Alan Weisman (1) (1947–)

As others have noted, this is a thought experiment on how the world would change if all of humanity disappeared overnight. The real eye opener is the amount of plastic that has found its way into the ecosystem, and number of areas that may never recover their original state due to introduction of foreign species.

On one hand, this could be taken as a very depressing exercise: just how long will it take for nature to more or less return to pre-human condition were we to all disappear tomorrow.

The answer turns this into a fairly hopeful book: not very long. For most things, anyway. Plastics will be here long after any signs of us are entirely wiped from the planet. But, out cities will be gone in a geological blink of the eye: a few hundred years.

I wish those with political & economic clout would read books like this.

A very novel idea, but the essay jumps around more than I cared for. In the end, it is about fixing our planet. Surprise; the problem is too many humans. Oct 2009