Alan Weisman's
The World Without Us was born from a deceptively simple question: what would become of the world if all of humanity were to disappear? From that single premise comes what is arguably the finest work of nonfiction released in 2oo7, comprised of a series of surprisingly engrossing scientific articles. He starts with examining the fate of something so commonplace as our home without us (see
these pictures of New Orleans' 9th Ward for an idea). Weisman then moves to the metropolis of New York City (after two days it immediately floods and fails), and then on to the farm, to our nuclear legacy, to the sea, our art and beyond.
His findings are sobering. In the chapter on nuclear energy, Weisman looks to the self-healing happening in post-nuclear Chernobyl when he writes that "typical human activity is more devastating to biodiversity and abundance of local flora and fauna than the worst nuclear power plant disaster," and after considering that since the human migration out of Africa and into the Americas and Australia we have left a trail of massive extinctions in our wake, it's easy to deduce that we've been a blight on the planet since our earliest hunter/gather days. But, of course, in many ways modern man is much worse.
I was absolutely terrified to read his chapter on plastics, which for me was the most startling part of the entire book. I knew that plastics don't break down, but I never really gave much thought to what happened to them beyond landfills. His description of the
Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a garbage dump floating in the middle of the Pacific THE SIZE OF AFRICA - was thoroughly alarming. Comprised of 3 million tons of plastic, 80% of which "had originally been discarded on land...blown off garbage trucks or out of landfills, spilled from railroad shipping containers and washed down storm drains, sailed down rivers of wafted on the wind, and found its way to this widening gyre," this blight floats in the center of the ocean where it waits for evolution to create a bacteria capable of breaking it down.
(A dead albatross found full of plastic)Needless to say, after reading up a bit more on polymers and
nurdles I'm swearing off of plastic water bottles and buying my own canvas grocery bags.
I could go on (the fate of songbirds at the hands of powerlines, deforestation, feral cats and plate glass windows was also particularly disturbing to me), but I'm sure I've already depressed you enough. The funny thing is
The World Without Us - although certainly grim - was also surprisingly hopeful. After all, history shows that despite our human arrogance we
will eventually disappear, but our planet will adapt and move on, that "life will go on. And that it will interesting."
In sum, I recommend this book to everyone. In fact, (and at the risk of sounding preachy) it's an essential read.
Up Next:
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz
Labels: authors U-Z, books, essays, non-fiction, science
Before writing this, her sophomore effort, Mary Roach (author of Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers) spent nearly a year traveling, interviewing, researching, and even enrolling in medium school, with the hopes of either proving or disproving the seemingly unprovable: the afterlife. With a keen sense of a humor, a scientific mind and a mostly skeptical point of view, Roach writes of her experiences traveling to India to investigate claims of reincarnation, exploring the theory that a body loses 21 grams (presumably, the weight of the human soul) after death, charts ectoplasm's strange history, follows ghosthunters as they try to track down spirits with infrared cameras and tape recorders, and more.
