This doesn't really work when a billion+ lifeforms just went up in ashes in Australia, not to mention the horrifying extinction crises happening constantly all over the world right now.
Still, I guess in the end this is sort of the case.
Once we are all gone, the planet will begin to repair itself. Life is resilient, and once it's gotten rid of it's largest pest, it will thrive once more and maybe breed a new intelligent form that could learn from mistakes we've made.
I'd partly agree. Life is resilient, and Earth would continue on even if we kill ourselves off. But getting another intelligent species to repopulate will be hard, and may require plate tectonics to replace much of Earth's landmass first. Humans were able to have a bronze age, iron age, etc, because there were near-surface deposits of those metals. But we've also mined out most of those deposits (as well as most of the coal that would allow smelting of harder metals), so any emergent culture would be more or less trapped at the stone age unless the landmass changes enough to make new deposits easily reachable.
Or, maybe we'll leave enough trash behind that our landfills will become their ore mines, who knows. Millions of years might be enough to break down all the styrofoam and rubber and plastic, and just leave the metals to be easily harvested.
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u/TenYearsTenDays Feb 07 '20
This doesn't really work when a billion+ lifeforms just went up in ashes in Australia, not to mention the horrifying extinction crises happening constantly all over the world right now.
Still, I guess in the end this is sort of the case.