The World Without People
Recently the History Channel indulged itself and us in a scrumptious fantasy that I am sure has occurred, in one form or another, to many who have found themselves trapped in a box filled with their own kind, such as a traffic jam backed up for blocks and even miles. The program, called "Life After People" presented the world as it is likely to exist at various intervals, starting from a day when suddenly there are no more humans on the planet.
The program gave no reason for this total disappearance, and thus it avoided having to deal with the first and the only really horrible result of such a situation in real life -- the dispersal of all the billions of human bodies that, after some mega-catastrophe such as the explosions of thousands of neutron bombs, would be left lying around all over the place.
I wonder how a presentation like this is taken by those who so endlessly toast the human animal? In demonstrating that its departure would be a godsend to everything else on the planet, except lapdogs, this depiction reduced the species and all its vaunted accomplishments to total insignificance.
The makers of this program pointed out that everything that humans build is contrary to the desires of Nature, and therefore Nature would waste no time in wiping out these structures, by a great variety of means, till, after about 10,000 years the Earth's entire landmass would once again just be a collection of bucolic landscapes of various kinds.
Much more than a city-dweller, a person living in a rural setting knows the absolute certainty of that.
As you might expect, the lights would start going out immediately, and the last operating power plant would probably be the one at Hoover Dam, which is responsible for the desert extravagance of Las Vegas. Because the "fuel" is the water hammering through from Lake Mead, things can operate there without human hands for months and even years. But after a time its generators, too, would gradually come to a halt -- because of tiny mussels that would have built up enough to block the water intake coolant pipes. But the dam itself would last many hundreds of years, maybe even thousands, because it is built so stoutly.
The first creatures that would feel the brunt of no more people would be the numerous breeds of small dogs. They wouldn't last more than a few weeks, because they wouldn't be able to get out of the house, and if any did manage to escape, they would soon wish they had stayed inside. Meanwhile big dogs would go back to where they came from, becoming forms of wolves. Meanwhile any animals that could break out of the zoos would start having the field day that they would so richly deserve.
I was gratified to see that my favorite domestic animals, cats, would keep right on doing what they do best, which is to assume that everything is done for their comfort and well-being. A great many of them would soon find a fruitful new habitat -- in the skyscrapers of the big cities, which, with all the windows blown out and everything resplendent with rust, mold, and what-not, would become overgrown with flora of all kinds and overrun with cat food on the move. The program suggested that some cats might even evolve webbing between their legs, so that they could glide from building to building like flying squirrels. I thought that image, however, was doubtful. Cats know when they look good, and they would resist looking like airborne potholders.
In that same vein would come the most salutary result of all. In the absence of humans using the seas as "a pantry and as a dump," the populations in the oceans would start regenerating almost instantly, and in just a few years things would be back to the huge abundance of fish and other fauna of just a few hundred years ago, with unbelievable possibilities -- if you or I could still be around -- such as being able to walk across the water on the backs of turtles.
Through the miracle of computer graphics the program had numerous shots of gigantic, iconic structures wasting away, and the sights of them crashing to the ground or the water were spectacular -- the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower, the Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower. And eventually even the Giza Pyramids, built at such huge costs in blood, sweat, tears, and futility, would become covered over by the desert sands, without the Nile crocodiles ever noticing. Disappointingly, no mention was made of the only iconic structure that I have seen on a daily basis, the simple granite obelisk of the Washington Monument in D.C.
One expert on the program proposed that the longest lasting trace of the human presence would be Mt. Rushmore, because it is carved in granite and is in a geologically stable place. But I thought this was sad and inappropriate. I'm not disparaging the four figures that are celebrated there, but they have been honored in a great many other places and in a great many other ways. Borglum's work, which I have seen, struck me as being only an unseemly interruption in some otherwise worthwhile scenery.
My candidate for the "Last Trace Visible" is instead the Chief Crazy Horse mountain sculpture, located just a few miles from Mt. Rushmore. My wife and I saw that marvel in one of its first stages, back in 1966, when its originator, Korczak Ziolkowski, was still alive. Wouldn't it be so much more fitting if that tribute to a people who truly lived in harmony with Nature was the last discernible evidence of the touch of the human hand on the face of the planet.
