The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/nov/28/great-abandonment-what-happens-natural-world-people-disappear-bulgaria

by zeristor • 2 years ago

145 195 2 years ago

scooke• 2 years ago

The perspective of the entire article is confused. Abandonment doesn't overcome and infuse something. It's not an action; it is a state. And what happens TO nature? No, what does nature DO when humanity stops what it does to nature. Réclamation, from the proper perspective; abandonment is from the human perspective.

pololeono• 2 years ago

It is all about aesthetics. Humanity is also part of nature.

falcor84• 2 years ago

As I understand it, it's not about aesthetics per-se, but rather that "nature" is a semantic concept defined by us humans for anything that is outside of the human sphere - i.e. something is "natural" or "out in nature" or "nature's way" if it's what would have been if humans hadn't been involved.

g8oz• 2 years ago

In the manner of an algal bloom, yes.

jpcom• 2 years ago

Covid was a great example of how the natural world returns to harmony when human antagonism via noise/sound pollution and so forth is suddenly halted. I think a lot of dolphins in the sea rejoiced.

Neil44• 2 years ago

The article actually argues that the idea that nature finds lovely balances if we just get out of the way is not correct. A lot of what we view as stable ecosystems are stable because of our management and influence over millennia. Nature on it's own is not a thing, there are no checks and balances, no intention, no morality. The quote from the article is that nature does not organise it's self into neat parables.

Der_Einzige• 2 years ago

This is called the "baseline" problem among conservationists.

vacuity• 2 years ago

So I get the sense that we can be considered part of nature, and however much or little influence we exert is a part of the overall system. It can balance to an extent with our presence and will do so without it.

KineticLensman• 2 years ago

The article doesn't claim that 'nature finds lovely balances if we just get out of the way'. It says

> Over time, Clements’ more sweeping theories were picked apart by fellow botanists. The stable, permanent climax communities he had theorised proved elusive: field studies continued to find ecosystems passing through unpredictable cycles of collapse, regeneration, divergence and stasis. Today, this deterministic version of succession theory is seen as widely debunked. But Clements’ vision endured in the popular imagination – sometimes to the frustration of ecologists.

...

> To harness the full environmental possibilities offered by the great abandonment will require changing our conception of humanity’s relationship to nature, and understanding how our species can benefit ecosystems as well as harm them. It will also require human intention: neglect alone is not enough

ocschwar2• 2 years ago

In the 1960s there was a long overdue correction to the Australian constitution because the preamble mentioned the continent's "flora and fauna" in a way that implied Aborigines were part of the "fauna." The wording was grossly racist, and had to be changed because of the politics, but from an ecological standpoint, there was some truth to it. Australia's ecosystems were stable because of how Aborigines interacted with them.

wruza• 2 years ago

Learning about logistic map, phase spaces and attractors helped a lot with understanding the fundamentals of natural evolution. It doesn’t really answer any question (akin to Newton laws don’t really answer how to build Ford). But it makes you grasp the whole model. It’s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor all the way down.

Tldr, things get stable until they aren’t and then they may remain unstable for a while, and you never know how, why and how long in general, unless it’s something really obvious and measurable.

ashoeafoot4• 2 years ago

We are part of the natural world and your natural world is a place of constant savagery.

cjs_ac• 2 years ago

As populations move and shrink, people are leaving long-occupied places behind. Often they leave everything in place, ready for a return that never comes. In Tyurkmen, Christmas baubles still hang from the curtain rails in empty houses, slowly being wrapped by spiders. In one abandoned home, a porcelain cabinet lay inside a crater of rotted floorboards, plates still stacked above a spare packet of nappies for a visiting grandchild. Occasionally, abandonment happens all at once, when a legal ruling or evacuation sends people scuttling. But mostly, it is haphazard, creeping, unplanned. People just go.

This always confuses me. If I were abandoning my home of my own volition, I'd take my possessions with me.

analog31• 2 years ago

Every time I've moved, it involved getting rid of piles of stuff. And my next move will probably be a downsize. I'm already on a mission to get rid of X cubic foot of stuff per year. After helping my mom downsize, I've lost my nostalgia for keeping old stuff around. And my kids want none of it -- they don't know if they will ever own a house, or necessarily what country they'll even live in.

And of course I wonder why stuff piles up. The reasons include laziness and probably a mild hoarding instinct.

ralph84• 2 years ago

Eventually we all die and our heirs if we have any tend to value our possessions closer to the market rate ($0) than we do.

