The World Without Us

I read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman and was very affected by it.  It's not fiction but it's not non-fiction either.  Maybe it's non-fiction science or speculative fiction?  I don't know but the story is about what would happen to our planet if for some reason (like the Rapture?) all the human beings suddenly disappeared.  This thought is crazy but the author writes it in a way that makes it very easy to read.  And it's informative too.  Several times Weisman would write something seemingly secondary that would blow my mind and I'd be like, "Wait, what?"  And he wrote about places on the earth that I have been to like the Great Barrier Reef, the chunnel (the rail line between London and France that goes under the sea), and Lake Navaisha in Kenya.  One thing he wrote about, just in passing, was the Maasai tribe of Kenya and their red plaid shukas (cloth shawls) were from visitors from Scotland. What?  The Maasai tribe is one of the most wild culture on this planet.  They live a nomadic lifestyle and they're wearing Scottish material?  Well, now that I think about it the shukas do look totally tartan.  But I was told they wore red to be seen across the African wilderness.  That fact blew my mind. He wrote about the Puszcza forest between Poland and Belarus and now I want to see that because it sound amazing.  The author talks about humans have impacted the world with mining, creating more than 400 nuclear power plants, bringing in invasive species, making plastic, damming rivers, building bridges, replacing forests and grasslands with row crops, and crowding out the upper level predators with cattle, hogs, sheep, goats and pigs.  Once we're gone, how long will it take before the changes we have made go away?  When will the birds make a comeback?  When will the forests return?  In Manhattan, without humans to keep things running, the subways will fill with water within days and that will cause the streets to cave in and the buildings will tumble.  The older buildings, like those made centuries ago out of stone, will last longer than the modern ones.  The chunnel might last quite a long time although who knows if any animals will try to cross the 36 miles of complete darkness?  The French side of the chunnel is only 20 yards above sea level so water may come in that side.  The English side is 200 yards above sea level so that will last longer.  The author said if you want to get rid of a barn just cut a one foot hole in the roof and the building will collapse in ten years.  All the nuclear power plants, without humans (or Homer Simpson) to maintain them, will eventually blow up and spew heavy metals into the air.  Hard to say what will happen there but they do know there are fish near military atolls in the Pacific Ocean with a herringbone pattern on one side of their body and a "pop art" pattern on the other side.  Most art will disappear but bronze statues will last the longest.  There is a nuclear waste collection in the salt domes of south east New Mexico.  Spent fuel rods, more dangerous now that they've been used because of the nuclear reaction in them that cannot be stopped, are protected as much as possible.  Instructions about them and why the salt domes should not be opened are placed on bronze plaques around the area in case all humans are gone and cannot warn visitors of the dangers.  The Panama Canal will quickly fill in because of the silt carried by rivers into the canal.  One of the last human artifacts to remain will be, of all places, Mount Rushmore.  This was a grim book.  Parts of it made me quite sad.  We humans have set up an system that cannot be sustained.  Our population cannot keep growing at this pace.  Why, oh why, did I choose plastic wood for my deck?  I feel terrible for using pesticides but golly, when I have a wasp nest right by a door what can I do?  Why do I buy so much plastic?  I think I live a fairly "green" life but this book has me dismayed.  If you're going to read it, make sure you're in a good place first.  I think it would be dangerous to read if you are already depressed.