The World Without Us

Customer Reviews

• Back to the Garden of Eden   Jul 20, 2007 (168 of 176 found this helpful)

  This is a charming book on a macabre subject: if every person on earth died tomorrow what would happen to the works of man? Using New York as an example the author details the slow, inevitable destruction of the subways, bridges, buildings, the return of the forests and the animals, and the disposition of those things that never seem to go away: poisonous heavy metals, plastic, and radioactive waste.
  
  He also describes the decay of man-made works in other parts of the world, including a vivid description of what would happen to an oil field in Texas if humans suddenly disappeared. That would be hell in the short term -- but some of the speculations about earth without humans sound pretty attractive: back to the Garden of Eden, before Adam, Eve, and the snake.
  
  The book is a cautionary one, telling about the fate of earlier societies who outran the potential for their environment, and taking the long view of the human species -- up till and including the final demise when the sun becomes a big cinder about 5 billion years for now. Will the last work of man to survive be a plastic water bottle? An amusing section gives a voice to the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement -- which proposes that human beings help themselves become extinct. Another describes the Pioneer spacecraft, sent out to hunt for other forms of intelligent life in the Universe. All that other civilizations may know of us is contained on the spacecraft: Mozart, Chuck Berry, and a few other details, to be precise.
  
  It's a fascinating read of well-reasoned speculation.
  
  Smallchief

• Excellent, intriguing look at world without humans. Also, if you like post-apocalyptic books  Jul 22, 2007 (109 of 116 found this helpful)

  Basically, this focuses on a "what if" situation: what if something, be it the bird flu, a new virus or (fill in the blanks) destroyed all the people on Earth? What then? What would happen to our world, without us in it?
  
  Using a combination of very solid research and science, the author gives readers a view of what would -and would not - endure -and for how long. He gives a look at the world shortly after we leave and then a futuristic look at its evolution from there, with various scenarios. I found it riveting to read. Also, it made me realize that, as important as we may consider ourselves, the earth could evolve and change without us, often in positive ways. It was humbling, at least for me.
  
  Finally, the writer's style is just breathtaking. I can't sum it up here (it'd be like trying to describe a painting instead of seeing it firsthand) but the writing makes the book extremely rewarding. I'd have gotten through it, even if written by a less competent writer, because I find the subject matter inherently fascinating, but I'm grateful that this was so nicely done.
  

• Could have been better  Nov 13, 2007 (65 of 72 found this helpful)

  I've always found this topic interesting, so when I heard that this book was coming out I rang the bookshop straight away and reserved a copy. Finding old ruins or remains in the bush fascinates me; an old fence running straight through thick scrub, or an abandoned railway cutting with trees growing through it. "Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!" After finishing the book though, I can't say I would go out of my way to recommend it. It's not bad.. just disappointing. The topic holds a lot of promise; this book just doesn't deliver.
  
  The foundations are all there; the topic is novel and the amount of research the author has done and the creative thinking used should have provided more than enough material for an interesting book.
  
  I think the problem is with the writing. The approach taken is very similar to that seen in Jared Diamond's books; in each chapter, introduce a different place in the world, discuss it's specific situation or history, then draw out a more general conclusion from the more specific situation. It's worked for Jared Diamond, but it doesn't work here. The problem is that in many chapters the author does too good a job of concealing what general point he is trying to make; several times I found myself thinking "This is a moderately interesting story... but what does it have to do with the topic of the book?" After finishing some chapters I found I still wasn't sure!
  
  The writing style also grates. He uses a kind of journalistic, "reporter on the scene" approach. "Jim swivelled clockwise in his chair, as he revealed the true reason behind the drop in pH in the pacific's coral atolls!". There is a perplexing amount of fluff regarding scientist's hairstyles, what they're wearing, where they went to school and other filler. I guess the idea is to do the "popular science" "let's make science relevant to the common man" thing; by fleshing out the otherwise faceless scientists with details of their lives and personalities. Boring. If the science itself isn't interesting, don't expect the scientists to make up for it!
  
  I also thought there could have been a lot more science in this book. There is a fair bit, but it's often just mentioned in passing and not explained in any detail. With the general style of the book, I guess maybe they didn't want to make it too "technical". The end result is that unless you have a fairly broad scientific education (I do) you are going to struggle to understand any of the brief explanations for phenomena described in the book. I often found myself wishing for a whole extra paragraph of explanation on the scientific aspects.
  
