Have you ever thought about what our planet would look like if all humans suddenly disappeared? If humans disappeared from Earth and you could return to Earth a year later to see what happened, the first change you would notice would not be what you saw; there would be things you heard, or rather things you didn’t hear. The world would be quiet and you would realize how much noise people make. Our buildings, cars, planes, and actions create a lot of noise, and all of that noise will have disappeared.
A bluer sky, non-flowing waters
You will also notice a change in the weather. After a year without people, the sky will be bluer and the air clearer. As wind and rain clean the Earth’s surface, all the fog and dust created by humans will disappear.
If you go to your house, you will see some changes take place over the course of a year when no one is disturbing your house. First of all, we hope you won’t be thirsty when you enter your house, because you won’t find water in your taps. Water systems require constant pumping. When there is no one to manage the machines that pump water in the public water supply, there is no water in the system.
The water that was in the pipes when everyone disappeared is still in the pipes when the first winter comes. However, in the first freezing cold with the arrival of winter, the cold air will freeze the water in the pipes and burst the pipes.
As with water systems, power plants will stop working because they need people to keep them running, maintain and fuel them. In other words, your home will remain in the dark without a light, TV, phone or computer.
too much dust
You may also notice that your home is profusely dusty. In fact, there is always dust in the air, but we hardly notice it, as our air conditioning systems and heaters keep the air in the house moving, as well as cleaning. Also, as you move between rooms in your home and on the move, you will help reduce the overall amount of dust as another surface for dust to cling to. But when all this stops, the air inside your home will calm down and dust will settle everywhere.
Many plants you’ve never seen before will take root in your garden. Every time a tree drops a seed, a small sapling can grow. Since there will be no one to stop this sapling from growing or to dislodge it when it sprouts, the variety of plants around you and in your garden will increase.
too many insects
You will notice much more insects buzzing around. Remember, people tend to do everything they can to get rid of bugs. We spray the air and the ground with pesticides. We eliminate the insect habitat. We install guards on the windows. And when all that doesn’t work, we eliminate the bugs we come across ourselves.
When there are no people to do all this, the insects will come back and be free to settle again in the world where they want.
You’ll see some differences in your neighbourhood, too. First of all, small creatures, ie animals such as mice, moles, raccoons, skunks, foxes and beavers, depending on where you are, will start to wander around. The creatures that you are not used to seeing, but that used to be in your area, may start to come back to their old places.
Later, larger animals such as deer, coyotes, and the occasional bear will also come into your neighborhood. Maybe the arrival of these big animals may not be in the first year, but they will surely come back one day.
In the absence of electric light, the rhythm of the natural world will be restored. The only light will come from the Sun, Moon and stars. That’s why the night creatures will feel better once they get to the dark skies once again.
more fire
You may also notice that there are more fires. Lightning can strike a tree or field, set bushes on fire, or strike houses and buildings. Without people to extinguish these initial signs of natural fire, these fires will continue until they themselves have exhausted their fuel (i.e. the combustible things around them, such as houses and fields).
Assets made of concrete or other durable materials, such as roads, highways, bridges, and buildings, will look pretty much the same after just one year.
But if you come back ten years later, you’ll find cracks appearing in which little plants wiggle. This is because the Earth is constantly moving. This movement creates a pressure, which causes cracks to form. Eventually, the roads would crack so much that they would look like broken glass and even trees would grow between them.
Metal footed bridges gradually rust. The beams and bolts that hold the bridges up also rust. But large concrete bridges and concrete highways can survive for centuries.
The dams and dams that humans have built on the world’s rivers and streams are eroding. Farms go back to nature. Since we won’t be around constantly to plant more, the number of plants we normally eat will also drastically decrease and begin to disappear.
Farm animals that become prey
Farm animals will be easy prey for bears, coyotes, wolves and panthers. When we look at domestic animals, cats that are not hunted by larger animals will go wild. Most dogs will not survive.
A thousand years later, the world you remember will still be vaguely recognizable. Some things will survive. Depending on the materials they are made of, the climate they are in and, frankly, luck, the probability of structures to withstand time will be different. Nearby an apartment, a cinema or a crumbling shopping mall will stand as monuments to a lost civilization. This may sound surprising, but the Roman Empire collapsed more than 1,500 years ago, but you can still see some remnants today.
Perhaps most importantly, the sudden disappearance of humanity will clearly demonstrate how we treat the Earth. Human civilization may have spread to almost every corner of our planet, but it needs constant care to survive. Still, even if civilization collapses, it will do well for other living things on our planet if climate change once again moves towards its natural course.
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