Aftermath: Population Zero – The World Without Humans | Documentary

At a time when close to half of humanity (about 3.5 billion people) lives in “voluntary” confinement in their homes, the streets of some of Earth’s major cities are left almost empty, leaving wild animals to roam freely in eerie silence. This speculative documentary explores what the world might look like if humanity actually suddenly and totally disappeared from the face of the Earth – or if its population was suddenly reduced to only 500 million, as the Georgia Guidestones suggest.

Aftermath: Population Zero is a Canadian documentary (more on the production company below) with a run-time of approximately 90 minutes.  It premiered on the National Geographic Channel on Sunday, March 9, 2008 (at 8:00 PM ET/PT).

Similar to the History Channel’s  contemporaneous series, Life After People (released over 2008-2010), Aftermath describes how the Earth would change after the sudden and unexplained disappearance of humanity.

This is how it is described by Free Documentary on their publication of the movie on YouTube (their version is the one embedded below) :

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…

After being on the receiving end of humanity for millennia, nature would finally be given a chance to take the world back.

But how would it work? How long would the skyscrapers and houses last if they were abandoned? How would suburban pets fare without people to feed them? How would the forests, the oceans and the wildlife react if there was suddenly an end to all the hunting, fishing and farming?

“Aftermath” is the astounding story of a world that humans will never see. The two-hour special examines the impact of human beings on this planet by proposing what the Earth might be like without people.

The World Without Us

Both Aftermath and Life After People were inspired by The World Without Us, a book written by American professor and journalist Alan Weisman. Published in 2007 by St. Martin’s Thomas Dunne Books, this non-fiction book explores what would happen to the natural and built environment if humanity suddenly disappeared.

In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity’s impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence.

– From Amazon book Description

Cream Productions

Aftermath was produced by Cream Productions, a Toronto and LA based creative production company that delivers “distinctive and top-rated content to television and digital platforms around the world” (quote from their Website).

According to Wikipedia, Cream was founded in 2003 by Christopher Rowley and David Brady. Their clients include Netflix, Hulu, CNN, Discovery Channel US, Canada and Discovery Network International, National Geographic Channel US and International, History Canada, BBC America and Worldwide Channels, OLN, HGTV, W Network, Smithsonian Channel, ZDF, France 5, Pro Sieben, Channel 4 and Channel 5.

Cream Productions has a YouTube channel featuring several of its original productions.

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Henri Thibodeau Henri’s Web Space

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