What would happen if all humans suddenly disappeared? With communities and settlements on every continent, man-made structures can be found anywhere - even in the most remote places. But what will remain if people become extinct? That is the question to which we seek an answer in today’s exploration. On a hillside somewhere in Italy, we discovered a microcosm where exactly this has already happened long ago: Man just vanished! From one day to the next, a public swimming pool became abandoned - and has remained untouched ever since. Like a look in the crystal ball, this place could reveal what might be ahead of us.
If you are like us and gaze at such abandoned sites, you probably think about days gone by. It is nostalgia that overcomes us when we discover such buildings that have been lying idle for so long. But this time we do not want to look back - but ahead! Already reconquered by nature, we arrived at old structures that used to be a leisure center decades ago. If you find your way through the thick undergrowth and somehow make it inside, it is easy to think that this is a greenhouse of a different kind. In absence of man, plants flourish undisturbed. When people withdraw, nature can recover.
As the planet recovers from man’s supremacy it is turning green - again! When left alone, plants take over immediately. Life returns to places from which it was expelled. Structures that were once filled with people will become ruins with piles of shards. What we have built will rust - then crumble and, in the end, fall apart. It is eerie to see the deserted pool - and yet, it is a lost paradise!
Apart from some frogs, it is only curious explorers who visit this place nowadays. But back in the day, this was a much-frequented leisure complex. Families from all over the region came here and many children learned how to swim right in this pool. Today, however, silence dominates. With the undergrowth getting thicker every year, it becomes harder and harder to imagine how families spent their time here together. After 40 years of being deserted, this swimming pool is not a place of joy anymore but a place of melancholy.
Long ago, they went bankrupt. There were not enough visitors to keep the business running. And so, this was all just abandoned. Many decades passed until a contractor came up with the idea to tear down everything and build a few mansions for a couple of millions. But the community stopped these plans fast because this is an area of particular ecological and regional value. Instead, everything remained untouched and left alone until today.
This abandoned swimming pool is just a microcosm but it shows perfectly that planet Earth thrives best when left alone. In a world without us, the human impacts will not last as long as you might think. At some point, our legacy will vanish actually - it is just a matter of time. And if we do not start to live in a healthy relationship with our planet, we will only be temporary guests in this world - and what you can see in these photos will not just be an exception anymore. Understanding this will help us understand ourselves, and why we are here in the first place.
Ethics