Macha• 2 years ago

Christmas decorations and nappies both strike me as the sort of thing that would get left behind, they're pretty poor in the value/space tradeoff, not to mention that a lot of these houses were left behind when elderly people died. It's not uncommon for elderly people to have stuff they accumulated over the years, it would not surprise me if there's christmas decorations that have been unused for decades in my grandmother's attic, or nappies that were once for grandchildren that are now adults. In a country where the population is growing, this stuff just gets dumped as the heirs clear out the house to sell, but what are these houses in the middle of nowhere with infrastructure that has crumbled away worth?

dotinvoke• 2 years ago

Those old homes are usually used as storage for things that don't fit into their new, urban homes. The market value and taxes are low, so there's no point in selling.

Then eventually, without realizing, you have gone there for the last time, and there's nothing left to move to your new home.

Alternatively, the last old person who lived in the house dies or goes into a care home, and their kids (if they have any) never find the time to clear out the old place. There's no one to sell it to, anyway, so they have all the time in the world.

Rygian• 2 years ago

Life After People is a TV show that covers some answers to the title, from several points of view.

wmwmwm• 2 years ago

Book recommendation for The World Without Us which explores what might happen if humans vanished overnight: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_Without_Us

Animats3• 2 years ago

Wikipedia has a list of ghost towns in the United States.[1]

Most rural towns were built to serve surrounding farms and ranches. As farming became less labor-intensive, the need for those towns went away, and the towns slowly died. See "Depopulation of the Great Plains"[2] It's interesting to note that the depopulated area is the best part of the US for wind power. That could work out OK.

Mining towns die when the resource is exhausted. They go fast.

Japan, where the population is rapidly declining, has a large number of empty rural towns. There's an incentive program to get young people to move there, but not many are interested. Because Japan's infrastructure is centrally funded, much of the infrastructure is still maintained in areas with very few people.

Russia has a declining population and entire abandoned cities. Putin is pushing young people to have kids. There's a "Pregnant at 16" TV show in Russia, which has been re-branded to encourage pregnancy.[3]

The countries that are above breakeven (2.1 children per woman) are all in Africa or are dominated by religions which oppress women. And poor.[4] "Peak baby" was in 2013 worldwide.

There are two futures, both bad. "Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant", or "Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_ghost_towns_in_the_Un...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depopulation_of_the_Great_Plai...

[3] https://meduza.io/en/feature/2024/11/05/as-russia-targets-ab...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_fer...

RestartKernel• 2 years ago

[3] is really interesting. I'm not surprised, but it really feels like history is happening when even the mundane starts to reflect it.

tokioyoyo5• 2 years ago

I don’t think it will work as long as women have access to information and literally anything else to do in life other than making endless babies. I fear there will be a push against women’s freedom of choice, once things become dire enough that can’t be patched with immigration.

It’s just a huge opportunity loss if you talk to any young woman, and they’re obviously right. There is no tangible benefit to have more than two children other than “for the humanity!”.

whartung• 2 years ago

Mining towns die when the resource is exhausted. They go fast.

In Nevada/Eastern California there was a railroad that went from the Carson City area down toward Owen’s Lake.

The interesting part is if you look at the railroad map, pretty much none of the stops exist anymore. It’s a long string of communities that are all long gone from the eastern Owen’s Valley.

Even the eventual highways that were to follow ended up coming down the western side of the valley, yet more reason for those late communities to no longer exist.

And it’s pretty much all gone. No ghost towns, maybe a few overgrown foundations remnants.

But if you had never seen this railroad map, you’d probably never have any idea this land was occupied at all.

partomniscient• 2 years ago

As an outsider looking-in that caught some of this portrays in Pixar/Disney's animated Cars [1] movies its interesting to reflect upon the parallels with its Route 66 references, which originate from and also culturally impacted us locally [2].

It's also ironic that Route 66 [3] was originally in-and-of itself a bypass.

As someone that predominantly lived in a capital urban city of a nation still expanding rather than contracting, understanding its equivalent occurence in Bulgaria is even more difficult.

[1] https://betweenenglandandiowa.com/2018/02/11/cars-route-66-m...

[2] https://route66.com.au/

[3] https://www.britannica.com/topic/Route-66

asdff• 2 years ago

I think with the owens valley the population mainly agglomerated to the towns that are there today probably reflecting the sorts of jobs around. I’m sure Bishop is bigger than its ever been today.

jdlshore• 2 years ago

There are two futures, both bad.

