All language subtitles for Life.After.People.S03E02.Shop.Til.You.Drop.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-RAWR_track3_[eng]

What would
happen if every human being

on Earth disappeared?

No matter how we might vanish,

this is the story
of what could happen

to the world we leave behind.

Now on "Life After People,"

commerce is the backbone
of human civilization,

but when we vanish,
it goes to the dogs.

Every kind of predator
you can think of shows up.

Grocery stores
become part of a new food chain.

When it comes to
claiming territory,

it's a life or death
battle every time.

The
biggest mall in the world

is pounded by the elements.

One wing of it
was a raging inferno

while the other wing is
completely untouched.

And
the busiest port

on the planet
faces annihilation.

You have acid melting
through structures,

live rounds going off,
shipping containers exploding.

Steel and cargo,

like a freight train
on water, unstoppable.

From the
global supply chain

to our food and clothing,

life after people will
drastically alter the planet.

Welcome to Earth,
population: zero.

From coast to coast, shopping
centers are abandoned.

No sales clerks,
no window shoppers,

just aisle upon aisle of goods
that'll never be bought.

There are more than
300,000 grocery stores

in the United States,
containing enough chips, cheese,

and chocolate to cover an
area the size of Rhode Island.

This deserted
grocery store was once filled

with hungry families.

Now, it's about to be bursting

with a much different clientele.

Keeping scavengers
like rodents and insects

out of a grocery store
is a full time job,

and you do not get any days off.

You've gotta be
taking out the trash.

You've gotta be
setting out traps.

You've gotta put out pesticides.

In a world without people,

it would probably
be less than an hour

before that invasion began.

Mice are these crazy
little food finding machines.

They can detect food smells
as far away as 50 feet,

even if it's contained
inside sealed plastic.

Mice can actually
compress their bodies

so their bones collapse,
especially their ribs.

If their nose fits, so
will the rest of them,

even in holes as
small as a dime.

Mice are like
walking biohazards.

They pee constantly.

Even when they're running,
they poop like 75 times a day,

and in that poop is all
kind of disease and nasty.

In
the time of people,

grocery chains spent millions

to keep an endless stream
of filthy creatures at bay.

Now, there's no one to set
the traps or cover the holes,

and the vermin aren't just
eating, they're multiplying.

A single female mouse

can produce up to
50 offspring a year,

and her offspring
can start reproducing

just nine weeks later.

One family of mice can balloon
up to 100,000 individuals

in just a year.

Back in 2021, Eastern
Australia had what's known

as a mouse plague,

where basically they
had a bumper crop,

there was tons of food,

and the mouse populations
absolutely exploded.

They were everywhere
and they ate everything.

Farmers describe
carpets of mice.

They devoured everything
from crops to toilet paper.

In the
span of just 72 hours,

this store, once a
monument to human plenty,

is completely overrun.

Rodents have claimed the aisles,

feasting on the crumbs of
a vanished civilization.

The refrigerators and freezers
are safe and untouched,

but for how long?

After people, there are no
crews to fix downed lines,

no technicians at the power
plant, the grid fails,

and the bright aisles are
plunged into ghostly darkness,

not just for the
night, but forever.

Once that refrigeration
fails, the meat, the milk,

they're all gonna spoil and
they'll give off rotting,

very, very strong scent

that's gonna be
detectable from miles away

by various scavengers.

Where mankind
once held sway, mice now rule,

but in a world without people,

they won't stay on top of
the food chain for long.

In Bloomington, Minnesota
lies the Mall of America.

Once teeming with voices
and footsteps, the hallways,

stores, and kiosks are
now still as a crypt.

The largest shopping
mall on the planet

has become a mausoleum
for the age of excess.

The Mall of America
is a retail colossus.

It's bigger than Vatican City.

If there was ever one
place where you could shop

until you drop, this is it.

You've got over 500
stores, a roller coaster,

high fashion, fine
dining, fast food,

an aquarium, designer jewelry,

not to mention 30,000 plants
growing inside the mall.

After people,
the mall seems unchanged,

but a threat has been lurking
in the shadows the whole time,

quiet and patient,

waiting for the right
moment to unleash hell.

