The Rapid Extinction Virus incubates in the human system for 1 week, after which it reproduces in the system with no symptoms for 1 week. After reproduction in the system it launches airborne spores which are highly contagious. Once it reaches a certain critical mass within the system it kills within 1 day.
Now, I am not interested in arguing the plausibility of this scenario.
What I am interested in, is the effect on the ecosystem if suddenly all humans died, or a significant portion of humanity died so as to make the regulation of civilization untenable.
What kind of persistent systems would last after human beings died continuing to affect the environment. This is from power systems, to radiation, to electromagnetic waves, chemicals released into the environment, automated factory processes, terminator seeds, control of pollenating bees, fisheries etc…
This question is more about what parts of the ecosystem we actively promote and maintain as opposed to what we adversely affect through ignorance.
Ever see that commercial, some oil company stroking itself for its newfound ecological conscience? Music is Ode to Joy, and all the animals are clapping and cavorting about in shameless glee?
New Scientist had a feature on a similar topic last year, although they opted for exodus rather than plague because of the tricky problem of dealing with 6 billion corpses. Makes interesting reading.
The human race has already caused one of the great mass extinctions in the Earth’s history. If we went away, new species eventually would evolve to fill vacant ecological niches – always the aftermath of a mass extinction. Speculation about that here.
shrug Six billion corpses means a brief population boom among scavengers that can eat human flesh, followed by a Malthusian crisis and mass die-offs among those species when said food supply is exhausted. Within a year, everything would be back where it was before the plague, except for the absence of humanity.