World Without Us

Product Details

Author : Alan Weisman
Binding : Hardcover
EAN : 9780002008648
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 2007-07-05

ASIN : 0002008645

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Customer Reviews

Withdrawal symptoms (2007-11-27)

According to some biologists, the Earth is suffering an "infestation". The afflicting organism, "Homo sapiens" has overrun the planet. The infection is recent, several thousand years old in its most virulent phase. During that brief period, however, the surface of the planet has been seriously transformed. Alan Weisman has confronted the impact of our infection of the biosphere with an entirely fresh approach. Relying little on speculation, excepting only what might make the human species disappear, he points up our environmental foot print describing how the planet would recover from what our presence has effected. A captivating read, this book is at once an indictment and a challenge to our intellect and our values.The great metropolis of New York City is one focal point in this account. Once traversed by 40 meandering streams feeding the ocean and river, the island, but for its striking Central Park, is now "tamed". Massive buildings line its many kilometres of pavement, and the storm sewer systems have replaced Nature's waterways. Yet, those rivulets persist, demanding flow rights. The loss of humanity would shut down the 753 pumps that keep the subway tunnels relatively dry. The streams, assisted by the bordering river and ocean would quickly inundate them. The bridges' streams of vehicles haven't stopped the return of wildlife to the city, and human abandonment would accelerate the process. Botany's realm, however, may never recover its original domain. Too many human-introduced species have an irresistible foothold. Those tall buildings bracketing the asphalt ribbons would also ultimately break down, providing havens for birds and small mammals before succumbing. The one species we've all been taught to be the ultimate survivor - the kitchen cockroach - would disappear with the first harsh winter.Weisman doesn't limit his account for his native land's reading audience, however. The entire planet becomes his information hunting ground. An ancient patch of forest in Eastern Europe has been protected for centuries by hunting noblemen. While the deletion of humans would allow the forest to expand, it's likely the confined herd of European bison would enjoy the same recovery. In our original homeland, the natural predator-prey balance would be briefly offset by the ready meals our domesticated animals would provide. Herds of cattle, goats and sheep in Africa, untutored by natural selection to avoid lions and cheetahs, would fill feline bellies. Where the big cats would rule undeterred for a time, many microbes would be forced to make some spectacular adjustments. Oil dumps and nuclear stations, slowly breaking down would flood the landscape with hydrocarbons and radiation. Some microbes are already resistant to radioactive elements while some can "eat" oil. Others would have to expand their range of comestibles by adapting to them over millennia. Whether similar adjustments might be made for the mass of plastics we've dumped into the world remains an open question, Weisman says.Although his original premise may be fantasy, the crux of his discussion is based on solid science. His interviews are with people who are in a position to gauge how we affect the world. Some of them are in place to prevent the recursion of nature into the habitat we've created for our species' benefit. One, archaeologist Arthur Demarest, is investigating a small segment of "the world without us", the site of the Maya realm. The 1600-year-long reign of those Central American people must have seemed "destined to thrive forever". The "spectacular, sudden collapse" took only a century. The return of the rainforest hides their existence from European invaders' eyes for another millennium.Although Weisman's view of a dehumanised planet is compelling, almost desirable, he knows neither he nor his readership would be pleased by our extinction. We want to go on existing. Yet, he notes, "every four days, the world population rises by four million" - a clearly unsustainable rate of growth. Weisman has a scenario for survival, but its application would have to be nearly as instantaneous as his scenario of disappearance. His aim is curtailment of the human infestation - by the "draconian measure" of universal birth control. He argues that every human female must be limited to producing but one offspring. A challenging scenario, obviously, but one which he argues would reduce the planet's infesting species to a total of 1.6 billion by the end of this century. The number's validity may be disputed, but the goal is admirable. Could such a scenario possibly be envisioned, let alone implemented? It's that, he says, or a new wave of human colonisation - on other planets. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The single best thing we can do for the environment (2007-11-18)

The author provides a very important supplement to the growing pro-environmental movement. What I particularly enjoyed about this book was its pitch. The book starts off with a light 'what if' science fiction-like situation of all humans being magically spirited away from earth, and proceeds from there. His vast message seems to be that even with a human-free world nature will recover and fill in the gaps very quickly. "The World Without Us" is a fast, easy read with the logic that something needs change within our actions. Also recommended "Understanding: Train of Thought".