The Mall of America is
so big that it has not one,

but two food courts

in addition to 50
standalone restaurants.

What happens if one
gas burner is left on?

You've got pots and pans
sitting on top of those stoves.

Some of them are gonna have
cooking grease in them,

and the thing about cooking
grease is, unlike gasoline,

it doesn't need a
spark to ignite,

it just has to get hot enough.

So, as those flames go,

eventually they're
gonna heat it up to 450

to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, and
that thing is gonna go boom.

Flames
suddenly erupt

and quickly consume
everything in their path.

The food court is
eating itself alive,

but the mall has a secret
hidden deep within its bones,

a fully automated fire
suppression system

that's long been dormant.

The system isn't
triggered by smoke,

it reacts to intense heat.

So heat-sensitive liquid inside

of the small glass bulb
gets hotter and hotter,

then the bulb shatters

and it releases a torrent
of pressurized water.

The
system now wakes

to wage one final battle
against the blaze.

The brilliant thing
about this system

is that it doesn't
rely on electricity.

It works on gravity-powered
water pressure

from the building's main supply.

So, if the power goes
out and there is a fire,

you still have a way
to extinguish the fire

because the gravity
pressure is always there

and ready to go.

Here's the problem, when a
fire sprinkler is activated,

it will run until it
gets shut off manually.

But in a world where
everyone's disappeared,

no one is there to
shut it off manually.

It takes more than a week
for the tanks to run dry,

a week of constantly drenching

and soaking everything
underneath that sprinkler head.

Just a
few hundred yards away

in the heart of the mall,
there are no flames, no water.

It's kind of like a
building on fire across town.

It's not happening
in your neighborhood,

you probably wouldn't
even notice it.

But
even after people,

the mall isn't
completely abandoned.

The security guards
still keep watch.

The Mall of America has this
team of highly trained dogs,

and they have a
few different jobs,

one of which is to
guard the mall itself,

but the other one is to
sniff out things like drugs

and explosives and firearms.

Dogs have an exceptional
sense of smell.

They can smell fear in the
different chemicals given off

by the sweat and saliva
of anxious people.

Guard dogs can tell you who
is nervous, who is angry,

or who is afraid.

Their human
handlers may be gone,

but even in the
loneliness and silence,

the dog's instinct
to survive remains.

There would be a lot of
food sources in the mall.

I mean, all those
standalone restaurants,

and there's another food
court and another one.

And dogs are omnivores.

I mean, for a while, there
would be plenty for them to eat.

The
members of the K-9 unit

are on their own.

But even here in the echoes

and memories of a
dead civilization,

some warmth still lingers.

Even without electricity,

the mall is still going
to trap the heat inside,

and it's designed that way

so that it releases
the heat when needed.

This is a clever
bit of engineering.

The Mall of America
has passive heating.

It doesn't really
have a furnace system,

which might surprise you
given where it's located,

and that's because
it uses skylights

to allow solar heating.

Sunlight streams in through
more than 1,300 skylights.

It hits concrete, it hits walls,

it basically hits everything

and warms them up
during the day.

But then at night, when
it gets cold outside,

all that heat that's
been trapped indoors

gets released into the air.

So, what ends up happening
is the mall stays a nice,

constant temperature despite
the fluctuations outside.

The K-9
unit is safe for now,

but a silent danger is lurking

in the polished
hallways of the mall.

There's an electric vehicle
on display with a powerful

and dangerous lithium-ion
battery under the hood.

After people, it
isn't just a car,

it's an explosive
waiting for ignition.

Three days after
people, and the beating heart

of the global supply
chain has flatlined.

China is the crucial player

behind almost all
the shopping we do.

China alone produces over 30%

of the world's global
manufacturing output.

Millions of
tons of fuel, chemicals,

and consumer goods once passed
through the Port of Shanghai,

the biggest and
busiest port on Earth.

Now it's abandoned,

a ghost town at the mouth
of the Yangtze River.

Normally, over 13,000
people keep the port running.

It's 125 docks
spanning over 12 miles,

and there're these towering
ship-to-shore cranes.

Some are over 400 feet tall,

loading over 200
cargo ships daily.