The program gave no reason for this total disappearance, and thus it avoided having to deal with the first and the only really horrible result of such a situation in real life -- the dispersal of all the billions of human bodies that, after some mega-catastrophe such as the explosions of thousands of neutron bombs, would be left lying around all over the place.
I wonder how a presentation like this is taken by those who so endlessly toast the human animal? In demonstrating that its departure would be a godsend to everything else on the planet, except lapdogs, this depiction reduced the species and all its vaunted accomplishments to total insignificance.
The makers of this program pointed out that everything that humans build is contrary to the desires of Nature, and therefore Nature would waste no time in wiping out these structures, by a great variety of means, till, after about 10,000 years the Earth's entire landmass would once again just be a collection of bucolic landscapes of various kinds.
Much more than a city-dweller, a person living in a rural setting knows the absolute certainty of that.
As you might expect, the lights would start going out immediately, and the last operating power plant would probably be the one at Hoover Dam, which is responsible for the desert extravagance of Las Vegas. Because the "fuel" is the water hammering through from Lake Mead, things can operate there without human hands for months and even years. But after a time its generators, too, would gradually come to a halt -- because of tiny mussels that would have built up enough to block the water intake coolant pipes. But the dam itself would last many hundreds of years, maybe even thousands, because it is built so stoutly.
The first creatures that would feel the brunt of no more people would be the numerous breeds of small dogs. They wouldn't last more than a few weeks, because they wouldn't be able to get out of the house, and if any did manage to escape, they would soon wish they had stayed inside. Meanwhile big dogs would go back to where they came from, becoming forms of wolves. Meanwhile any animals that could break out of the zoos would start having the field day that they would so richly deserve.
I was gratified to see that my favorite domestic animals, cats, would keep right on doing what they do best, which is to assume that everything is done for their comfort and well-being. A great many of them would soon find a fruitful new habitat -- in the skyscrapers of the big cities, which, with all the windows blown out and everything resplendent with rust, mold, and what-not, would become overgrown with flora of all kinds and overrun with cat food on the move. The program suggested that some cats might even evolve webbing between their legs, so that they could glide from building to building like flying squirrels. I thought that image, however, was doubtful. Cats know when they look good, and they would resist looking like airborne potholders.
In that same vein would come the most salutary result of all. In the absence of humans using the seas as "a pantry and as a dump," the populations in the oceans would start regenerating almost instantly, and in just a few years things would be back to the huge abundance of fish and other fauna of just a few hundred years ago, with unbelievable possibilities -- if you or I could still be around -- such as being able to walk across the water on the backs of turtles.
Through the miracle of computer graphics the program had numerous shots of gigantic, iconic structures wasting away, and the sights of them crashing to the ground or the water were spectacular -- the Brooklyn Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower, the Space Needle, the Eiffel Tower. And eventually even the Giza Pyramids, built at such huge costs in blood, sweat, tears, and futility, would become covered over by the desert sands, without the Nile crocodiles ever noticing. Disappointingly, no mention was made of the only iconic structure that I have seen on a daily basis, the simple granite obelisk of the Washington Monument in D.C.
One expert on the program proposed that the longest lasting trace of the human presence would be Mt. Rushmore, because it is carved in granite and is in a geologically stable place. But I thought this was sad and inappropriate. I'm not disparaging the four figures that are celebrated there, but they have been honored in a great many other places and in a great many other ways. Borglum's work, which I have seen, struck me as being only an unseemly interruption in some otherwise worthwhile scenery.
My candidate for the "Last Trace Visible" is instead the Chief Crazy Horse mountain sculpture, located just a few miles from Mt. Rushmore. My wife and I saw that marvel in one of its first stages, back in 1966, when its originator, Korczak Ziolkowski, was still alive. Wouldn't it be so much more fitting if that tribute to a people who truly lived in harmony with Nature was the last discernible evidence of the touch of the human hand on the face of the planet.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 9:15 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home