I liked this article. It was a weird feeling to read it because I felt like it would be quite nice if humans disappeared from the planet…
At the same time I’m happy to be here, enjoying all the tech we have and the tools we have, the food we eat.
I still think humans can live in harmony with nature but we don’t have any good leaders to take civilization in that direction. So in the end, we will probably perish because we fought over power and money until there was nothing left.
There are no possible consiquences, nature regains equlibrium again.
Some examples of short-term consequences that the book explores: who is the last human on Earth? How do they feel? How do humans come to terms with the extinction as it’s happening? How does society prepare, and how do we avoid sabotage and violence on the way out?
Longer-term consequences that the book explores: what lasts longest of what we leave behind? If the extinction happens after we develop more autonomous computers, what do those computers do once the humans are gone? What have they been directed to do?
Not necessarily. If we disappear, there will be no one left to maintain the dangerous technology we use that could ruin the planet further if it fails. For example, nuclear power plants.
Of course, even that will eventually clear up, and the planet will recover, but I wasn’t sure if you meant short-term or long-term.
Long term. Those problems will be resolved (mostly) in a few hundred years.
You forget toxic waste.
That problem will resolve itself (mostly) in a few hundred years. There will be no one to polute any further, thus nature will regain what was taken from her.