Every year, the Port
of Shanghai handles

50 million containers, nearly
750 million tons of cargo,

and fully half of
that is retail,

clothing, food,
electronics, you name it.

The Port of Shanghai ships
out enough retail goods

to stock the entire Mall of
America a thousand times.

Now, there is
no one to man the controls,

no one to watch over the docks,

no one to guide ships to shore.

It isn't just deserted,

it's a disaster playing
out minute by minute.

Best case, a ship
will run aground.

Worst case, it will slam
right into the docks.

Laden with cargo,

a ship weighing
over 100,000 tons

blindly caroms into the dock,

with a force of almost
35,000 cars crashing

into it at once.

In the harbor, you've
got dozens of ships

that are out of control,

smashing into the docks
and knocking down cranes.

The
shriek of twisting metal

isn't a death knell,
it's a warning.

An even greater danger
is sealed in thousands

of shipping containers stacked
high on turbulent decks,

waiting to open
like Pandora's Box.

It's not just
sneakers and smartphones

that are making their
way through our ports,

it's objects for medical
research, live viruses,

corrosive chemicals, crude oil,

even military supplies
like ammunition

or nuclear fuel rods.

You'd have the normal
chemical and electrical fire,

but you'd also have acid
melting through structures,

live rounds going off,

shipping containers full
of fireworks exploding.

The port wouldn't
just be destroyed,

it would go out
with quite a bang.

The carnage
doesn't end at the docks,

it spills out into the water

where ghost ships list and burn,

cargo plunges into
the harbor by the ton,

never to arrive at its
original destination.

Far from the broken, burning
port, one giant escaped.

She sails the open ocean alone
with no one at the helm.

One of the largest container
ships ever built, the Oslo.

It's known as a ultra
large container vessel,

with emphasis on "ultra large."

It's as long as
four city blocks,

as wide as a eight-lane highway,

and it has an engine the
size of a three-story house.

It's a hundred feet
shorter than the Sears Tower,

the most famous
skyscraper in Chicago,

if it were laid on its side.

It's hard to imagine

that it can hold almost
24,000 shipping containers.

Think of it carrying
nothing but sneakers.

It would be enough for every
single person in California,

Texas, and New York.

The Oslo is
bound for Los Angeles,

an unmanned specter on a
three-week voyage from Shanghai.

Her fuel tanks are still full,
her engines still humming,

but not every vessel
is lucky enough

to share the Oslo's fate.

Loss of power on a large ship
can be extremely dangerous.

Even when a container
ship has full crew

and full power,

it still takes 29 minutes
for it to go from full speed

to a complete stop,

and it covers four miles while
it's trying to slow down.

A derelict
tanker, lifeless but deadly,

is drifting straight
into the Oslo's path.

She carries no crew, only
cargo sealed in her belly.

Three million
gallons of jet fuel.

Far from the Pacific Ocean,
deep in America's heartland,

a different kind of
disaster is unfolding.

Inside the Mall of America,

the sprinklers have
been inundating the mall

for nearly a week.

There's no one to turn them off,

and the charred food
court is drowning.

Many large
commercial buildings,

especially food courts, have
built in drains, you know,

to handle spills and
regular cleaning,

but they'd struggle to keep up

with an active sprinkler
system running nonstop

for more than a week.

The system has
finally run out of water,

and the sprinklers have stopped
flowing, but it's too late.

Deep inside the
structure's skeleton,

decay is taking root and
spreading like a virus.

The extreme heat from
the fire has weakened

the steel support beams,
then comes the water,

tons of it seeping into every
crack, soaking the walls,

and pooling on weakened floors.

Fire turns solid
materials brittle

and vulnerable to collapse.

Weeks pass,

and the flood waters
start to subside,

but now the
temperature is falling.

The explosion and the fire
would've knocked out some

of the eight acres of
skylights in the mall,

and where it's located,

well, winters can be
especially brutal.

Now, if an arctic
cold front rolls in,

well, temperatures can drop
by as much as 40 degrees

in a single day.

The coldest temperature
ever recorded in Minnesota

is more than 60
degrees below zero.

All that pooling water
would quickly freeze,

stopping up the drains.

Bloomington gets an average
of 50 inches of snow per year.

In a couple of weeks,
worst case scenario,

up to 2,000 tons of snow
when ice could accumulate.

