Aftermath: Population Zero Page #6

---

Canyon toward the Hoover Dam,

which was built to hold back 45,000

pounds of water per square foot.

This is its greatest test yet.

The water pours over the Hoover dam,

sweeping away everything in its path.

The Colorado River rages

southward at 25 miles an hour,

swamping dozens of dams on its way.

18 hours later it reaches

the Gulf of California.

And for the first time in centuries,

the Colorado River meets

the ocean as a flood,

not a stream.

The release of the Colorado

will transform this

part of North America.

Fish from the ocean will

come to this estuary to spawn.

A vast marsh, once one of

the wonders of the Americas,

will be revitalized.

Hundreds of species will find new homes

as river and ocean combine.

Nature is reclaiming the world.

In France, parts of

Paris are a marsh again.

In California, irrigated

fields have reverted to deserts.

And Manhattan is a forest.

As altered rivers return

to their natural state,

silt creates new land.

Coastlines change.

South of New Orleans, over 200

square miles of swampland re-emerges,

lost when humans dammed

up the Mississippi.

Our sudden disappearance

is affecting the oceans too.

Once, we took 518 million pounds

of fish from the sea every day.

Now, with no trawlers to catch them,

fish live longer and grow bigger.

Cod have tripled in size,

growing from just a foot

or two up to six feet.

Much larger creatures are

also recovering in our absence.

Whales are thriving after

200 years without people.

And they've had a lot to recover from.

Before the petroleum industry,

whales were a major source

of oil for machines and lamps.

Most whale hunting declined

when humans started

extracting oil from the ground.

But many species remained on the brink

of extinction for centuries to come.

The reason:
large modern ships.

In our last 50 years on earth,

the number of ships worldwide doubled.

So did the noise they generated.

Some of the sound from these vessels

carried for miles under the oceans.

As a result, whales could no longer

hear each other's mating calls,

and they rely on sound to find

mates up to a thousand miles away.

With humans gone,

whales' mating songs are being

heard from Canada to the Caribbean.

After 200 years,

our impact here is vanishing.

The oceans once again teem with life.

But on land there are still

relics of humanity that remain.

We built symbols of our

power when we ruled the earth.

But how long will they last?

It's now 230 years

after humans disappear.

Few signs remain

that an intelligent, creative

species once lived here.

One of the grandest is also one of the

world's most recognizable

modern monuments:

the Eiffel Tower.

Over a thousand feet tall,

it was constructed in

1889 for a world exhibition

and was meant to be torn

down twenty years later.

But the French fell in

love with their Tower,

and it became one of the most

famous landmarks in the world.

This 19th century marvel of construction

was designed by bridge builders,

and it's been standing

now for centuries,

outlasting even modern skyscrapers.

The lattice structure gives the Tower

strength without using much metal.

And the entire tower

weighs just 7,300 tons.

When people were still around,

the Eiffel Tower was covered in 60 tons

of paint to protect it from the elements.

But 230 years of weather

has taken its toll.

Rain has flaked away the paint.

Rust eats away at the Tower's iron.

With every rainstorm, the

entire structure erodes

and becomes more brittle.

Now, the Tower is vulnerable

even to moderate winds.

Normally, its support beams

can withstand these winds,

but now, they're too weak.

Three centuries after it was built,

the Tower comes crashing down.

Paris's landscape changes forever.

Monuments and buildings

can't adapt to this new world;

they're frozen by the

techniques used to create them.

But species can evolve

as conditions change.

Here, in the forests of Paris,

animals that we left

behind have adapted.

Most of these pigs are

descendants of pink pigs.

They thrive in the shadow

of the ruined Eiffel Tower.

These feral pigs bred with

surving domesticated ones

to create a hearty, tough

animal with dark fur.

They are survivors in

the new world without us.

Even while the modern

world collapses around them,

those that adapt survive.

Another symbol of human ingenuity

stands on the other side of the Atlantic.

How has it changed in the two hundred

thirty years since we vanished?

The Statue of Liberty was built

in 1886 of massive copper plates.

She's three years older

than the Eiffel Tower.

Since humans disappeared,

some parts of her are

faring better than before.

Acid rain used to eat away at her skin,

stripping her of one

pound of copper every year.

Pollution coated her nose

and cheeks with black grime.

But cleaner skies

have led to a cleaner statue.

Liberty's skin has benefited

from the absence of humans,

but other parts of her body haven't.

Over the centuries, a forest

has grown up around her

and it's littered with copper plates.

The plates are about as thick as two

pennies and can last a thousand years.

So why is the Statue of

Liberty losing her skin?

After 230 years, the statue's

arm has finally collapsed.

If copper is the statue's skin,

iron bars are its skeleton.

And like the Eiffel Tower,

these iron bars have rusted through.

The shoulder bars became too weak

to hold up the arm and its torch.

Now, this symbol of freedom

is only visible to wildlife.

The Statue's arm and

torch were first to fall,

but that was just the beginning.

More than two hundred

years have taken their toll

on some of our most iconic monuments.

It's only a matter of time

before they disappear forever.

Signs of the human species are becoming

harder to find in North America.

The eastern half of the continent

is covered by immense forests.

Without us to cut them down,

trees are growing 90 feet

tall and blocking the sunlight.

But the trees do more than tower

above old suburbs and roads,

they bury them.

After two hundred thirty years,

falling leaves have created

three feet of new soil

and cover nearly

everything we left behind.

Occasionally, rain-swollen streams

reveal the remains of human existence.

This is all that's left of a home,

centuries after the wooden

beams and floors rotted away.

Plastic from modern houses

also litters the ground.

This cell phone is still intact,

more than 200 years

after the last phone call.

It may survive for centuries.

Most metals have rusted through, but

stainless steel is truly stainless.

This kitchen sink may last

for thousands of years,

but for animals to last,

some need to adapt.

In the West, caribou and deer roam over

millions of acres of former farm land.

And once again, so do the

thunderous hooves of bison.

Their herds can grow

by 30 percent a year.

From a species of half a million,

their numbers are now reaching

into the tens of millions.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes