Imagine a world without human beings.

The tag line to the latest Omega Man remake? Hardly. Rather, its the premise of journalist Alan Weisman’s newest book, The World Without Us, an examination of what might happen if the strain of humanity was taken off the earth. For instance, in days’ time, the pumps that keep our subways dry would fail, flood, and begin eroding underground construction. In a year’s time, millions more birds will exist in a world without airplanes. In twenty years’ time, the steel beams that support New York’s East Side would buckle and break. As Lexington Ave. collapses, it would become a river. Our plastic would exist long after everything else. Our radio signals, however broken, would be emitted forever.

The book is full of juicy factoids like those, but Weisman also takes a look at parts of the world untouched by human hands — Chernobyl, the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the old-growth forests of Poland — and uses those environments to further inform his post-apocalyptic vision.

But Jon Stewart makes it all funny. Watch the Daily Show interview.