So, in the list of bad actors for the planet there's been the ice age, the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, and then … us? Yeah, it really looks like that sometimes. But we've got hope! So what can humans do to steer clear of steering the planet into seemingly inevitable doom? To find out, we look at the planet from the eyes of geologists millions of years in the future—and at what the world would look like if every human on earth just … suddenly disappeared. Read the text transcript for this episode at go.ted.com/TC2

TED Climate is produced and edited by Sheena Ozaki, mixed by Sam Bair, and hosted by Dan Kwartler. This episode adapted two lessons originally produced in animated form by the TED-Ed team. "How long will human impacts last?" was written by David Biello and fact-checked by Francisco Diez. "What would happen if every human suddenly disappeared?" was written by Dan Kwartler and fact-checked by Brian Gutierrez. Both pieces were produced with editorial support from Alex Rosenthal. Special thanks to Gerta Xhelo, Stephanie Lo, Michelle Quint, Banban Cheng, and Anna Phelan.

Want to help shape TED’s shows going forward? Fill out our survey!

Become a TED Member today at ted.com/join

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.