Beautiful and disturbing (2007-11-18)

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 world's 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 Dali Lama, and paleontologists -- who describe a prehuman world inhabited by megafauna like giant sloths that stood taller than mammoths -- Weisman illustrates what the planet might be like today, if not for us. From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest the Korean DMZ Chernobyl), Weisman 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!!!

What will happen to the world if we're not around?? (2007-11-16)

XXXXX"Picture a world from which we [humans] all suddenly vanished. Tomorrow...Leave [everything on the Earth's surface] all in place, but extract [all] the human beings...How would the rest of nature respond if it were suddenly relieved of the relentless pressures we heap on it and our fellow organisms? How soon would, or could, the climate return to where it was before we fired up all our engines?How long would it take to recover lost ground and restore Eden to the way it must have gleamed and smelled the day before Adam, or [humans], appeared? Could nature ever obliterate all our traces? How would it undo our monumental cities and public works, and reduce our myriad plastics and toxic synthetics back to benign, basic elements? ...And what of our finest creations--our architecture, our art, our many manifestations of spirit? Are any truly timeless, at least enough so to last until the sun expands and roasts our Earth to a cinder?And even after THAT, might we have left some faint, enduring mark on the universe...of Earthly humanity; some interplanetary sign that once we were here? ...Is it possible that, instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us would miss us?"The above premise and numerous questions are found in the introduction to this fascinating, unique, extremely well-written book by award-winning journalist and author Alan Weisman.WARNING! This is not a book of fiction but of rational scientific speculation. In fact, the magazine article on which this book is based and expands, was selected for "Best American Science Writing 2006."Weisman obtains all the answers to the questions posed above by "drawing on the expertise of [such people as] engineers, atmospheric scientists, art conservators, astrophysicists, religious leaders...and paleontologists."The author goes beyond scientific speculation to observation by taking us to present day, forgotten places where there are no human beings (such as Chernobyl). He makes some enlightening discoveries in these places.All the chapters are extremely interesting but here are my personal favorites:(1) The city without us(2) What falls apart(3) What lasts(4) Polymers are forever(5) The world without farms(6) The world without war(7) Hot legacy (deals with things nuclear)(8) Art beyond usFinally, throughout there are black & white pictures and illustrations. I found many of these interesting. Note that the cover of this book (displayed above by Amazon) is especially interesting showing a city skyline reflected in the water as the way it possibly was before humans came along.In conclusion, this is truly a unique book destined, in my opinion, to become a classic!!(first published 2007; prelude; 4 parts or 19 chapters; coda; main narrative 275 pages; acknowledgments; bibliography; index)<>XXXXX

Beautiful and thought-provoking (2007-10-28)

This is a beautifully-written and thought-provoking book. Weisman takes us all over the globe to explore what would happen to our artifacts -- buildings, cities, farms, nature preserves, etc. -- if all the humans suddenly disappeared somehow. In some places, within a couple hundred years it would be hard to tell we were ever there. In other cases, our footprint will be seen for aeons. This book is many things: An homage to the resilience of nature; a tribute to some of the brilliant and enduring things built by humans; a caution about the irreversible harm we are causing to some parts of the planet; and a plea to protect nature by reducing our impact on it.I found it hard to put this book down. It covers a wide range of topics, all starting from an intriguing premise ("what if the world had to continue without humans"), and presents ideas and challenges that stayed with me after finishing reading it. I highly recommend it.

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