What if a]everyone became vegan or b] human beings were wiped out by a pandemic....

I would be more than happy to be included in a pandemic that wiped out humanity.

We have consistently and without care over generations, raped, plundered and spoiled our beautiful world and continue to so so, mainly for money.
Extinction is what we deserve.

The carnivores would eat us, rats would have a field day, flies would do the rest.

Back to a better world for the flora and fauna left behind.

They have pandemics in the animal world, there are always survivors, some of you may be familiar with myxomatosis
in rabbits 99% died, recently haemoratic disease, again only 1% survived, and we still have them. They breed up faster but we are smarter and fight back, so there might be great losses but there is no chance of extermination due to pandemic. Environmental disaster is another matter, look what happened to the Dinosaurs.

If we became Vegans, most choose to be vegans because of emotional reasons, the world is not ruled by emotions it is ruled by manipulation of the weakest by the strongest and I would back the carnivores against the vegans any day. Thats the way it it is carnivores are predators, vegetarians are prey.

Was the Knepp Estate on the tv a little while ago - perhaps it was Countryfile?

Interesting question, Eglantine
I wonder if some of people's ills, allergies etc, are caused by eating food which we have not evolved to eat in our own parts of the world?

I was digging my potato patch today and thinking about a) what if we all went vegan.

I was wondering what would happen to those people who live in parts of the world where plants cannot be grown and animal produce is their main diet, like the Inuit or the horse herds in Mongolia.

Would they have to relocate and to where? Or would they have to have vegan food shipped in?

Also how long it would take for their metabolism to adapt to a plant based diet? I was in the Inuit territory of Canada recently and many of them spoke about needing “country food” to feel really well.

I accept that it’s only academic speculation but I just wondered how it would work.

do you visit often , whitewavemark2 ? I was there last year staying at caravan site nearby - went every am and pm for a week . The freedom of it !!!

Yes Knepp Estate not far from us.

If you want to see how quickly nature takes over , go to 3000 acre Knepp Estate in west Sussex or look at website - in 10 years gone from arabl/grassland to real feel of wildness

If we humans were wiped out by a pandemic what would happen to the environment as things we left behind, such as nuclear power stations, slowly disintegrated?
I think a lot of other life on the planet would also die out because of us, even after we were gone.

The world would be covered in Ivy, JKW and Himalayan Balsam!

vegansrock … It's really frightening to think that is true.

And, if everyone became vegan they'd still have to farm livestock to feed their pets; if pets were allowed, that is.

But the caged animals would die very quickly wouldn't they. And we've manipulated nature so much; eg sycamore trees aren't indigenous [sp] are they, but they take over everything. Domestic cats would wipe out ground dwelling birds.

I think it would be a great idea for all humans to be wiped off the planet- please let all animals out of cages first and leave all gates and doors open on the way out so that all the remaining animals can survive as best as they can. The environment would revert to forest; I was told that on a nature course.

Possibly brambles might take over. I have constant trouble stopping them from taking over my back garden.

We might have more mighty oaks, the squirrels in my area are always burying them all over the the garden including my pots.

This could become forest in a very short time, mainly hazel trees as the squirrels bury them all over the garden.

If the boggy brae where I live is anything to by, witzend, I think the take over would be astonishingly quick, far fewer years than most people would expect. And, yes, sycamores would feature in the initial phase as well as ash, birch, holly, sallow....

If we were all wiped out, I’ve often wondered how quickly vegetation (soon followed by animal life) would take over. For a start, our garden would quickly be a forest of sycamore trees!

Not long ago a petrol station near here closed. In what seemed a very short time, the very large concrete forecourt was carpeted with tall green growth - the sort of weeds that seem able to grow just about anywhere, but it’s astonishing how quickly they’ll flourish even in concrete - and presumably gradually break it up completely.

There’s a care home on that site now.

Yes. But gazillions have become extinct for other reasons too.

Thousands of species have been wiped out by human activity.

I keep saying this: apparently >99% of species that have ever lived are extinct. Extinction is part of Nature.

I'm not keen for farmed meat to go extinct yet though ?

Is it right to let a species or variation of a species die out simply because we don't need it anymore?

Farm animals aren’t “natural” species , they have been interbred over many years from their wild ancestors- yes there are wild versions of cows, sheep, goats, chickens, pigs etc. The overbred versions would die out as they are only here to be exploited by humans. We’d have to look after the wildlife better, although if there were no humans there would only be wildlife.

B) ants would take over the world. They are trying in our garden.