  Instead we get more of a focus on philosophy, big picture musings and what I would call "poetic" writing. It didn't work for me.
  
  There is also two quite different themes dealt with by this book: what will happen to our civilisation's artefacts (buildings, monuments, waste etc) after we are gone, and what will happen to the natural world after we are gone. Switching between the two gives a lack of focus.
  
  I do hope Weisman writes more books. Writing style can always be improved (just write more books!), but imagination and insight can't be fashioned so easily. The author is an imaginative thinker, and reading more from him would be interesting.
  

• Important and Alarming Book  Jul 12, 2007 (39 of 42 found this helpful)

  What would happen if humans suddenly disappeared? Almost everything around us artificially created would be consumed by nature within a few hundred years of our disappearance. Buildings would collapse; road and dams would disintegrate. Some things would last much longer: lead, plastics, and radioactive materials. Oil refineries and nuclear power plants would explode and send incredible amounts of pollution across the globe. Assuming the damage from the latter could be contained or overcome, most of nature would revert to something resembling its prehistoric origins.
  
  "The World Without Us" grew out of a magazine article on the same subject. Recently another science magazine ran a similar article that gave readers all the good stuff up front. In the book Weisman occasionally gives a few too many details as, for example, when he mentions the physical appearance of the scientist he is discussing. Color photographs and illustrations would have been an improvement.
  
  But this is an important book because it suggests just how much harm we continue to do to the environment by telling us what would happen if we all disappeared. As Weisman says near the end of the book, human activity is destroying much of nature around us, but we may end up destroying ourselves in the process if we don't stop our ways soon. He suggests that limiting each couple to one child would eventually solve the population problem and bring humanity more in balance with nature. He doesn't say how this could ever be enforced, but population control does seem to be the answer. A fine book---provocative and alarming.
  

• Life Goes On  Jul 29, 2007 (95 of 109 found this helpful)

  This is an oddly hopeful book. Hopefull because it offers compelling evidence that life on earth will outlive human tampering with the ecosystem, yet odd because it also demonstrates that the world won't miss us much. In fact, it's pretty clear that, on balance, the world would be better off without us.
  
  "Balance" is the key here, something that we as a species know little about. Even though we are well aware that we're destroying our own habitat, and have been for at least 60 years, we can't seem to stop ourselves. But author Alan Weisman isn't a scold and doesn't do a lot of overt finger wagging, which is one of the reasons to buy this book. Rather, he offers absorbing examples of the many ways in which life bounces back after eco-tragedies like Chernobyl and, going back farther in time, various ice ages, volcano eruptions and asteroid pummelings.
  
  One of my favorite examples is Weisman's description of the DMZ between the two Koreas, which has been a no-man's land since the late 50s when a stalemate was reached between the two sides. Rare cranes are staging a comeback in this zone, as are various types of flora and fauna that would probably be extinct by now were it not for this narrow strip of land where people don't go. And this resurgence has taken place in spite of rampant pollution and periodic explosions from abandoned land mines. There is even a conservation group that has grown up in South Korea to advocate for the cranes and, by association, preservation of the DMZ. There's one upside to the continuing standoff at the 38th parallel.
  
  Lately, I have been interested in emerging viruses and the resurgence of diseases that humans believed we conquered (at least in the US) such as TB and cholera. Weisman presents some interesting linkages between alterations in the environment (think greenhouse gases) and the rise of microbes that are resistent to long-standing medical treatments.
  
  But it is his discussion of unanticipated benefits of some human errors that is most astounding. Take, for instance, the island of Cyprus, which has been split between warring Greeks and Turks for the past 30 years or so. One group abandoned a resort city on one side of the island because the peace agreement assigned that area to the other ethnic group. As the buildings and infrastructure have slowly crumbled, plant life has flourished and a range of animal species have moved in, making the place somewhat akin to a nature preserve. And this has occured despite the fact that much of the infrastructure releases poison gases and foul debris as it inexorably deteriorates.
  
  All of this is to say that, given enough time and absent human interference, Mother Earth will quite likely heal herself, and perhaps a new "top dog" species will evolve to replace us. I can't help feeling that this is good news, especially if evolution makes our descendents a little smarter than we seem to be.