If human extinction occurred say by a species specific, highly virulent virus, which species would then become top predator?
Which of our constructions would cause the most damage, if left unmaintained for ever?

There would be a large number of apex predators, as is the case now.

At a guess the Aswan or Three Gorges dams.

How about “Fail Safe” Nuclear Installations?

bob, I’d imagine that those would end up as a puddle of molten material which would have a fairly minor effect over a very narrow range. Of course this effect would last for quite a while.

One of the big dams going would have a devastating effect for a very short period.

Fire in a large open cut coal mine?

Which of our constructions would cause the most damage, if left unmaintained for ever?
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What kind of damage?

Realistically, give it a few thousand years and you’d hardly know we we ever here.

sibeen said:

Realistically, give it a few thousand years and you’d hardly know we we ever here.

Except for those damn engineering contractors.

It would be fascinating to see what’s left of human civilization after say, 25,000 years.

>Except for those damn engineering contractors.

Everything I design is ephemeral. 30 years or so at the max.

I feel so insignificant :)

>>It would be fascinating to see what’s left of human civilization after say, 25,000 years.

I think God would have come back by then and those of us who have been saved will be living the life of Riley while those who have thumbed their nose at salvation will be accursed losers for eternity condemed to peel grapes for the winners who will say things like ‘told you so’

the documentary called “Life After People” was interesting for this

but I think the show called The Future is Wild addresses the question..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_Is_Wild

some kind of nuclear site would be a contender

special labs that produce bio weapons could be another problematic legacy, you’d hope that by the time that nature encroached on the facility that the stuff inside would be dead.

if aliens visited they might find the seed banks we have buried in the mountains

as it is the variants of the species are doing their best to wipe out every other kind of animal out. my feeling are that the tassie devil problem has been created by us in some way. we need to cap population now before the problem goes past the tipping point – this can be achieved by withdrawing all benefits for having extra kids, once you go past 2 kids you lose all benefits. stopping aid to countries that refuse to control their populations will reduce the problem one way or the other.

an abandoned oil field might be an ongoing problem or something like coal seam gas that will go onto poison the water supply forever. in that respect we have already destroyed our environment forever with what we are doing right now.

The Queensland Government has put a stop to work on an underground pipeline after the release of drilling fluid into the Condamine River on the Western Darling Downs.

Contractors for leading Australian coal seam gas explorer QGC notified the Environment Department of the incident earlier this week.

Environment Minister Andrew Powell says initial reports suggest it has had no significant impact on water quality as contractors took steps to contain the spill and pump it out of the river, downstream of the Chinchilla Weir.

He says work will not resume until the department is satisfied the operation can be undertaken without further impact.

But Lock the Gate Alliance spokesman Drew Hutton says that is not the point, and the incident is of great concern.

“Too few of the people involved in the drilling operations just simply aren’t trained adequately for the job, so we’ll continue to be having these many small incidents which together will create a cumulative impact which is unacceptable,” he said.

QGC says there has been minimal impact from the inadvertent release of drilling fluid into the Condamine River on the Western Darling Downs.

A spokesman says the drilling fluid contains clay and water to lubricate the drill bit and that it was quickly contained and pumped out of the river.

An Environment Department spokesman says the landholder involved is comfortable that the incident has had minimal impact on water quality.

wookiemeister said:

But Lock the Gate Alliance spokesman Drew Hutton says that is not the point, and the incident is of great concern.

“Too few of the people involved in the drilling operations just simply aren’t trained adequately for the job, so we’ll continue to be having these many small incidents which together will create a cumulative impact which is unacceptable,” he said.

Training carried out by the ADIA Training branch is the envy of the rest of the world. Drew Hutton is talking out his arse.

if this makes you happy then so be it

2 deny the problem

wookiemeister said:

if this makes you happy then so be it

2 deny the problem

Fark – it was a bit of bentonite, and they pumped it back out quick as. Nothing in comparison to the clay suspended load the Condamine carries when flowing normally. A frickin’ great beat-up by the usual suspects.

the problem is that when it comes to industrial “accidents” they normally try to cover up the real story

talking of pollution, ever been to mount isa?

theres a massive chimney that dumps crap all over town, how thye ever allowed it to continue i don’t know. you can see the chimney from bob katters office.

wookiemeister said:

the problem is that when it comes to industrial “accidents” they normally try to cover up the real story

talking of pollution, ever been to mount isa?

theres a massive chimney that dumps crap all over town, how thye ever allowed it to continue i don’t know. you can see the chimney from bob katters office.

Well, that explains crazy Kat then.

What pisses me off is that, in order to enhance a political profile, some dill (speaking from the depths of profound ignorance) is allowed to malign what is arguably the best driller training and registration process anywhere in the world. All over a spill of what could not been more than a couple of hundred litres of totally benign bentonite slurry, all of which was recovered because a) it was the right thing to do and b) it cost the driller money..

Get real. This is nothing like the stuff that comes off the Mt Isa smelters. This is stuff which, apart from the huge water content, is chemically not much different from your porcelain teacup.

managers often talk up small problems because the big problems are too hard to solve. they’ll often jump on the small stuff and ignore the real problems