If humans suddenly disappeared from Earth

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If humans suddenly disappeared from Earth, some of the things that would happen include: 

  • Immediately: Oil refineries would malfunction, causing month-long fires. Underground rail systems would flood due to abandoned drainage pumps. Most emergency generators would shut down. 
  • Within a week: The Earth would go dark for the first time in centuries. 
  • Within 20 years: Sidewalks would be torn apart by tree roots and weeds. 
  • Within a year: There would be no electricity. Power plants would stop working because no one would monitor them and maintain a supply of fuel. 
  • Within a thousand years: Most visible traces of humans would be erased by vegetation, storms, fires, frost, rust, earthquakes, and burrowing animal activity. 
  • Within millennia: The ruins of some massive concrete structures might remain. 

Other things that would happen include: 

  • Wild animals would enter cities using leftover passages and bridges. 
  • Cockroaches would continue to thrive, but their urban cousins would not survive more than two winters. 
  • The Earth’s climate would start to recover from the damages caused by human activities. 
  • Sandstorms could sweep through Phoenix and Miami. 
  • Shanghai might disappear into the ocean. 
  • Invasive plants and animals such as Burmese pythons would spread uncontrolled.

In a world without people, humanity’s food supplies decay as supermarkets turn into breeding grounds for insects and vermin, humidity causes Leonardo da Vinci’s mural The Last Supper in the Santa Maria delle Grazie to crumble, and both the landmark Randy’s Donuts restaurant in Los Angeles and the restaurant atop Taipei …

It’s difficult to predict which species would become the next dominant species on Earth if humans were to disappear. Some scientists suggest that animals like octopuses, dolphins, or certain species of apes could potentially evolve to fill the ecological niches left by humans. 

Others say that the most intelligent animals would be bonobos, dolphins, and whales. It’s even possible that humans will themselves evolve into the Earth’s next dominant species. 

In the immediate aftermath of human extinction, baboons could take over human settlements and scavenge the food and livestock we left behind. Baboons are social and have similar intelligence to chimpanzees. 

Humans became the dominant species by building on the knowledge of previous generations. This was enabled by their ability to communicate with each other through speech, symbols, and writing.

According to Scientific American, humans will eventually go extinct, but not for another billion years. However, some scientists believe humans could be gone in the next 100 years. 

The scientific consensus is that the risk of human extinction due to natural causes is low. However, the likelihood of human extinction due to human activities is a current area of research and debate. 

Some scientists believe that humanity is running low on resources that sustain it, leading to the destruction of our way of life within decades. 

According to NCBI, there are three major anthropogenic causes of species endangerment and extinction: 

  • Overhunting or overharvesting 
  • Introduction of nonnative species, including the spread of disease 
  • Habitat degradation or loss 

However, Adam Schlosser, the Deputy Director of the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, says that the chances of climate change driving humans to extinction are very low, if not zero.

It’s possible that hominids could replace humans if humans go extinct, similar to the movie Planet of the Apes. 

However, some say that the evolutionary step from animals to a species like humans might have been very unlikely to occur. 

Existing primates would have an easier time moving into the environments humans vacate. Baboons, which already live in close proximity with humans in South Africa, are social and have similar intelligence to chimpanzees. 

Plant and animal species that have formed close bonds with humanity are the most likely to suffer if humans disappear. For example, the crops that feed the world, reliant as they are on regular applications of pesticides and fertilizers, would swiftly be replaced by their wild forebears.

When non-avian dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago, mammals rose to fill many of their vacant niches. If humans were to disappear, it’s possible that birds, the only surviving dinosaurs, could fill our roles as the smartest and handiest land animals

Humans are considered the most intelligent species on Earth due to their cognitive abilities, creativity, and problem-solving skills. However, some researchers have discovered cognitive abilities in other species, such as chimps, dolphins, crows, parrots, and octopuses. 

Humans have evolved differently from other animals. They have larger brains relative to their body size and in absolute size than other mammals. Humans are also the most cultural species, with information spreading faster in human populations than changes in genetics. 

The development of human intelligence is thought to have been influenced by factors such as: 

  • Our ability to use and manipulate tools 
  • Our complex social structures 
  • Our capacity for symbolic thought and language 

According to Robin Dunbar, a professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford, no animal will develop human-like intelligence if its circumstances don’t become similar to those that required our ancestors to develop bigger brains.

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8 thoughts on “If humans suddenly disappeared from Earth

  1. Reminds me of the Charlton Heston movie, Planet of the Apes where the earth was destoryed and apes developed higher intelligence. Also, Margaret Atwood’s book, Oryx and Crake where humans are almost completely wiped out and cities are taken over by wild pigs. Interesting.

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