Extinction Ahoy!

Yesterday Treehugger posted this interesting timeline showing how long it would take to eradicate our traces from the planet. It's strangely soothing to think about a world without humans. Remember "(Nothing But) Flowers" by the Talking Heads?

Years ago
I was an angry young man
I'd pretend
That I was a billboard
Standing tall
By the side of the road
I fell in love
With a beautiful highway
This used to be real estate
Now it's only fields and trees
Where, where is the town
Now, it's nothing but flowers
The highways and cars
Were sacrificed for agriculture
I thought that we'd start over
But I guess I was wrong

Great song. So this concept seems to be somewhat en vogue at the moment. New Scientist has a great article up that fleshes out what you see in the graphic timeline, along with interesting little tidbits:

Feral descendants of domestic animals and plants, too, are likely to become permanent additions in many ecosystems, just as wild horses and feral pigs already have in some places. Highly domesticated species such as cattle, dogs and wheat, the products of centuries of artificial selection and inbreeding, will probably evolve back towards hardier, less specialised forms through random breeding. "If man disappears tomorrow, do you expect to see herds of poodles roaming the plains?" asks Chesser. Almost certainly not - but hardy mongrels will probably do just fine. Even cattle and other livestock, bred for meat or milk rather than hardiness, are likely to persist, though in much fewer numbers than today.

I also ran across The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT) while researching this, which is a group that encourages the wholesale cessation of human breeding in order to return earth to its pre homo erectus utopian state. Their slogan: "May we live long and die out". Their site could really use a redisign, maybe a little color, but aesthetics are probably not too important to a group that is hoping to not exist. Their site does offer itself in several languages, emphasing their global aspect, which is important since the US is really a very small percentage of the earth's total population.