Or, more likely, people are extrapolating from current trends, and those trends won’t hold. Not that long ago, people were doing that extrapolation and deciding that overpopulation and worldwide famine were in our future. “The Population Bomb” was a bestselling book along those lines.

The population is likely to shrink, easing strain on resources, and people will look back fondly on “the good old days” when folks had big families. Trends will shift and the population will grow again.

benchmarkist17• 2 years ago

It's a self-correcting problem. The people who don't have children select themselves out of the gene pool and are replaced by those who do have children.

jvanderbot3• 2 years ago

I believe we're in a correction period. All through history it was dangerous and debilitating for women to have children. As women's reproductive and voting rights and freedom increased (a nanosecond ago history wise), more couples self-selected out of that and if they had kids they had them later. Myself and my spouse included. Add to that - it's expensive and difficult to raise kids without support. Either you buy support or you neglect huge opportunities and say near parents.

Right now, we pay more for our nanny than we do for our house, and combined both are pretty huge chunks of our income - and we're both fairly successful professionals.

Eventually, there will be better resources for working couples to have kids. It's a fairly easy problem to solve: More childcare options, more housing supply (so its cheaper to live), and more childcare workers by e.g., reducing regulations and improving immigration policy. USA has no reason to do this - we have good demographics b/c of immigration and (frankly) Calthocism and its ilk.

When I married into a catholic family I inherited 100s of cousins, and there's 1000s of relatives in our state now.

Mistletoe• 2 years ago

Population shrinking is going to annihilate the current economic system we have where everyone puts their retirement into stocks. Then the shell-shocked people will be even more poor and unable to afford having children. You have to have new entrants to the pyramid to buy the stocks that the people all want to sell to finance their retirement.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10680-009-9179-9

Places like Japan and Korea aren’t having the sort of birth rate turnaround you are discussing.

dustypotato• 2 years ago

There are very few if not zero number of countries going back to replacement levels after they fell from it. The world on average is getting richer and richer countries have falling birthrates

ANewFormation5• 2 years ago

But you don't need to extrapolate. Current rates are far more than sufficient for catastrophe. It's merely that the effects of dangerously high fertility rates are immediate while the effects of dangerously low fertility tend to lag the advent of said reduction by around 60 years.

So for instance Japan is still living the good times relative to what's yet to come since they collapsed in the 80s. South Korea hasn't even begun to really feel the consequences of their actions since they only collapsed in the 90s. And places like Finland or the Western world in general only collapsed even more recently.

But collapsed they have. And because our fertile window in life, for women at least, closes long before we die - most, if not all, of these places will, unavoidably, see dramatic population declines, screwed age ratios (with consequent impacts on the labor/retiree pool/costs), shrinking economies, and so on. And we're left to rely on some ever smaller generation(s) down the line to start having large families in this context.

beAbU• 2 years ago

There are two futures, both bad.

The more likely scenario is a natural oscillation between these two outcomes, similar to how animals maintain oscillating population equilibrium that's controlled by space, resources and predation.

Cthulhu_• 2 years ago

I mean one thing many people, myself included, have been clamoring for ages is that people can't afford to live and own property anymore. People can't afford to think about raising kids if they're stressed about your next paycheck and making rent.

This is probably oversimplified and naive, but go back to the 80's economically where families could afford a family-raising sized home and a comfortable life on a single income. Bring jobs back to the smaller towns, which are safer and healthier places to raise families.

elzbardico5• 2 years ago

If I am not mistaken we had other depopulation events in history and we rebounded from it. Especially in the past where surviving the first years was far from guaranteed and nutrition levels and hardship frequently imposed a tax on women’s fertility. Combine this with lower life expectancies and we had the recipe for quite a few depopulation events.

The point is. There’s no much you can do if people don’t want to have kids. And this is probably generational, so you won’t change the mind of the current generations.

We will need to learn to live without it. Retirement while healthy and capable of work, will probably become a thing of the past.

Also, we will probably have to rethink compound interest and inheritance rights. Compound interest on investments require by necessity monotonically increasing economy outputs in the long run.

moomin• 2 years ago

Honestly, I think you could adjust population growth in many western countries by just spending more on schools, providing generous parental leave and generally making having kids less daunting. But it seems like everyone who wants this outcome is entirely comfortable with going full Nazi on the subject.

carlosjobim3• 2 years ago

There’s no much you can do if people don’t want to have kids.

