wood and rusts the nails, leading to sagging walls and eventual collapse. After 500 years, all that would be left would be aluminum dishwasher parts, stainless steel cookware, and plastic handles. The longest-lasting evidence on Earth of a human presence would be radioactive materials, ceramics, bronze statues, and Mount Rushmore. In space, the Pioneer plaques, the Voyager Golden Record, and radio waves would outlast the Earth itself. Breaking from the theme of the natural environment after humans, Weisman considers what could lead to the sudden, complete demise of humans without serious damage to the built and natural environment. That scenario, he concludes, is extremely unlikely. He also considers transhumanism, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, the Church of Euthanasia and John A. Leslie's The End of the World: the Science and Ethics of Human Extinction. Weisman concludes the book considering a new version of the one-child policy. While he admits it is a "draconian measure", he states, "The bottom line is that any species that overstretches its resource base suffers a population crash. Limiting our reproduction would be damn hard, but limiting our consumptive instincts may be even harder." He responded to criticism of this saying "I knew in advance that I would touch some people's sensitive spots by bringing up the population issue, but I did so because it's been missing too long from the discussion of how we must deal with the situation our economic and demographic growth have driven us too (sic)". Publication The book was first published on July 10, 2007, as a hardback in the United States by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books, in United Kingdom by Virgin Books and in Canada by HarperCollins. The paperback was released in July 2008. It has been translated and published in Denmark by Borgen as Verden uden os, France by Groupe Flammarion as Homo disparitus, in Germany by Piper as Die Welt ohne uns, in Portugal by Estrela Polar as O Mundo Sem Nós, in Italy by Einaudi as Il mondo senza di noi, in Poland by CKA as Świat bez nas, and in Japan by Hayakawa Publishing as Jinrui ga kieta sekai (人類が消えた世界; "A World where the Human Race has Disappeared"). Pete Garceau designed the cover art for the American release, which one critic said was "a thick layer of sugar-coated sweetness in an effort to not alarm potential readers. 'Yes, I am a book about the environment.