That's about the weight
of four Boeing 747s,

and all that weight is
piled on top of floors

and supports that
have already suffered

a great deal of water damage.

An unearthly
groan breaks the eerie silence

inside the mall, and the
floor, swollen with water

and splintered by ice,
finally succumbs.

That collapse
would be devastating,

and the floor beneath
would be smashed by ice

and concrete weighing
thousands of tons.

One
wing of the mall

is a tangled mass of metal,

glass, and stone, but
on the other side,

sun still pours
through the skylights

and the deserted shops
and stalls remain intact.

Where humanity once shopped,
the K-9 unit now prowls,

scavenging to survive.

K-9 units typically keep
about a month's worth

of kibble on hand,

but even after the fresh
food starts to rot,

the dogs are gonna be okay,

because dogs are
not picky eaters.

Things like chips, crackers,
packaged ramen noodles,

cured and dried meats, like
pepperoni, hot dogs, jerky,

the dogs will be having a feast,

that is if they're the
only ones eating it.

The 14,000 acre
Minnesota Valley Wildlife Refuge

is less than two miles away.

Once a sanctuary, now it's a
launching ground for invasion.

Two
weeks after people,

mice have infested every
corner of the grocery store,

feasting, nesting, and gnawing

through everything
on shelf after shelf.

Now the smell of decay
is rising, rotting meat,

rancid milk, a scent
thick as smoke curling

through broken doors
and shattered glass.

It's like an invitation
to hungry creatures,

and something bigger is coming.

Rats have a sense of smell

that's even more
sensitive than mice.

Rats can smell through
walls and underground.

Rats have been trained to
smell for unexploded landmines

in war zones.

They can smell
tuberculosis on patients.

Rats
swarm into the store,

ravenous and ruthless, drawn
by the promise of food,

and they're not leaving
until they get it.

Rats and mice really
do compete for resources,

but frankly, it's not
much of a competition.

Mice weigh about one ounce,

whereas rats, 16 times
that, a full pound.

It's like a toddler

trying to fight a high
school linebacker.

It's not a fair fight.

Rats are way bigger than mice.

There are occasions
where mice and rats

can coexist peacefully,

but it's only when food
is in plentiful supply.

The rodents
feast side by side,

an unspoken and
uncomfortable truce.

But each day, the flesh
spoils a little more.

The scent thickens,
the color turns,

the meat is rotting into poison.

Mice will eat spoiled meat,
but only up to a point.

Rats have stronger stomach acid

so they can eat
more spoiled meat,

but even rats have
a breaking point.

And when it comes to
things like botulism,

that is just as bad for
rats as it is for us.

When they get
foodborne illnesses,

pretty much the same symptoms.

Vomiting, diarrhea, nausea.

You can try to
imagine what it's like

when thousands of rodents
get diarrhea all at once,

but we'll let that pass.

Even after the mice and
the rats are done with it,

that meat will not go to waste.

It will start to rot, and
the flies will descend on it,

and they will begin
laying their eggs

in every moist crevice.

And then within days,
that rotting meat

will be effectively reanimated
with wriggling maggots.

Rats and mice both eat
insects and their larvae.

To us, maggots are
disgusting nightmare fuel.

But to them, it's just a
good source of protein.

As the maggots eat the meat

and the rodents eat the maggots,

the food source is gonna
dwindle away altogether.

And at that point,
we're looking at a very

intense competition
between rats and mice.

Two
weeks after people,

the scraps are fewer and fewer.

The rats, bigger,
faster, hungrier,

do what survival
demands, no hesitation.

Just one species clawing
its way to dominance.

Rats are extremely
aggressive and territorial.

And if they're desperate
enough for food,

they'll kill and eat mice,

which seems a little bit
too close to cannibalism.

Sometimes a rat just
wants to show his dominance

and teach the mice a lesson
about, "This is my territory."

It's like they kill
the mice for sport.

The rats
have conquered the rivals,

and settled into nest.

In here, they're
hidden and warm.

But outside, Mother Nature
is alive with silent menace,

and the rats will soon be
exposed to a new nightmare.

Far out in the Pacific, with
only autopilot to guide her,

the Oslo has outrun
storms and skirted ruin.

