The World Without Us

A FASCINATING GLIMPSE OF THE EARTH IF HUMANS VANISHED TODAY

"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."

What if mankind disappeared right now, forever . What would happen to the Earth in a week, a year, a millennium? Could the planet's climate ever recover from human activity? How would nature destroy our huge cities and our myriad plastics? And what would our final legacy be?

Imagine that the human race was suddenly removed from the face of the eart - not by nuclear or biological catastrophe but in some hypothetical God-like experiment. The World Without Us takes readres on a journey into a future world unburdened by the human race, the ultimate predator and consumer of Earth's resources, and asks how the natural world would resond if mankind simply disappeared. Would the earth's climate recover fromt he effects of human activity? Would nature destroy our crawling cities? How would it reduce our myriad plastics and toxic synthetics? Could it ever obliterate all traces of human civilisation?

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 world would react to our disappearance and wrestles with some of the key concerns of our time to offer an intriguing glimpse what may be the real legacy of our time on the planet.



Alan Weisman is a journalist and the author of numerous books. His writing has won several major awards and has appeared in The New York Times Magazine and the Los Angeles Times Magazine.

The World Without Us
Random House Australia
Author: Alan Weisman
ISBN: 9780753513576
RRP:$27.95