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sesana46. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman
A few years ago, I watched a special on either Discovery or the History Channel (I can't remember which) called Life After People. It seems that special was sort-of-but-not-quite-in-a-way-that-we-can-avoid-lawsuits based off this book. But it was better. Both were using a hypothetical scenario where humans simply vanished, no wars, nuclear winter, or geography-changing catastrophes. The difference is that Life After People was primarily about life after people. It was fascinating, to see how cities would slowly crumble over time. The World Without Us, on the other hand, is much more about exactly how humans have changed the world, and how those changes would last. Which was interesting, in a way, and something that Life After People would have been even more interesting with. Like the discussion about how long it would take for the oceans to completely rid themselves of plastics. (A really, really long time, for the records) But it was unfocused, and rambling, and repeated itself, and sometimes forgot to get into that whole world without us thing that was the draw of the book. The cover is gorgeous, though.
A few years ago, I watched a special on either Discovery or the History Channel (I can't remember which) called Life After People. It seems that special was sort-of-but-not-quite-in-a-way-that-we-can-avoid-lawsuits based off this book. But it was better. Both were using a hypothetical scenario where humans simply vanished, no wars, nuclear winter, or geography-changing catastrophes. The difference is that Life After People was primarily about life after people. It was fascinating, to see how cities would slowly crumble over time. The World Without Us, on the other hand, is much more about exactly how humans have changed the world, and how those changes would last. Which was interesting, in a way, and something that Life After People would have been even more interesting with. Like the discussion about how long it would take for the oceans to completely rid themselves of plastics. (A really, really long time, for the records) But it was unfocused, and rambling, and repeated itself, and sometimes forgot to get into that whole world without us thing that was the draw of the book. The cover is gorgeous, though.
