As we go into yet another day, I am bouyed by the thought that once humanity is finally destroyed by our own hand, the Earth will recover. Within 100 years most modern buildings, houses, and roads will collapse or be completely overgrown by plants and trees, and by 1,000 years steel and concrete structures will have crumbled into dust. Almost all physical evidence of human civilization on the surface will be erased within 10,000 years, leaving behind only buried plastics, altered rock layers, and bronze artifacts. The climate will return to pre-human levels within 100,000 Years - although air and water pollution will clear up rapidly, it'll take greenhouse gases several thousand years to drop to pre-industrial levels, as oceans and forests absorb the excess carbon, and by 80,000 years radioactive waste will finally decay to natural background levels. Rebuilding biodiversity will take a little longer, with Scientists estimating it will take 3 to 10 million years for global biodiversity and lost ecosystems to return to pre-human baselines. And when the Earth is once again clean and pure, I shall return to rule the new Eden. Have a great day, everyone! Not long left now! X
@TheBreadmonkey and then in about 10^10^10^10^2 years we'll all be back here doing the same thing again.
@amiserabilist
you are probably asking a rhetorical question and know the answer but I am a math nerd so I just enjoy talking about things like this...
10^2 is 100, and 10^10^2 is a number with 100 zeros... 10^10^10^2 is a number with as many digits as there are tally marks in counting to the 100 digit number. At that point just storing the number in a computer is impossible, there aren't enough particles in the universe. Then you want one more power...
@glasspusher @dtl @TheBreadmonkey
@TheBreadmonkey
I could use a 10 million year nap. Wake me up for eden please.
@TheBreadmonkey There was a Channel 4 (I think) documentary some years back on this very subject. Basically, almost everything would vanish.
Operating nuclear power stations could run for years unattended until something went wrong.
The worst bit for me was, if humans vanished overnight, then the dairy cows would spend weeks in abject agony due to not being milked!
@NormanDunbar @TheBreadmonkey I often think about what would happen to huge numbers of industrial and military systems - nuclear missiles in their silos, large automated manufacturing plants.
Over geological time, of course, everything would be incorporated back into the earth one way or another 😉
I'm going to be a big tree
@MyricaGale @TheBreadmonkey Mother Nature, bless her, wins every time.
Venus excepted I suppose! 😉
@NormanDunbar @TheBreadmonkey Slightly (but only slightly, promise 😁 ) off topic but you've reminded me of this book, which I think you'd both enjoy.
Fab. Thanks. Another one for the pile! ❤️
Oof. Maybe they would break out and all the little cows (cowlets? mini-moos?) would find them and milk them off.
@TheBreadmonkey and I’m sure you’ll make for an infinitely more empathetic leader than many who currently bark from behind their lofty desks.
@TheBreadmonkey All hail our Lord Ben!
@TheBreadmonkey Ben. Do not ask for whom the Beige Party character count tolls.
It tolls for you.