"Life After People"

[Gina]

Anyone else hooked on this History Channel series?? I find it just absolutely fascinating!! Any other fans?

 

[Feralpeg]

I like it. It's amazing how fast nature will take over once people are gone.

 

[FireDancer]

I started watching it because the concept is fascinating but I found the science a bit speculative. I do still watch it occasionally but it isn't as good as I thought it would be.

It is still head and shoulders above any of the reality crap that passes as entertainment so I give it to the History Channel for that.

 

[bicker]

Folks should be aware that most of what they're presenting is speculation, but still, it is a fun show. We've enjoyed watching it. (Past tense, because I think the last episode is sitting in our Now Playing List on our TiVo.) What I liked most is how they kept the tone light; the show could have been very depressing is presented differently. We've also been watching Nature's Most Amazing Events, and that was getting very hard to watch because it was presented in a manner that it was often very upsetting, very depressing.

 

[SAHDad]

It's a neat show, though I agree that much is speculation. They can state that, absent people to operate the locks, Chicago will flood, or that refineries will eventually go boom, but the timeline for some of the stuff is pure speculation, especially once they clear the six month or one year point.

On the other hand, yeah - parts of Detroit (and other areas in the rust belt) do provide a nice example of how quickly this is true:

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

[bicker]

I think the inaccuracy runs in both directions, i.e., some of their speculation is actually a bit too optimistic. They talk about when this-and-such will degrade to whatever point, but they're often overlooking the potential negative downstream ramifications of other, seemingly unrelated things.

 

[browneyes106]

I like watching the show. It's a bit depressing at times. I really liked the original two hour documentary. NGC had similar documentary called Aftermathopulation Zero.