The World Without Us

Description

Reviews

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-08-04
Summary: "Only the waves remain..."

Our self-absorbed sensibilities struggle to comprehend a world without us. We are, in a sense, our own self-contained worlds processing puzzling amounts of information every nanosecond. Though most of us agree that the world exists "out there," some solipsistic holdouts notwithstanding, many probably think that we also play a role in "making" the world. After all, what's here to experience, describe and inhabit the world without us? A variation of the timeless paradox of non-being creeps in when a human-less void gets pondered. How can a world exist without those there to experience it? Ultimately, our egos nurture this pseudo-paradox. Billions of years passed on this planet devoid of the blessings and curses of human existence. Gazing at the sobering evidence, humans have played a tiny part in earth's vast history. Not to mention the growing evidence suggesting that our time here may have immediate limits. So how do we keep this now abstract world without us a mere thought experiment?

Imagination, an often underutilized and unappreciated human act, can help point the way. The very act of imagining our collective nonexistence opens up new conceptions of humanity's essence. After the initial shock, the cerebral equivalent of placing a warm foot in chilly water, the idea becomes less nebulous. Soon, a world without humans takes shape as a distinct and very possible reality. That's the first necessary revelation. The next requires further thinking: what would happen in a world emptied of homo sapiens? What fate awaits our cities, inventions, artworks, and our cherished created environments? Basically, what would happen to our world? Without reflection, it all seems timeless, limitless. The fragility and impermanence of these things only emerges upon further study. That's where "The World Without Us" picks up. Essentially a compendium of human ephemerality, this engrossing book paints an almost too vivid picture of what would happen in our absence. The resulting canvases may inspire new ways of thinking, acting and appreciating. And though no book by itself can change the world, perhaps it could contribute to our hanging around a bit longer?

Many additional shocks await in this book's four parts. Clear evidence of a post-human world gets presented as the book travels to currently abandoned places such as Varosha, Cyprus and the Korean Demilitarized zone. Both saw aggressive displays of nature's re-possessive power once humans skipped town. Varosha was overrun in a mere decade. Nature simply went to work and never stopped. The evidence is clear: without active human intervention our creations will get smothered by plants, trees, rain, erosion and animal activity. Within a few centuries some modern cities could resemble Roman ruins. High maintenance cities such as New York could go even quicker. Maintenance personnel of that city, interviewed for this book, claim that if people go AWOL, the pumps would cease and the subway system would flood in as little as 36 hours. The Big Apple would, in a matter of a few centuries or less, revert back to the forest it once was. That's as unimaginable to us today as modern New York would be to an 18th century explorer. But it drives home the point that our civilization requires an overwhelming amount of resources and work to sustain. The book heavily suggests that we'll eventually lose. Even scarier is what would happen to nuclear power plants or human made geologic forms such as the Panama Canal. Humans would be far better off absent from such situations. Then consider Uranium-235's half-life: 704 million years.

So than what would last? How would humanity's legacy express itself eons into the future? More sobering facts appear. Utterly neglected, most of what we take for granted would simply vanish in a century or two. Plastic would break down, great artworks such as paintings, textiles, books and drawings would wither to dust. Very little would remain apart from fire hydrants, some large sturdy buildings like Hagia Sophia, and most things made of "noble metals" such as copper, gold, silver, platinum, etc. The book doesn't dwell on the fact that all human knowledge would also vanish, except in tangential or indirect forms, the way plumbing disappeared from the western world after Rome's fall. In the ultimate end, of course, even the earth itself will disappear when our Sun reaches its Red Giant phase some estimated 5 to 6 billion years from now. What will remain? Nothing? It turns out that a few things may survive even this incomprehensible catastrophe: Voyager 1, 2, Pioneer 10, 11, some interplanetary probes, and radio waves. This last item represents our only known potentially eternal creation. They fly and spread through the universe, awaiting possible interception and decoding from who knows what or who. Bizarrely, scattered remnants of re-runned sitcoms and music videos may be all that remains of humanity. And that's a beguiling thing to ruminate on.