"Don't want" to have kids. Just like people "don't want" to own their own house and "don't want" to have a retirement when they get old and "don't want" to have a living salary.

dzink• 2 years ago

Nope. Look at Israel - their Kibbutz system allows for communal raising of children and that means women have the ability to do more than be stuck at homes. They serve in the IDF, have careers, and population growth is 3 children per woman. Israel has the right model - governments who figure out how to support their mothers with proper childcare and education for the kids will get a developed society with proper population growth.

TomK32• 2 years ago

As usual, religion is to blame for this high rate:

In 2020, the total fertility rate among ultra-Orthodox women in Israel was 6.6, while the rate among Arab women was 3.0, and among secular women, it was 2.0 — still well above the OECD average — according to a report from the Jerusalem Institute for Policy Research.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-birth-rate-remains-hig...

lotsofpulp12• 2 years ago

They serve in the IDF, have careers, and population growth is 3 children per woman.

The women that do the above most certainly have a TFR closer to 2 rather than 3.

See table 1 at top of page 7 and figure 2 on page 8.

https://www.taubcenter.org.il/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Dem...

slibhb• 2 years ago

There are two futures, both bad. "Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant", or "Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights."

One data point against this dichotomy is that most women in the West generally report wanting more children than they have.

A different view is that, in the first world, men and women have become more neurotic and risk averse. E.g. "we can't afford kids with this market"

jajko• 2 years ago

"we can't afford kids with this market"

This seems like a gross simplification. In western world, the pressure is to raise kids well rather than just so-so, since one can easily see how much this helps them with rest of modern complex life. For example emotional stability, maturity and resilience is not something that comes automatically regardless of quality (and quantity) of parenting. This aspect alone is enough to make or break literally any conceivable talent or wealth under our sun.

And raising kids well these days is... hard, very hard. If it would be just question of money, rich folks would be all having 10-15 kids yet even those who are pretty horrible parents via ignoring their kids most of the time (with corresponding results later in life) very rarely do so, and if they do its normally the result of their instabilities and mental issues rather than part of a bigger plan.

mistrial9• 2 years ago

source? here is recent Pew Research data in the US

family relationships - parenting report Jul 25, 2024 The Experiences of U.S. Adults Who Don’t Have Children

The U.S. fertility rate reached a historic low in 2023, with a growing share of women ages 25 to 44 having never given birth.

cryptonector2• 2 years ago

There are two futures, both bad. "Keep 'em barefoot and pregnant", or "Will the last one to leave please turn out the lights."

Overly pessimistic. Our culture and economy have been structured to yield low fertility. That will eventually pass. There's no need for oppression to get replacement rate fertility.

ralfd• 2 years ago

Overly pessimistic. Our culture and economy have been structured to yield low fertility. That will eventually pass.

But I don't see succesful attempts culture/economy changed to be family friendly?

Realistically our culture/economy right now "will pass" by being replaced with the virile Amish.

credit_guy3• 2 years ago

Low birth rates happen because it takes effort (and money) to raise children. There is a lot of satisfaction too, but for many couples the breakeven point is at one child, or less.

But with the advent of AI, it is quite likely that some of the effort will be gone. Imagine a robot that does the dishes, folds clothes, or changes diapers. Or a robot that teaches patiently a child to speak a foreign language, or teaches them algebra. Maybe with a human (read parent) in the loop. I know this can easily slide into becoming stuff of nightmares (e.g. M3GAN), but with a bit of trial and error I'm sure we'll be able to strike a balance where the AI will be useful but not dangerous. After all, fire can kill yet we use it in our kitchens.

pyuser5834• 2 years ago

Do you have kids?

AlexDragusin• 2 years ago

This documentary explores this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l11zPNb-MFg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aftermath:_Population_Zero

Aftermath: Population Zero - The World without Humans What would happen if, tomorrow, every single person on Earth simply disappeared? Not dead, simply gone, just like that. A world without people, where city streets are still populated by cars, but no drivers. A world where there is no one to fix bridges or repair broken windows…

MarkusWandel• 2 years ago

Say what? Wikipedia says it's a Canadian production, Youtube says "not available in your country". I'm in Canada.

