The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.

3/5 rating. 353 pages.

Book #53 of 2021. Read July 29, 2021.

 This book looks at the interesting thought experiment of what the world would be like if humans disappeared.

Alan realizes that the likelihood of humanity disappearing in something like a cloud of smoke is not exactly likely, but mostly uses this as a useful lens to look at our lasting impact on the planet and its creatures.

Time is certainly a paradox. In this instance, it is an incredibly short time before nature takes a hold of our infrastructure and begins to regain its domain. Meanwhile, there are a variety of pollutants and other lasting vestiges of humanity that will likely hold on for millions of years.

Alan spans the globe for interviews with experts from speaking with Panama Canal engineers, to conservationists along the DMZ between the Koreas. What is always apparent is that we are already in an endless battle against nature. Once we are gone, it will win that war quickly as it sweeps in to destroy so much of what we have built.

The unfortunate side is the plastics that we have made, the species that we have eradicated, and the nuclear radiation we have forced on the planet.

Overall, this book was just fine. It definitely wasn’t anything special and I kind of spent most of the book asking why it was written. It’s an interesting idea, but the purpose of the whole venture I am still pondering. I probably wouldn’t waste your time unless you are really interested about how long things will last.

Quotes:

“’Except for a small amount that’s been incinerated,’ says Tony Andrady the oracle, ‘every bit of plastic manufactured in the world for the last 50 years or so still remains. It’s somewhere in the environment.’”

“Tainted or not, it’s something precious and irreplaceable, even worth the risk of a shorter life.

It’s their home.”

“Archaeology isn’t about glittery objects – it’s about their context. We’re part of the context. It’s our workers whose fields are burning, it’s their children who have malaria. We come to study ancient civilization, but we end up learning about now.” – Arthur Demarest, Vanderbilt archaeologist

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