The World Without Us is the most recent work by famed environmentalist and futurist Alan Weisman. Set in what amounts to a fairly familiar situation now, the world after humanity is wiped out (he makes no guess what causes it, just assumes that it has happened) Weisman goes through a number of different aspects of civilization and how they will change without human intervention.
One aspect of Weisman's writing and conclusions which I enjoyed was that he didn't take the easy answers. He didn't simply say that nature would improve and that everything would go smoothly once humans stopped existing. Far from it, in fact. He talks at some length about what happens to plastic when it is does not end up in landfills. We've all seen plastic bags floating on the water at the beach, or blowing in the wind, but what happens when that plastic is broken down by ocean currents over many years? Weisman estimates (no one can know for sure, plastic hasn't been around long enough for anyone to know, even in a laboratory setting) that the plastic simply is literally pounded into microscopic parts and those parts are going to be digested by small, incredibly small organisms. Will they be able to use them for food, or will this additional plastic reek havoc with the entire ecosystem? Again, no one knows but Wesiman isn't all doom and gloom on the subject, even suggesting that he feels an animal will eventually evolve with the ability to digest these plastic particles as food.
Any novel on this topic wouldn't be complete without a chapter on our current domesticated animals, Weisman's work is no different here. Clearly, as many of us would expect animals like cows and even the family dog are so adapted to humans taking care of them that they don't have much hope in a world without humans. The family cat is another story though as it has never totally surrendered to human control, as evidenced by the fact that the average house cat will still hunt even when well fed.
If you're looking for a novel about the future, even one without us, The World Without Us makes for an enjoyable read and I believe finds a nice middle ground between favoring human intervention and natural selection in the wider world around us.
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