If we all want away...

[Technoid]

The wet dream of the enviromentals

[Brian Ellis]

This kind of speculation is just alarmist balderdash and has nothing to do with environmentalism. I was unable to watch it all as their server is too slow and periodically blocked downloading, but what I saw just caused my blood pressure to rise.

[The PIT]

This kind of speculation is just alarmist balderdash and has nothing to do with environmentalism. I was unable to watch it all as their server is too slow and periodically blocked downloading, but what I saw just caused my blood pressure to rise.

Typical over reaction. See the Doctor about your blood pressure though.


Interesting speculation although I'd expect a few nuclear power stations to go up to add to the interest. Plus there would also be widespread fires in town if we all disappeared and the power stayed on.

[Dr Mordrid]

I'm with Brian: 90% pure bullshit by a bunch of "Homo Self-Loather" types.

[KRSESQ]

This seems to be a "bandwagon" production based on the History Channel's "Life After People" program.

I thought LAP was mildly entertaining. We like to think that our civilization will last forever. History tells us this is not the case and a show like this (however speculative or sensationalistic) can make one feel a little humbled.

After all, Earth managed to get along without humans for about 4.3 billion years, and it will survive just fine after we're gone.

Kevin

[Jessterw]

I guess I'm missing something. I just can't imagine what about this show would cause some of the expressed sentiments. It's simple, if we (humans) ceased to exists, this is what could possibly happen. Is it shocking that things would, err, change? What's so damned controversial about that?



Oh wait, they mentioned "global warming."

[Brian Ellis]

If we humans were killed off, so would other high forms of life cease to exist (including the birds you hear twittering in the intro). The whole global biotope would suffer as food chains would be broken and most vegetation would die off. Any life that would remain would be fairly primitive forms.

[Technoid]

If we humans were killed off, so would other high forms of life cease to exist (including the birds you hear twittering in the intro). The whole global biotope would suffer as food chains would be broken and most vegetation would die off. Any life that would remain would be fairly primitive forms.

Now it wasn't described as "all humans die" more like the religious idea of god "calling his faithful to paradise".

And even if all "higher animal life forms" were killed off I fail to see how it would effect vegetation in any major way unless you only think vegetation to be the cultivated things you grow in your garden

I'm with Brian: 90% pure bullshit by a bunch of "Homo Self-Loather" types.

Thats mostly why I posted it, it's just something that would appeal to the majority of people I hear that are screeching about the environment.
Most of the time they don't seem to to really be interested in fixing the problem, just spread the opinion that we "should be ashamed", that it's "our fault" and decry any "solution" that doesn't "punish" everyone. (tho one global warming blogger I ran across just wanted to randomly kill a airline exec every time the sea level rose a feet )

[Brian Ellis]

My garden is negligible. Let's consider the swathe of land between the Rockies and the Appalachians without upper life forms. This is devoted in a large measure to wheat, corn and cattle. The soil there is totally depleted in the crop areas and relies on chemical fertilisers to allow the crops to be grown. Without continued cultivation, this sterile soil will support little vegetation and after a few years will become desertified. The resultant dust bowl in drought years will blow over the Appalachians, slowly smothering the natural forest, which will receive no nourishment from the dejections of birds and mammals. As for the cattle ranches, without excrement, they would not survive - and that's not bullshit .

Even tropical rain forests would gradually die off without the nitrogen compounds in animal dejections (except possibly some leguminosae) because the soil layer is so thin and there is no storage of nutrients; it is currently a "just-in-time" ecology. Jungle-floor litter does not contain much nitrogen except that provided by animals.

A large percentage of Europe is covered by monoculture forests (big error, anyway!!!) and they would fall prey to diseases (cf. Dutch elm disease) and pests (bostryches), because there is nothing to stop from them spreading with no insect predators.

There are infinite ways the world's landscape would be modified and, IMHO, vegetation would suffer enormously with just a few hardy plant species surviving, while invertebrates would have a few glorious years before their food species disappeared from most places. Because of changes in the earth's albedo and little evapotranspiration, climates would alter drastically, aided and abetted by the lowering of oxygen levels in the atmosphere from reduced photosynthesis.

My guess is that all multicellular life would disappear within less than a century if all vertebrates disappeared.

[degrub]

"The soil there is totally depleted in the crop areas and relies on chemical fertilisers to allow the crops to be grown. Without continued cultivation, this sterile soil will support little vegetation and after a few years will become desertified. "

Not from what i have observed when fields are left fallow in that area between the hills and the mountains. They do quite well. Corn in particular does require the extra fertilizer to grow well, but other grasses and vegetation do not.

Water seems to be an important ingredient. Certainly, dust storms depend on the lack of it.
Cultivating without any appreciable rain will definitely cause problems as evidenced by the dust bowls from the 30's. Once the topsoils are removed, then you have a point.