FREE THE WORLD WITHOUT US PDF Mireille Juchau | 320 pages | 14 Jan 2016 | Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | 9781408866511 | English | London, United Kingdom Around the World in 30 Gifts Sign in with Facebook Sign in options. Join The World Without Us. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Without them, we couldn't exist. It's that simple, and we can't afford to ignore them, anymore than I can afford to neglect my precious wife--nor the sweet mother Earth that births and holds us all. Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be. That may seem far-fetched, but it's also a definition of prayer. Nothing remains the same. Who would ever have imagined that an organism would essentially turn itself inside out, pulling its shoulder girdle inside its ribs to form a carapace? The only real prediction you can make is that life The World Without Us go on. And that it will be interesting. To enter it is to realize that most of us were bred to a pale copy of what nature intended. Seeing elders with trunks seven feet wide, or walking through stands of the tallest trees here—gigantic Norway spruce, shaggy as Methuselah—should seem as exotic as the Amazon or Antarctica to someone raised among the comparatively puny, second-growth woodlands found throughout The World Without Us Northern Hemisphere. And, on some cellular level, how complete. Since the Milky Way islight-years across and 1, light-years thick, and our solar system is near The World Without Us middle of the galactic plane, this means in about AD the expanding sphere of radio The World Without Us bearing Lucy, Ricky, and their neighbors the Mertzes will emerge from the top and bottom of our galaxy and enter intergalactic The World Without Us. Nor, absent the availability of a few thousand slaves, is it cheap, especially compared to another Roman innovation: concrete. All this plastic had appeared in barely more than 50 years. Would its chemical constituents or additives—for instance, colorants such as metallic copper— concentrate as they ascended the food chain, The World Without Us alter evolution? Would it last long enough to enter the fossil record? Would geologists millions of years hence find Barbie doll parts embedded in conglomerates formed in seabed depositions? Would they be intact enough to be pieced together like dinosaur bones? That is also true if it is sunk in the ocean, covered with sediment. Possibly anaerobic organisms there can biodegrade it. So we expect much-slower degradation at the sea bottom. Many times longer. Even an order of magnitude longer. One thousand years? Ten thousand? The seemingly invincible cockroach, a tropical import, long ago froze in unheated apartment buildings. Without garbage, rats starved or became lunch for the raptors nesting in burnt-out skyscrapers. The material still remains a polymer. Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account. The World Without Us - Alan Weisman Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read. Want to Read saving…. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Other editions. Enlarge cover. Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Details if other :. Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth In The World Without UsAlan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse The World Without Us finally vanish without human presence; which everyday A penetrating, page-turning tour of a post-human Earth In The World Without UsAlan Weisman offers an utterly original approach to questions of humanity's impact on the planet: he asks us to envision our Earth, without us. In this far-reaching narrative, Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; which everyday items may become immortalized as The World Without Us how copper pipes and wiring would The World Without Us crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may be our most lasting gifts to the universe. The World Without Us reveals how, just days after humans disappear, floods in New York's subways would start eroding the city's foundations, and how, as the The World Without Us cities crumble, asphalt jungles would give way to real ones. It describes the distinct ways that organic and chemically treated farms would revert to wild, how billions more birds would flourish, and how cockroaches in unheated cities would perish without us. Drawing on the expertise of engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, zoologists, oil refiners, marine biologists, astrophysicists, religious leaders from rabbis to the Dalai Lama, and paleontologists—who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths—Weisman illustrates what the planet The World Without Us be like today, if not for us. From places already devoid of humans a last fragment of primeval European forest; the Korean DMZ; ChernobylWeisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that needn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest, and in posing an irresistible concept with both gravity and a highly readable touch, it looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has. Get A Copy. HardcoverFirst Editionpages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The World Without Usplease sign up. It has been a few years since I've read this, and The World Without Us forgot: does Weisman go at all into the eventual failures that would lead to the collapse of skyscrapers, including the newest ones? Carolyn McBride He covers what leads to some failures, yes. He touches on some failures of certain bridges, but I suppose metal failure is metal failure no matter if …more He covers what leads to some failures, yes. He touches on some failures of certain bridges, but I suppose metal failure is metal failure no matter if it's a bridge or high-rise. Edward This book is pages, not counting index and acknowledgements. See all 6 questions about The World Without Us…. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of The World Without Us. A: Find a remote wilderness and build a cabin. Add a few chickens, goats, cows ect. Leave your The World Without Us, with the The World Without Us conditioner running, get in your Hummer, and drive across the country…. Eat as much factory farmed meat as you can stand on the way…. Steal a truck loaded with nuclear waste and drive it Thelma and Louise style into the Grand Canyon, committing a spectacular environmental suicide. I feel better now. This book is a very good book, but it is a tad, well, depressing. I recommend it because not only do I want to drag you down with me of its important information. We all need to be informed. The World Without Us examines what the earth would be like if man were to just disappear. How long would it take the earth to rid itself of all traces of us? Turns out not very long geologically, but bronze statues and The World Without Us and Ken in the landfill will The World Without Us the test of time. One point the author makes, our problems well most of them could be fixed, or greatly improved, if all women of child bearing age The World Without Us agree to have just one child. That would be a start. View all 34 comments. Sep 14, Mateo rated it it was amazing. Yeah, what you've heard about this book is true: It really is very good, very scary, very depressing--AND it's written entirely in Spurdlish, a language I just made up that consists only of the letter 't'. If it only enabled fire ants to slowly liquify Dick Cheney, it would be perfect. Okay, I'm kidding about the Spurdlish, but, yeah, great book. Weisman doesn't just speculate on what happens to your house or the NYC subways or the pyramids once we've all been raptured off to Heaven. Hint: That Yeah, what you've heard about this book is The World Without Us It really is very good, very scary, very depressing--AND it's written entirely in Spurdlish, a language I just made up that consists only of the letter 't'. Hint: That The World Without Us kitchen remodel you did? Hopefully it's in a color that raptors enjoy. The book is really about what we're doing to the planet, and how long our nefarious activities will outlast us. The news is both good and bad: nature tends to adapt to just about anything--think wildflowers blooming in Chernobyl--but there are still some future scenarios that are pretty hellish. More hellish than Boca Raton, Florida.