the power plants running and the generators going. One by one, every neon light, every bulb, every street lamp will go dark as power begins to shut down, plunging the globe in darkness.
9. NUCLEAR CHAIN REACTION
With power finally shutting down, we will see – well, the earth will see – a massive chain reaction of nuclear meltdowns from every single power plant in each nuclear powered country.
Without power keeping these plants’ cooling systems operational, these plants will begin to meltdown within a month and the following explosions will be much stronger and much deadlier than the combined meltdowns of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
8. FLOODING
In just a few days after our extinction, our underground railways and tunnels will be flooded and completely submerged because the pumps that divert water and sewage from the tunnels will stop operating and begin to fill up until it eventually spills into our underground infrastructures.
Speaking of sewage, since everything has already shut down, sewage treatment plants will also cease to operate and the result would be the backing up of tons of waste that we have left behind. It would later on spill out of drains and start a flood of sewage that will most definitely poison existing plant-life and some animals that have survived whatever took out humanity.
7. FALLING STARS
Within a year of our extinction, the skies will be a sight to behold as one by one all the satellites that we have launched into space will plummet back to earth having no means of being powered and maintained.
The sight will most likely resemble a meteor shower with streaks of light illuminating the night sky.
And while we do have dozens of satellites that we have launched much further from the earth, even these will fall out of orbit and come crashing back to the planet in a burst of flames as it enters the atmosphere.
6. THE DECLINE OF DOMESTICATED ANIMALS
Only a few weeks after our sudden extinction, many of our domesticated animals and pets will drop dead because of starvation and dehydration.
Most likely, many of our furry and feathered friends will be locked up in our homes or in their cages or in barns when the human race dies out – and without having no one to attend to them, these animals that we have bred for our leisure or enterprise will kick the bucket because they would have no means to sustain or feed themselves.
The smart ones that may find a way out of our homes may survive a few days longer but these domestic breeds of pets – especially the smaller ones like your aunt’s Chihuahua or your frisky little terrier – will end up being on the menu of much larger, predatory wildlife that may have already encroached upon places that humans used to occupy.
Suffice to say that the extinction of humanity will also be the extinction of the Shih Tzu and other small animal breeds.
5. WILDLIFE TAKEOVER
Speaking of animals, when the massive cities that we have built and the suburbs that we once occupied have been devoid of our presence, animal life will begin to return to these places that we have forced them out of.
A good example of this scenario in a microcosm is Chernobyl. When the area was turned into a no man’s land after the devastating meltdown of its nuclear power plant, wildlife and even vegetation returned to the region. Wild dogs and birds have returned and began bringing back life – albeit a radioactive and highly contaminated one – to Chernobyl.
On a massive scale, wildlife is bound to return to places that were once their natural habitats; marking new territories and steadily repopulating areas.
4. CRUMBLING MONUMENTS
Overtime, structures – especially those that are made of steel – will crumble and collapse. Monuments like the Eiffel Tower and structures such as the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges will practically disintegrate due to rust and zero maintenance.
As vegetation slowly creeps in to retake the land, concrete structures would also break apart as roots and vines force their way into a structure’s cracks and crannies.
Perhaps the only man-made monuments that will last for decades after our extinction, or even hundreds of years after would be monuments made out of stone such as the Great Pyramids at Giza and Mount Rushmore.
3. WATER WILL RECLAIM A LARGE PORTION OF THE EARTH
At the height of mankind’s expansion of territories and the great discoveries of new lands, we have paved ways to new regions by building dams and forcing water out of places where they should be.
Delta cities, man-made islands, and places where water has been diverted to create a hospitable place to create habitat will be swept away by the very same element we have tried to command once we have all bitten the dust as a species.
Without anyone to maintain them, dam walls – no matter how thick and fortified – will break and release tons and tons of water. When it does, many areas will be sunk in water, turning them back into the rivers and swamplands that they used to be.
Bodies of water such as the Colorado river will once again flow into the Gulf of Mexico and the Hoover Dam will crumble to give back the river that it kept contained for decades if not centuries.
2. THE DESERT’S REVENGE
When we are all gone, the cities we have built in desert lands such as Las Vegas and Dubai will be devoured by sand and turn back into its state as a desert.
With only the monuments that we have built and the structures that we have put up as ghosts of what was once our flourishing civilization, these desert cities will be nothing more than just arid landscapes against the blazing backdrop of the sun.
Even massive areas in the western hemisphere such as Mexico and California will turn back to the parched landscapes that they used to be as homes and buildings begin to deteriorate and the heat form the sun dries up the land once more.
1. MOTHER NATURE TAKES IT ALL BACK
Within just two decades of our extinction, Mother Nature will fully reclaim the earth as vegetation will return and spread.
Despite the fact that humankind was able to cultivate certain species of vegetation to make it more palatable and much more edible, without our skilled hands however, the green will return back to its natural state and many of the plants and vegetables we all know and see in our salads will be virtually unrecognizable in their true, wild states.
Also, as an added bonus to the earth upon our extinction and because of the return of greenery and vegetation, the air will drastically change and be much cleaner than it ever was because pollutants will be absorbed, processed, and basically cleansed by plants; eventually clearing up the earth’s atmosphere and restoring it overtime.