The ocean may be vast,
but fate is fickle.

And now, a tanker carrying a
million gallons of jet fuel

is drifting right
into the Oslo's path.

The tanker's
dead in the water,

but the Oslo still has power,

and a collision between
them could be catastrophic,

because even if it just
starts a small fire,

that's like dropping a match

onto 3 million
gallons of jet fuel.

On the
empty bridge of the Oslo,

a shrill collision
alarm pierces the quiet,

but there's no one to hear it.

No hands on the helm, no
one watching the horizon,

and the ghost ship sails
toward its own demise.

It's very likely
that the tanker's hull

will be breached if
there is a spark.

And if that spark hit the
fuel side of the tanker,

watch out.

It's gonna be a
massive explosion.

Any other ship within
a three mile radius

would be almost
completely destroyed.

Windows would be blown out,
the decks would buckle,

and smaller ships would
capsize instantly.

The blast is
sudden and catastrophic.

The Oslo is tossed
like an unwanted toy

in the hands of an angry sea.

Her cargo ratchets
snap one after another

until 24,000 shipping
containers tumble

into the ocean like
steel dominoes.

When containers
fall off a ship,

some of them may stay intact
when they hit the water.

But they're not
made to be airtight,

they're made to be
water resistant.

So they may float
for a little while,

but then it's gonna sink.

Many of them are basically
just gonna like, pop open

when they hit the water,

spilling all of their
contents into the water.

It wouldn't be the first time.

There are many weird
stories of strange objects

washing ashore due to shipping
containers falling overboard.

For decades, there's
this one beach in France

where Garfield phones have
been washing up every year.

And it turns out it's
because in the '80s,

there was a shipping
container full of them

that sank nearby.

Random Lego pieces still
wash up on European beaches

all the time because a shipping
container full of those

sank way back in the '90s.

The Oslo
makes its final delivery

not to the port of Los
Angeles as scheduled,

but to the murky depths
of the vast Pacific.

Then she disappears into
the far reaches of the ocean,

left to her fate.

One year after people,

the once bright and
sterile grocery stores

that fed humanity are
now dark, rotting,

choked with dust and decay.

Shelves that were
once home to fresh foods

and packaged goods
are now home to rats,

mice, and their nests.

High
above the vermin,

barn owls perch in the
rafters, watchful and hungry.

Where once there was
cleanliness in order,

there's about to be
something else, carnage.

Two
years after people,

grocery stores are
overrun with prey

and the predators
that feast on them.

Here, the air is thick with rot,

the floor rides with
desperate rodents,

and the rafters team
with deadly hunters.

This environment is
tailor-made for barn owls.

They get their name, barn owls,
because they like to live

in human-built
structures like barns,

and farmers actually
encourage them to be there,

because they're like
natural pest control.

Barn owls have
some of the most

sensitive ears on the planet,

helping them triangulate
and pinpoint sounds

as soft as the
heartbeat of a mouse.

The average barn
owl can consume

about three animals a night.

So with all of these rats
around, it would be a feast.

And the owls would
end up consuming

up to 1,000 rats a year.

The
food being devoured

inside this grocery store
bears little resemblance

to what once filled
shopping carts.

But the building itself,

though cracked and
sagging, still stands.

But for how long?

In the Mall of America
where eager crowds

once gathered to buy
the latest trends,

all that's left is
silence and darkness.

Now, wolves from the
nearby wildlife refuge

prowl through the shadows,
lured by the scent of food,

and the K-9 unit watches,
ready to protect what's theirs.

Dogs can be very territorial

when it comes to
protecting their resources.

The K-9 unit would've
made them all its home,

and become protective
of that territory.

Now remember, these dogs
haven't been raised in the wild,

so they wouldn't be
particularly good hunters.

They would be very interested

in protecting their territory
and their food supply.

Unfortunately for the dogs,

the wolves are not just
bigger and stronger.

They've been living like
this for their entire lives.

While the dogs are
trained to do things

that humans want them to do,

these wolves have been
surviving in the wild

and up against competition,

so chances are,
they're gonna win.

The
wolves hunt as a pack,

moving as one to
corner one of the K-9s.

