World Without Us, The

Product Description

'On the day after humans disappear, nature takes over and immediately begins cleaning house - or houses, that is. Cleans them right off the face of the earth. They all go.'

How would the world change if human beings vanished from the earth right now, for good? What would the planet be like in a day, a week, a month . . . a millennium? Would its climate ever recover from the effects of human activity? And what about our cities, buildings and great works of art? Will we have left any enduring mark on the universe; any sign that we were once here?

To discover the answers, Alan Weisman looks to areas of the world that are currently unoccupied and speaks to experts in fields ranging from nuclear physics to archaeology. He reveals how the natural world would respond to our disappearance, and uncovers just how long our greatest achievements and our biggest mistakes would last after we are gone. In doing so he wrestles with some of the key concerns of our time and offers an intriguing glimpse of what the real legacy of our time on the planet may be.