Question: If humans become extinct what would happen to the Earth?

Christina Pagel answered on 18 Jun 2013:

Hi,

I think the Earth would probably do quite well out of it !! the earth has another 5 billion years of time before the end (when our sun will end its life and swallow the earth in the process) – so it’s only half way there!

If humans went extinct, gradually over hundreds of years cities and other signs of human habitats would be taken over by plants and then wildlife would move in… it would probably be quite different wildlife to what existed before humans became so widespread, but nonetheless animals and plants would expand to fill the gap… in a few million years who knows what would be the new dominant animal? once it was the dinosaurs, then mammals, then humans (who are mammals too) – maybe another species will become dominant and technological like we did.

If humans become extinct through some terrible catastrophe (meteor, nuclear war, climate change), it will take longer for the other life to spread but it *will* happen!