Slowly, step by step,
they isolate their prey.

Like a bolt of lightning,
a wolf attacks.

And the dogs have no
choice but to flee.

Now the wolves rule,

but the building itself is
already turning against them.

After five years
without people,

the mall is going
through several

of the freeze-thaw cycles
of the Minnesota winter.

When it gets cold, water
freezes, it expands,

and when it thaws, and
it contracts again.

So that causes cracks

to appear in the structure
all over the place,

and it will eventually
deteriorate.

Some threats
lie in plain sight,

but others hide,
biding their time.

There's an electric
vehicle kiosk in the mall.

This sleek car on display
may look innocent enough,

but there's a danger
lurking under the hood,

a 100 kilowatt
lithium ion battery.

Lithium ion
batteries are volatile.

That's why you can't check them
in your luggage on an airplane.

If damaged, they can
explode or catch fire.

There was one incident in a
Manhattan apartment building

caused by a lithium ion
battery in a bicycle

where 38 people were injured.

An electric vehicle
has a battery

more than 100 times
that strength.

It's been five
years since any human hands

have swept the dust
or patched the walls.

With a shudder of neglect,

a slab of ceiling breaks free,

smashing into the
display car below,

and something begins to stir.

If the battery's damaged,

the lithium and the
cobalt mix together,

creating a short circuit,
this can overheat things,

causing a fire or
even an explosion.

This triggers a chain reaction
known as a thermal runway.

Meaning, it just gets
hotter and hotter,

and burns ever more vigorously.

So this leads to a
firestorm that doesn't stop

until there's no
more fuel left.

That means everything
has been burned.

There can be
thousands of cells

in an electric car battery,

so a fire could foreseeably
burn for days and days on end

with nothing to stop it.

What
began as a spark

takes on a life of its own,

moving through the
mall with purpose,

devouring anything
it can find for fuel.

Without human intervention,

a fire like this
could definitely gut

an entire section of the mall,

and it's definitely
gonna scare away

all the animals living here.

The
Mall of America,

once hailed as a
cathedral of commerce,

now stands hollowed by flame.

Its corridors blackened.

Though some parts of
the mall still stand,

they're about to
undergo a remodel

no human being could
ever have planned.

Years ago,
fire left the biggest mall

in the world warped and charred.

Even the beasts who prowled

the once pristine
hallways are gone now,

leaving only silence and ruin.

But in the dust and ashes,
something new is stirring.

Fires actually often
make conditions better

for plants to grow.

When things like wood, plants,

and seeds are burned
into mineral-rich ash,

those nutrients are
recycled back into the soil,

creating ideal growing
conditions for new life to grow.

The question becomes,
where is this fertile soil?

What I expect is
the natural gardens

that are in many of these malls,

the water features, the little
tree, and planted areas,

those actually become the point

from which small jungles
start to flourish.

Seeds, pollen,
and mushroom spores

can be brought by the
wind or the birds.

Local birds might bring
local plant species,

but migratory birds
can bring seeds

from hundreds or even
thousands of miles away.

From every
crack in the concrete,

roots rise like fingers,
clawing for a second chance.

They're silent and relentless,
and they're spreading.

They'll expand the
cracks and crevices.

That lets in more soil,
more seeds, and more water.

And then the whole
cycle just continues.

While the
natural world withers, rots,

and blooms again, 30
years after people,

grocery stores all over
the world are sagging

under their own weight,
bending, cracking,

and coming apart at the seams.

Retail companies focus
on profit, not permanence.

These stores are built
with cheap materials,

and frankly, they're easier
to replace than to repair.

So these stores are designed
to last for about 50 years.

And without maintenance,

they'd fall apart a
lot sooner than that.

Once a
beacon of abundance,

this grocery store is
now a hollow shell.

All it will take is
one bolt of lightning,

one burst of wind, and
a humble thunderstorm

will bring it all crashing down.

A big box store is
highly vulnerable.

It has a large, flat roof
and a nice, sharp edge.

So as wind comes
over that sharp edge,

it separates the flow,
creating a vortex,

or a whirlpool that's
spinning in the air.

You can't see it,
but it's there.

As it's spinning, it
is creating suction

that is pulling up on
the edge of the roof.

