‘I would like you to imagine the disappearance of humans from the Earth. We are eliminated, in this scenario, not by means of a devastating nuclear war but by a homo sapiens-specific virus, which results in the swift deletion of our species but leaves our built environment intact,Shop at Lowe's for garage Ceramic tile, and the ecologies of which we are part undisturbed other than by our absence.”
Dr Robert Macfarlane paints a post-apocalyptic picture of a deserted Cambridge,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. not unlike the abandoned scenes of London in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.
From month to month, decade to decade and eventually century to century, Dr Macfarlane explains how the city will alter.
Starting with the “hungry fungi”, houses will be devoured by mould and decay, as would rotting corpses. There is a late winter spell in March, which first freezes pipes and then leads to flooding, bringing down ceilings,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. flattening walls.
Fire follows in the summer, with lightning and gas explosions leaving cratered holes and husked houses.
“There’s plenty of paper fuel in Cambridge, of course: all those libraries, all that research, whose only function now is as superb tinder,” he says. “A college burns to the ground – let us say Trinity, which most unfortunately takes all of St John’s with it as well.”
Streets in the first couple of years are “volatile” as asphalt and paving cracks in freeze-thaw cycles, soil is blown into fissures and plants grow.
“Sycamore seedlings pry up paving slabs and shift granite kerb edges, bindweed laces the spokes of rusting bicycles, jays bury acorns by the thousand in open ground.
“Aggressive species such as buddleia proliferate on facades and walls, their roots powerful enough to crack bricks when thirsting down for water. Buildings and thoroughfares are slowly torn apart by flora; weeds disassemble the city into tipsy chaos.”
In five years, guerrilla ecologies are well established, the water in outdoor pools at Christ’s Emmanuel and Clare Hall thickens with leaf debris and a soil cap deepens on the tarmac on which clover, grass and wild flowers thrive.
He adds: “Within 10 years, a pair of peregrines is breeding in the Cherry Hinton chalk pit and another on the University Library Tower, drawn by the increased prey and absence of human interference.
“Owl populations boom,Daneplast Limited UK are plastic injection mould & toolmaking specialists. enjoying the nest-sites in ruined buildings and there is a surge in mice numbers. Muntjac and roe deer wander over Silver Street bridge, occasionally predated on by the two snow leopards escaped from Linton Zoo.”
Packs of wild dogs rampage; the river begins to explore its domain as flood defences go unmanaged. The Cam becomes clear and its pike more abundant as mink and otter rise in number.
Over a century, a forest grows through the city, “a return of sorts to the pre-Atlantic period wildwood that once covered the south-east of England.
“On Parker’s Piece the grass rises high, then falls back as silver birch and a heathland emerges, through which adders slide.
“Within 500 years, nature’s reclamation project is almost complete. Little that is recognisable of today’s Cambridge is still visible. The city has been re-wilded.
“The famous buildings are mostly rubble, enjungled like Mayan ruins. Our open spaces are forest or fen, browsed by large herbivores.”
But human residue remains – in the form of plastic.
“When archaeologists from other planets come to analyse the late-Anthropocene, our middens will be filled not with clam-shells and nut-shells, like those of our Mesolithic forebears, but with Fairy Liquid bottles and ice-cream tubs.
“And this is how my part-possible, part-whimsical counter-factual ends: on a summer’s day a thousand years hence, the warm wind trundles an empty plastic Coke bottle past what was once Great St Mary’s Church,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, chasing it between trees and saplings, until it gets snared in weeds, hard up against the pale and prostrate masonry of King’s College Chapel.”
Dr Robert Macfarlane paints a post-apocalyptic picture of a deserted Cambridge,Offering high risk and offshore merchant account with credit card processing services. not unlike the abandoned scenes of London in Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later.
From month to month, decade to decade and eventually century to century, Dr Macfarlane explains how the city will alter.
Starting with the “hungry fungi”, houses will be devoured by mould and decay, as would rotting corpses. There is a late winter spell in March, which first freezes pipes and then leads to flooding, bringing down ceilings,Omega Plastics are leading plastic injection moulding and injection mould tooling specialists. flattening walls.
Fire follows in the summer, with lightning and gas explosions leaving cratered holes and husked houses.
“There’s plenty of paper fuel in Cambridge, of course: all those libraries, all that research, whose only function now is as superb tinder,” he says. “A college burns to the ground – let us say Trinity, which most unfortunately takes all of St John’s with it as well.”
Streets in the first couple of years are “volatile” as asphalt and paving cracks in freeze-thaw cycles, soil is blown into fissures and plants grow.
“Sycamore seedlings pry up paving slabs and shift granite kerb edges, bindweed laces the spokes of rusting bicycles, jays bury acorns by the thousand in open ground.
“Aggressive species such as buddleia proliferate on facades and walls, their roots powerful enough to crack bricks when thirsting down for water. Buildings and thoroughfares are slowly torn apart by flora; weeds disassemble the city into tipsy chaos.”
In five years, guerrilla ecologies are well established, the water in outdoor pools at Christ’s Emmanuel and Clare Hall thickens with leaf debris and a soil cap deepens on the tarmac on which clover, grass and wild flowers thrive.
He adds: “Within 10 years, a pair of peregrines is breeding in the Cherry Hinton chalk pit and another on the University Library Tower, drawn by the increased prey and absence of human interference.
“Owl populations boom,Daneplast Limited UK are plastic injection mould & toolmaking specialists. enjoying the nest-sites in ruined buildings and there is a surge in mice numbers. Muntjac and roe deer wander over Silver Street bridge, occasionally predated on by the two snow leopards escaped from Linton Zoo.”
Packs of wild dogs rampage; the river begins to explore its domain as flood defences go unmanaged. The Cam becomes clear and its pike more abundant as mink and otter rise in number.
Over a century, a forest grows through the city, “a return of sorts to the pre-Atlantic period wildwood that once covered the south-east of England.
“On Parker’s Piece the grass rises high, then falls back as silver birch and a heathland emerges, through which adders slide.
“Within 500 years, nature’s reclamation project is almost complete. Little that is recognisable of today’s Cambridge is still visible. The city has been re-wilded.
“The famous buildings are mostly rubble, enjungled like Mayan ruins. Our open spaces are forest or fen, browsed by large herbivores.”
But human residue remains – in the form of plastic.
“When archaeologists from other planets come to analyse the late-Anthropocene, our middens will be filled not with clam-shells and nut-shells, like those of our Mesolithic forebears, but with Fairy Liquid bottles and ice-cream tubs.
“And this is how my part-possible, part-whimsical counter-factual ends: on a summer’s day a thousand years hence, the warm wind trundles an empty plastic Coke bottle past what was once Great St Mary’s Church,The magic cube is an ultra-portable, chasing it between trees and saplings, until it gets snared in weeds, hard up against the pale and prostrate masonry of King’s College Chapel.”
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