The premise of The World Without Us is the title. Naturally, the author has thought and researched the topic more than the reader, but I was not prepared for what a massively depressing onslaught this would be. It is, in fact, more depressing than anything else I’ve read in a long time. First, the world is not without us, and it won’t be soon. Second, several of the author’s scenarios, e.g. What will happen to the huge petrochemical plants in Houston when nobody is there to maintain them, and what will be the consequences for the life that we haven’t already destroyed?, show that it is too late to do anything about so many of our machinations. Third, it’s easy to go off hiking, enjoy the fresh air, and pretend that all is well or at least reversible, but this book is unrelenting, and we are reminded that something like the nuclear waste that is currently stored in sheds behind cyclone fences on the grounds of the reactors wherever they might be, cannot have a happy ending whether we are here or not. Professor Weisman does try to put a very mild happy spin on things at the end, after all, the sun will become a red giant star and fry this rock in time, and from the point of view of the universe what does it all matter anyway? Oy.