I’ve been watching the History Channel series Life After People over the last couple of months. Not everyone in my household shares my fascination with watching our most significant built environments crumble and decay under the fast-forward storytelling of computer generated simulations. I particularly like the timeline where they take snapshots of the day after, then a week, year, and eventually 10,000 years after we have vanished.

The series doesn’t speculate about why we are gone (at least not in the episodes I’ve watched) but looks only at what happens to the things we’ve made. Good choice. No zombie scenes. No killer robots ruling the world. Just the simple idea of our planet minus people with the time-lapse cameras of our mind rolling. It is an intriguing and imaginative project.

I also like the multi-disciplinary blend of engineering, ecology, zoology, and other fields of expertise that weigh in on what our civilizations would look like under the assault of entropy. The last episode I watched suggested that the curtain-wall designs of modern skyscrapers would not fare as well as tall structures built before load-bearing design transitioned from outerwalls (tall buildings constructed prior to the 1940′s or so) to inner structures. Natural waterways that we’ve managed would also re-assert themselves as would the various ocean barriers we’ve constructed that would fall away without our attentive interventions.

Elephants may end up roaming around Los Angeles, former pet snakes rise to rule the Florida waterways and chimpanzees could colonize pigeons and use their eggs for good in Florida. Whatever else it does, the series highlights that our efforts to build and maintain the structures of our lives is a massive undertaking.

Feeling a bit burdened by that home reno project you’re working on? Consider it your stake in the entropy battles we all fight.