Thankfully, the book doesn't simply drop us there. It does offer some possible solutions to the "modern dilemma" of our self-unsustaining lifestyles. A final coda reflects on human population. Here a solution is suggested, but not a means to arrive at the solution. According to a European demographer, if every woman was limited to one child per lifetime, our current precarious world population of 6.5 billion people (now 6.8 billion, the book appeared in 2007) would diminish to 1.6 billion, close to a sustainable number, according to some scientists. Just how to pull off this amazing feat receives no attention, but concepts such as the ones included in this book could jump start such thinking. In theory, with fewer people nature would also begin to return. Pollution would slowly dissipate to tolerable levels. Animal populations would return (except of course for depleted ones such as the once ubiquitous Passenger Pigeon). This final section paints a picture of near paradise at the fulfillment of this goal. But would it happen? Possibly. It would have to beat the grim reality of 7 or 8 billion people in a world already shrinking in resource capacity. Regardless of the details, "The World Without Us" ends on a strangely hopeful note. At least, it seems to argue, something will be left. Wisps of radio waves are better than nothing, right?

Rating: 2 / 5
Date: 2010-07-22
Summary: "Over-hyped"

I bought this book after hearing interviews with the author on several talk radio programs. When I read it I felt like it had been over-hyped. All of the most interesting parts of the book had been covered in the interviews and in the end it was more like a morality tale.

On the bright side, I did stop using exfoliating cleansers that contain little plastic beads as the exfoliating agent. I find that the crushed walnut shells found in other products or salt scrubs work just as well if not better.

Rating: 3 / 5
Date: 2010-06-24
Summary: "Disappointed"

The book was relatively cheap. Based on the description I anticipated a paperback book in relatively good condition. Instead I received a hardcover book without a jacket. Generally this would actually be a pleasant surprise, except the back cover was covered in three layers of large white stickers which I soon realized had been applied to cover a large torn area.

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-06-22
Summary: "The World Without Us"


In the end, nature triumphs. This book explores what would occur if we humans were, alone of all life, to disappear in an instant, and all else left unimpeded to proceed upon its course. Nature would not return to its pre-human condition, because we have eliminated species and transplanted fauna. Nature, were we to leave it, would transform into something it wasn't before us; but nature, without us, would thrive, and in time, it would obscure nearly all trace of our having been here.

The title is slightly misleading, because this isn't a book only about the way nature would overtake cities with greenery, water, and wild animals, and how it would wear down metals and plastics till they lose all artificial form. The author alternates in his discussion between how we have changed and held back nature to how nature would change and readjust if we were suddenly gone. For example, some species would not survive without us, or not survive quite as well, and some would survive far better.

Machinery, no longer maintained, would stop, and safeguards would fail. Poisons would be released. Species would die, migrate, or adapt. Damns would strain, then burst. Nature would reclaim and readjust. In time our significant part in the changes of nature would diminish, and the system of nature would proceed unimpeded by our ghostly influence. But it may be that nature will never "detoxify" itself fully of human effects.

Although detoxification is not a metaphor explicitly used in the book, it seems apt, when looking at some of the effects we have on the biology of nature. Plastics, manufactured polymers in existence for little more than half a century, would endure in substance for unknown centuries beyond us, regardless of their decomposition of form. The post-human presence of plastics is a long-term change we have made in the environment of nature. Centuries after we are gone, this presence of plastics in nature will continue to effect and change nature through its effect on non-human life.

Plastics are just one far-reaching toxic consequence of our having been here. Radioactive waste will last even longer. Not only the waste we bury and store and hide away now, but the post-human waste that is exposed and accrues from the collapse and decay of nuclear processing plants and the breakdown of metals that sheathe thermonuclear warheads.

Nature is not a static system. Before we were here, there was change in nature. Being here, we have wrought change; and after we are gone, change will persist. Nature does not need us. We need it.

Rating: 5 / 5
Date: 2010-05-06
Summary: "very interesting"

I first saw this author on The Daily Show and had my wife get a copy for me. I thought it was well-written and I really enjoyed it. Hard to know how it was researched but it held my interest and I really enjoyed reading it. I hope we can save the earth so that it never has to go on without us. The first chapter, especially was terrific.