Green Options » the world without us

What Will Earth Look Like in 100 Million Years?

Shirley Siluk Gregory — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:05:15 +0000

Did Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us get your mind spinning about what our planet would look like if we just suddenly disappeared? Well, get ready to spin some more, courtesy of a new book by University of Leicester geologist Jan Zalasiewicz.

Titled The Earth After Us: What Legacy Will Humans Leave in the Rocks?, Zalasiewicz’s book explores what an alien geologist might be able to learn about our species from the geological record. And, like The World Without Us, it sounds like a fascinating — and sobering — read.

‘The World Without Us’ in Action in Former USSR

Adam Williams — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 01:04:16 +0000

A Georgian train station in Abkhazia has fallen into disrepair — or is it natural repair? — since the years that the elite of Soviet society used it en route to luxurious retreats. It is The World Without Us in action.

The Case of the Missing Humans: Alan Weisman’s ‘The World Without Us’

Sources: Design Under Sky and Environmental Graffiti

Win a Copy of Alan Weisman’s “The World Without Us”

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 20:29:05 +0000

In last week’s review of Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us, Justin noted

Weisman’s final sentence in the Prelude provides a provocative launching point into the book: “Is it possible that, instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us would miss us?”1 Having this idea of nature missing us as or after it takes over again keeps the reader wandering what trick Weisman (or nature!) has up his sleeve as he describes all the serious alterations we have made to the natural ecosystem. It also challenges the widely held assumption that Earth would be better off without us–and so likely happy to see us gone!

There are certainly people out there that believe that the environmental movement (in particular) thinks humanity has been nothing but a scourge on the natural order. While we don’t think that’s necessarily an argument that will do much to advance, well, anything, we do think that Weisman’s “thought experiment” provides a fertile jumping-off point for discussing human interaction with nature. So, we’d like to invite you to discuss the concept of “the world without us” … and enter to win a copy of Weisman’s book.

The Case of the Missing Humans: Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us

Justin Van Kleeck — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:00:55 +0000

Imagine that you are not here anymore. Your friends, your family, neighbors, all gone. Even I, your favorite green blogger, have vanished like a snuffed candle flame–not just from the blogosphere but from the entire bloody biosphere!

This scenario of modern Earth minus its most problematic children, us, is the subject of Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us. In one of the most compelling, meticulously researched cultural thought experiments of recent years, Weisman examines the numerous ways that humanity has stamped its footprint on the Earth’s face and then what would likely happen if we simply went away.

Weisman’s books has received a lot of fanfare and awards, such as being Time magazine’s #1 non-fiction book of 2007 and a New York Times bestseller, so I have been anxious to read it for a while. But any expectations I had, as you may have, of some misanthropic environmentalist’s tirade against humankind quickly get exploded by Weisman’s more nuanced, balanced, intelligent approach. The result is an inspiring, if also at times disheartening, presentation of how life has endured and will endure with or without humans in the mix.

In this respect, Weisman’s final sentence in the Prelude provides a provocative launching point into the book: “Is it possible that, instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us would miss us?”1 Having this idea of nature missing us as or after it takes over again keeps the reader wandering what trick Weisman (or nature!) has up his sleeve as he describes all the serious alterations we have made to the natural ecosystem. It also challenges the widely held assumption that Earth would be better off without us–and so likely happy to see us gone!

Weekend Review: The World Without Us and Children of Men

Sonia Aggarwal — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 02:31:20 +0000

I had the occasion to stumble upon two uniquely imagined facets of the same future over the past week. The first: The World Without Us, an eerily quiet scenario in which humans disappear from the Earth and nature slowly and persistently takes over. The second: Children of Men, a visually stunning dystopia in the form of a sterile and slowly vanishing human race.

Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us uses a rational, scientific approach to describe post-human Earth. Surprisingly, the book reads like a summer page-turner…that really makes you think. The story meanders from the planet’s wildest places - a primeval forest in Belarus and Poland - to areas where human conflict has driven human abandonment and nature has found peace - in Cyprus and Korea.

Weisman’s artistic description of what falls apart, what lasts, and what happens when we’re gone is like candy for the imagination. "In a dream, you walk outside to find your familiar landscape swarming with fantastic beings. Furry rhinoceroses, big hairy elephants, and even bigger sloths-sloths??" He continues, "a dream, or a congenital memory? This was precisely the world that Homo sapiens stepped into as we spread beyond Africa, all the way to America. Had we never appeared, would those now-missing mammals still be here? If we go, will they be back?"

He also describes how man-made structures would fare the conquest of nature. For example, even on a sunny day, the people who keep New York City’s subway system working have to pump 13 million gallons of water away. Without us, Manhattan would soon turn into a system of streams and rivers. Weisman paints a vaguely haunting picture of the future, but at the same time, it’s powerfully peaceful.

Children of Men explores a slightly different future. Faced with mass infertility, our flimsy facade of civilization quickly degenerates into widespread warfare and depravity. We continue to destroy not only our own creations, but also our planet. The cause of human sterility is never explained in the movie, but one cannot help but connect the dots to the many chemicals and plastics that infiltrate our air and water today.

Weisman also explores infertility in The World Without Us - through the eyes of the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, Les Knight. His image of a sterile population is much more peaceful: "Like retired business executives who suddenly find serenity by tending a garden, Knight envisions us spending our remaining time helping rid an increasingly natural world of unsightly and now useless clutter, in pursuit of which we’d once swapped something alive and lovely. ‘The last humans could enjoy their final sunsets peacefully, knowing they have returned the planet as close as possible to the Garden of Eden."

How/if we ever go, it will remain true that human action has fundamentally altered the Earth’s climate. The effects will persist for centuries, whether we’re here to feel them or not - but it’s certainly fascinating to imagine the world in a state that we, by definition, could never see: without us.

Your House Without You