The World Without Us
Alan Weisman

Book Review

The World Without Us by Alan Weisman - Buy Now From Amazon

Reviewed by Marty Vanags

When I was ten years old, my family and I took a summer vacation trip to the Colorado Rockies. We drove all the way to Colorado, five people, in a 1966 Chevy Impala sans air conditioning across Iowa, Nebraska and up into the Continental divide. In our plush, easy-living world of today, it’s hard to imagine driving anywhere in the summer time without air conditioning, a multi-speaker sound system and global positioning map system mounted on the dashboard. The Interstate system was still relatively young then, and as we got to Colorado, we drove on local roads and mountain highways with some fear and trepidation as my father assured us, in his heavy accent, that driving in the mountains is something he experienced in the “old country,” and as the back end of the car nearly skidded off the side of a mountain, we could only pray he wasn’t kidding. Only later we found out the “old country” tallest mountain elevation was no higher than the glacial till aftermath of a bunny ski hill in southern Wisconsin.

At that time Colorado was still wild in many areas. Many parts of the state still had bad roads, and the nouveau riche had yet to discover many of the plush ski resorts and hip artist colonies. What this meant and what excited me most were the many ghost towns and abandoned mines we saw along the way. I was utterly fascinated that entire towns, or at least several buildings, that might have consisted of a small cluster of living human inhabitants would be abandoned or lost to time. These buildings were uniformly dark in color, and often times one would see a tree growing through the roof or weeds blocking the entrance to the door. I desperately wanted to stop and explore and see if we could discover old bones, artifacts or maybe encounter a ghost. My mind was full of imaginative ideas about what was located in these old ghost towns.

I’m not sure ghost towns still exist, and I’m positive these wooden structures have fallen down by now. The idea that people could or would disappear in this situation was foreign to me, and I did not give it much thought. How could people pick up and disappear? Why would they? It’s clear that many of these ghost towns existed to mine ore from the earth, perhaps gold or silver or even other less exotic minerals. Their disappearance, or at least the absence of humans, was likely “economic adjustment.” It is unlikely the federal government was there with a bailout for some of these towns back then.

This experience and listening to State Farm CEO Ed Rust talk about the absence or corruption of the Internet and its impact on the economy at Illinois State University’s Business Week keynote address made me think about the impact of our species (humans) on Earth and the reality we have created for ourselves. These lines of thought are explored quite aptly in a book titled The World Without Us by Alan Weisman.  This compelling tome describes in its many chapters what the world would look like if all of a sudden every human being managed to disappear off the face of the earth. Through famine, disease, rapture or whatever method you might imagine, the author explores what would take place on the earth should we manage to drive ourselves into extinction.  Unfortunately, he did not explore Colorado ghost towns or delve into whether computers would take over the world if we ceased to exist.

The author is not a scientist, but relies on many interviews with experts in the field and takes us on a sometimes difficult journey to imagine. To those who are staunch environmentalists, the book reads like a “see, I told you so” bible of parables and prophecies. To those who are resisting the green movement and need ammunition for the idea that the earth is flexible and resilient, you will find that as well. In either case, Weisman takes us on a trip to explore specific projects and human feats of engineering to show the precarious nature of man’s existence and the over-achieving characteristics of the natural world. If not for man’s ability to create and develop reasonable (and sometimes unreasonable) solutions to our problems and challenges of living like civil human beings, many of the areas Weisman explores couldn’t be imagined or reviewed. Nevertheless, he paints an interesting picture of what happens when nature takes over.

In an early part of the book, Chapter 2, Weisman gives us a preview of what would happen to our homes when we disappear. Just imagine the house long abandoned by your noisy and ill-regarded neighbors, the ones you keep calling the city about to have condemned and torn down. It’s easy to imagine what gravity, water and the natural forces of a Central Illinois climate might do to the organic portions of your home. Wood, drywall, wallpaper and curtains would decompose quickly, and pretty soon the only thing standing would be the toilet and just about every piece of plastic. Plastic doesn’t decompose very well, but most scientists quoted in the book indicate microbes and other little animals that decompose our organic material haven’t evolved enough to figure out how to break down plastic, but will one day…perhaps in another million years.  Chapter 9, “Polymers are Forever,” goes into detail on that subject.

The most interesting chapters have to do with our nuclear plants, our chemical manufacturing facilities and other more intense man-made behemoths. The breakdown of nuclear fuel and plants, once the equipment that must constantly be maintained is no longer in the hands of capable engineers, technicians and computers, will cause the cooling water to boil off and cause at least 441 (that is how many operating nuclear plants exist) melt-downs. And while this process won’t cause a meltdown to the core of the earth and through the other side, it will eventually spew radioactivity into the atmosphere for many, many years to come.  Weisman also tackles the Panama Canal, farming and animals.

In the end, while new species rise and fall with our absence, new types of growing green plants will take over our buildings and institutions we call home, school and work will become unrecognizable. Our man-made things quickly deteriorate when we aren’t around to maintain them. One merely has to think of the roads and other public amenities we often take for granted. However, the one trace of our existence that will always exist and can’t be taken away will be our transmissions of radio waves. From the beginning of the electronic age, our radio transmissions continue to move through the universe like light, and according to the author Lucy Ricardo, will always be with us.

This fascinating book is often slowed down by the need of the author to go backwards to see the future. Delving into the past, whether it’s the description of the evolution of homo sapiens or the breakdown of compounds into chemistry, the author takes you on a journey that is sometimes tedious or reads like your high school chemistry or physics course. In the end, if Weisman’s goal was to show us how poorly we have managed our resources and destroyed our environment through the old adage of “better living through chemistry,” he nearly completes the task, but the hope I carry from this book is the unique and creative resources the species called “human” has been able to use to harness what we thought at the time is or was important to our existence. Whether it is chemistry, polycarbons or nuclear energy, as human beings we are the only species on the earth that has the capability and the intellectual understanding to create and then solve our greatest problems. As humans we have done some incredibly stupid things to our earth and, by association, to ourselves, but in almost every case we have managed to figure out what we need to do to fix it. Sometimes the solution is not elegant, but in the end, it drives our existence. More importantly, we need to recognize our errors and have the political will and courage to fix them.

The book also makes one think of the topics and projects on the mind of almost everyone these days. Whether it is presidential political campaigns, architectural or building design standards, local building codes, worldwide energy consumption, war or the cost of gasoline at the gas pump, no one can deny that the efficient and effective use of our resources have great impact on our economy. Can our own little corner of the world impact this global issue? ISU’s alternative energy major (just introduced), ethanol production from corn and wind energy farms is recognition of this fact, and all have impact on our economy. This can also create great opportunities for jobs, new business and capital investment in our community. 

If you read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman, keep these important economic aspects in mind. Weisman brought back memories of ghost towns, history and recent history…the world without the Internet. He goes back into history, recent and prehistoric, to help us understand the future and the precariousness of our existence. However, Weisman also brings us great hope in understanding the opportunities and action we can take to secure our immediate future and the future of children and grandchildren.