The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. HarperCollins, 2008.
Weisman asks “What would happen to the world if all humans suddenly disappeared?” as a platform from which to examine the state of the planet. His novel approach makes for a fascinating and frightening book. Weisman begins with a house to study the unmaking of the world. The day after humans disappear, he writes, nature would begin to clean house – or houses. Nature would clean them all right off the face of the Earth. It might begin with the roof, as the first leaks occur around the chimney flashing. Soon nails are rusting, their grip loosens, trusses pull free, mold develops, squirrels and raccoons move in. As walls deteriorate, the basement fills with soil and plants. In five hundred years, a forest will stand where a suburb once was.
I hadn’t thought about how susceptible cities are. Weisman looks at New York to envision the devastation wrought by water in subway tunnels should the 750 and more pumps currently used fail. In Van Siclen Avenue station in Brooklyn alone, 650 gallons of natural groundwater are removed every minute by four pumps that rely on electricity.
Two sections I found particularly alarming deal with plastics and the nuclear industry. I’ve heard of beaches strewn with plastic bags and bottles, but the extent to which the oceans have already been inundated with plastic garbage is jaw-dropping. You can find nurdles, little plastic cylinders about two millimeters high, on beaches just about everywhere. They are the raw materials of plastic production that are melted down to make all manner of plastic items. Plastics in water don’t disappear. They just disintegrate into smaller and smaller bits until they become part of the food chain and block the intestines of the creatures that ingest them. And what of nuclear reactors? There are currently some 440 reactors around the world that would all melt down into mega-Chernobyls without human attendants. Even if that never happens, every year we accumulate tons more nuclear waste that we have no safe disposal system for.
It’s interesting, thought-provoking reading, and Weisman tells his thoroughly-researched tale in a calm, clear-eyed manner. Ultimately, there is just one cause for pretty much all the woes of the natural world, and just one solution. There are too many people. We need to stop overpopulation. The one-child policy of China needs to apply everywhere. As Pogo said, we have met the enemy and he is us. (Pogo cartoon from Wikipedia)
Willow House Chronicles 
I’ve seen this book and browsed through it. Makes one think and that is the intention of the writer I’m sure. Humans extinct! To anyone who thinks it can’t happen look at history. Remember the dinosaurs.
Steve
It’s definitely worth the read, Steve. I saw an interview with Alan Weisman on Allan Gregg in Conversation on TVO a while ago, which piqued my interest in the book.
I haven’t read the book so I can’t speak to its contents, but I do have comments based on your review.
Plastics? Scary stuff for sure.
Nuclear plants – would they all melt down without human attendants, or would they just eventually stop running as they ran out of fuel, producing less and less power until they gradually stopped? I don’t know, but if they did melt down, there’s no reason to believe there would be “mega-Chernobyls”. Chernobyl took place long ago in a country far, far away. The safety standards (e.g. containment) in North America, and, hopefully, all other countries with plants, are leap years beyond Chernobyl. Nuclear waste – a terrible thing for sure, but the waste produced per person is approx. one soup can per person’s lifetime. Still a lot considering the whole over-population issue and disposal, but how big a footprint is one soup can per lifetime compared to other pollutants? Don’t know – would like to, although I don’t how you’d compare it to the pollutants going into the air and water…
I don’t know if I would find this book as effective as you did. Imagining that all the humans suddenly disappear and leave everything running is the stuff that science fiction scripts are made of. The only way it would ever happen is if something catastrophic has already happened, which would surely change a lot of the outcomes imagined in the book. I find it scarier to read about what’s definitely going to happen when we all stay.
Ineeda, Weisman doesn’t suggest we are all going to suddenly disappear, but simply uses that conceit as a sort of “freeze-frame” from which to examine the state of the world today; what could return to a former state and what has been so heavily impacted it is changed forever.
He does not suggest modern reactors are the same as those at Chernobyl. Nor does he argue that one power source is better than another. There is a whole chapter about nuclear issues, including warheads. As your thoughtful comments clearly indicate, you have an interest in that area and I suggest you read his book for yourself.
He also fails to mention the far off future. In about 5 billion years the Sun is projected to expand to the point where the Earth will be cooked.
Without humans moving themselves and other forms of life off-world at this time (and prior to it) much of the life (if not every single organism that is part of it) on the Earth will likely perish.
About overpopulation. I would put forward the question of if the majority of plastics that are definitely polluting oceans and shorelines as well as killing living things are being used or produced by the majority of people around the world. I bring this point up because there isn’t a plastics required per person ratio or a nuclear power plants required per person ratio. If you change that to a ratio per person with a given lifestyle (high consumption) that may change but most people not require nuclear powerplants to survive.
A minority of the human population is responsible for most of the wealth and consumption in the world. Cutting back on the total number of humans may not change much for this minority. Note that China’s 1 child policy has been in place for years (lowering China’s birthrate) and it did not prevent China from rapidly increasing its CO2 emissions to the point of producing more of them than any other nation (including the USA).
My feeling is that the discussion of overpopulation does not really address this.
Yes, as China industrializes, the more impact each individual has, so it is good that they have already got their population program under way. Population control is important for continents such as Africa in order to improve the standard of living of children, especially better health care and education. It is important in developed countries because each individual is such a high volume consumer.