When that suction
gets high enough,

it will literally start
to peel the roof back

just like the lid on
a tin of sardines.

Eventually, it'll take
the whole thing off.

Amid the shattered
glass and collapsing beams,

a few relics are
scattered in the rubble,

untouched by time or rot,

and one of them is
still safe to eat.

Honey is nature's
ultimate preservative.

It basically lasts forever
because it's acidic,

and it contains almost no water.

Bacteria and mold need
that water to grow.

So if you can keep
your honey sealed

without letting
water get in there,

it'll basically never spoil.

Unspoiled jars of
honey have been found

in 19th century shipwrecks.

And archeologists have
found sealed jars of honey

in ancient Egyptian tombs
that are perfectly edible

even thousands of years later.

Decades slip by,

and the store that once
helped feed humanity

is swallowed up by
Mother Nature instead.

100
years after people,

the Oslo has long since
sunk to the darkest depths,

but some of its cargo
is still afloat.

Let's say a single
shipping container

is carrying nothing
but flip-flops.

It could hold about
130,000 pairs.

But a lot of flip-flops
are made of EVA foam,

which is a closed-cell foam,

which means that water
can't get inside of it.

This means that it can
both float very well

and doesn't biodegrade.

Ocean currents could carry

some of those
floating flip-flops

all the way around
the Pacific Ocean

and deliver them at
the Port of Shanghai,

like it's some elaborate
return-to-sender package

from the Pacific Ocean.

By the time
this lost cargo arrives,

the port where it
started its journey

is little more than a memory.

The ghost of human commerce.

A century later,
whatever's left

of the Port of Shanghai has
been completely overgrown.

Over the decades, plant life
has creeped into the area,

or else been washed up
by the Yangtze River.

Whatever the case, it now
looks like there's a forest

covering what used
to be that port.

As Mother
Nature reclaims the land,

an ancient resident returns,
the South China tiger.

These cats were
once considered

functionally
extinct in the wild.

In fact, none have been
spotted outside of zoos

since the 1980s.

The Chinese government created
controlled breeding programs

to boost the Tiger's
population at the Shanghai Zoo.

Now, a century
after their ancestors

escape these facilities,

the South China tiger is
king of the jungle once more.

In a life after people,

the populations of
these extraordinary cats

would rebound and flourish.

On the
other side of the globe,

all that's left of what was
once the Mall of America

is a plant-choked,
overgrown ruin.

The descendants of the K-9 unit

that once patrolled its
halls have returned.

But like the mall,
they're also transformed.

There will still be dogs
in a life after people,

but they won't look like
most of the family pets

wer'e accustomed to.

In the absence of
controlled breeding,

all of the specialty
varieties will disappear.

In other words, mutts will rule.

Natural selection would
mean that this surviving dogs

adapt to become more
effective hunters,

like working together as
a pack to take down prey.

Dogs shed
their domesticated past,

reshaping into the image
of their wild cousins,

wolves, coyotes, and dingoes.

Their coats grow thicker,
their bodies harden,

lean, powerful, built
for a life in the wild.

These once
disciplined guard dogs

bred to obey our commands,

now revert to their
more animalistic nature.

They become hunters, survivalists.

And so like the mall itself,

these dogs have
returned to nature.

Mother Nature
has erased almost every sign

that this was once
a bustling mall.

But there's one thing
that can never be erased.

Unlike silver or copper,
gold never corrodes.

It doesn't react to water,

and it's basically impervious
to almost every kind of acid.

That's why ancient
coins, crowns,

jewelry from thousands of
years ago still shine today.

It's like time just
forgets about gold.

These
remnants, faded treasures,

buried in dust, are
all that endure,

the final fragile clues

to humanity's long
dance with commerce.

I think it's really
easy to underestimate

how much we consume,
how much we shop.

It's a huge part of our lives.

Shopping and
commerce have long been

the lifeblood of civilization,

driving economies and
shaping the way we live.

They bring us
necessities and luxuries,

and also fuel innovation.

But without people,
none of it happens.

There are no shoppers
to buy anything,

and the global gears of
commerce grind to a halt.

So all of the intricate
web of business

that we have created, it
dissolves into nothingness.