CLJ Reviews The World Without Us by Alan Weisman

What We Read

In The World Without Us, author Alan Weisman considers a planet Earth where, one day, humans simply disappeared. No plague, no meteor strike. Weisman simply imagined a planet where we vanished into thin air. Why? He wanted to think about the planet in terms of how it exists now with buildings and houses and dams and nuclear power plants. Weisman, asks us to think about how long it would take the planet to return to its natural state without humans around to muck it up? To answer this question Weisman takes us on a  369 page journey of edu-tainment. He interviews crews who work below the earth’s surface in New York’s Subway, working everyday to literally keep the ocean out of their tunnels. He considers rubber tires and the many millennia it would take to see them disappear (if they disappear at all). The whole tour of decay and time kicks off with your home and how easily water could destroy it in less than 100 years. Weisman does a remarkable job considering all the angles and weaving a planetary story for his audience.

What We Did (And How We Did It)

For this particular book club, I asked the group to read a short excerpt from a Danny Hillis, which appeared in Wired Magazine in 1995 and ultimately gave rise to the Long Now Foundation. In the article, Hillis considers the concept of time and how humans can’t possible consider their planetary future when it’s clear we have trouble envisioning our world 100 years in the future. I asked each group to consider their own version of a long-now clock and whether it would be artificial or nature-made. The winning clock was the concept of a waterfall, designed to flow in balance with its surroundings and give way to natural signs each time 10,000 years passed by. After this activity, which was designed to get people thinking about the concept of Earth-Time, we launched into our discussion.

What We Thought

I think it’s safe to say that everyone in the group appreciated the book. There were points in Weisman’s work where each of us felt we needed a breather from the content. There was also some disagreement with regard to Weisman’s solution to our current misuse of the planet. Oh, and everyone shuddered when they read of the future of A) our nuclear reactors B) the oil fields near Houston and C) the plastics floating about our oceans. But All in all, I would recommend this book to just about anyone who’s has a passing interest in their home, the concept of time, plastic and babies. Now you’ll just have to read the book to discover what all of those things have in common.