Edit: It's just that particular link. Searching for the title itself brought up a working one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHoOG4eKzbM

ignoramous• 2 years ago

mirror: https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/l11zPNb-MFg

pvaldes• 2 years ago

Some years of great success ended by a rust nuclear plant suddenly exploding.

wongogue• 2 years ago

Check out the DMZ in Korea and Chernobyl.

guenthert• 2 years ago

Afaik, the region which is now the DMZ was never industrialized. So this is a very special case with little toxic waste (other than the occasional landmine).

theendisney• 2 years ago

It would be cool to plant a food forest. Give it 60-80 years and it might just change into a garden of Eden.

jandrewrogers• 2 years ago

I have spent time in remote parts of North America that have seen few if any humans in several decades. The thing you notice in that country is that there are a lot of animals and the animals behave differently when they see you than animals almost anywhere else. They’ve never seen a human before, for generations, and so you are a novelty in their environment that they know nothing about.

Interestingly, humans (without canids) apparently don’t come across as much of a threat by default. I would be approached by curious animals that in any other environment would never allow themselves to be remotely that close to a human. For lack of a better description, these animals also had much more “personality” than the wild animals you see near civilization.

Until you’ve seen the actual wilds, it is easy to forget how much of the “wilds” are actually quite zoo-like.

EB-Barrington• 2 years ago

In remote parts of the Chernobyl exclusion zone, I saw wild approach closely and then be hand-fed.

I had the same thoughts as you - these animals don't behave as expected - it's like they haven't yet learned that humans can be dangerous.

MrLeap• 2 years ago

I live out in the country. Not quite "wilds" but it's about a 45 minute drive to the nearest walmart and we drink water out of a well. It's remote enough that only a few cars drive by a month.

I've also found that the animals behave differently out here, or appear to anyhow. Maybe it's just there's more sensory room to notice the differences. There's a family of small furry rodents that greet me a few feet away from the porch every morning. Birdsong also has a load of hidden complexity to it I've never noticed. Go outside every day and listen to the songs. There's persistence, modification proposals and consensus reaching among birds over days and weeks. I don't know a thing about birds, but it's clear there's a lot of fascinating stuff happening among them.

We have an "armadillo buddy" that lives under the cabin. Clouds of bats swarm between the trees at night and coyotes howl at the moon. There's got to be dozens of rabbits. They'll let you walk right up to them before they run off. Once had to wait for a family of 10 cross the gravel driveway on our way home. Another time there was a large cougar just chilling in the yard.

Having never lived in a rural area until my 30's, it's wild how much activity there is and how close it is to us.

How much of this is because nature doesn't have to work as hard to survive around our cabin, and how much is just being able to notice it? It's a mix for sure.

idontwantthis• 2 years ago

Why did you decide to move out there? It sounds nice and relaxing but I think I would get lonely, or bored.

plasticchris• 2 years ago

I had a similar experience with wild bison - I’ve spent time around domesticated cattle and the wild ones seemed much more intelligent and aware. They would react as soon as you showed your silhouette on the ridge top.

phront• 2 years ago

After I watched the old mario bros movie i thought that dinosaurs might have built a civilization but we see no traces of their deeds. It was very sad to think about that.

briantakita• 2 years ago

Humans can have a positive ecological impact. For example large parts of the Amazon were cultivated forest gardens with biochar used to build the soil. The issue lies with modern consumerism. Where large corporations capture governments & mandate ecological problems. If we get back to our roots of homesteading, growing our own food, managing the health of our soil, we can get back to being a net positive.

hk1337• 2 years ago

Equilibrium is near.

8bitsrule• 2 years ago

One of the more interesting photography books I've seen is 'The Past from Above' by Georg Gerster. 2005, ISBN 0-89236-817-9. Hundreds of aerial shots of long-abandoned archeological sites.

retrac• 2 years ago

There's a section of rail line between Senneterre, QC and Cochrane, ON in north-central Canada constructed as part of a quixotic federal project a century ago to link the grain-growing praries with an Atlantic port. It was barely ever used and then abandoned in the 1990s. It's the very fringe of the interface where North American industrial civilization reached, and has since rolled back. It's amazing how completely nature has swallowed everything back up. The bridges still stand but they won't in another thirty years or so. Even the railbed constructed to high quality with packed stone dust has trees growing out of it again. I've explored some of the route and I was reminded of who were the great engineers here before humans - beavers completely transform landscapes. They've dammed every causeway along the route, which only further accelerates the erosion. They've flooded a couple rail stops and old logging villages I had hoped to check out. Before long you'll have to know exactly what to look for to even find the line.

btbuildem• 2 years ago

That is not a place one visits on a whim, wow!

The great abandonment: what happens to the natural world when people disappear?

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