Given all that we hear right now about global warming, can you imagine a world where all the humans disappeared? That is the challenging premise of The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. He posits a planet not that NEVER had humans, but one in which the entire population just disappeared. How much of what we have built would survive, and for how long?

Some of what he writes is simply interesting, such as the fact that because we have to pump water constantly out of New York’s subway tunnels, they would flood in less than a hundred hours without power. Some was scary, such as when he was discussing the likelihood of crowded apartment buildings surviving a major earthquake in Istanbul. And some, yes, was shocking, such as when he described 40 mile gyres in the worlds oceans that are feet deep in plastic bags.

This isn’t the first time Weisman has written this sort of story, either. He wrote a feature article on Chernobyl some ten years after the accident, detailing how the wildlife had returned where people could not. He speaks with hundreds of experts about everything from ancient forests in Poland to the megaconcrete factories all around Houston.

I found The World Without Us a fascinating read that ran a wide and eclectic range of research. Weisman pulls so many threads together to weave a whole of how we have in the past and how we continue to affect everything around us. Whether you agree with all of his ideas or not, this is one must read.