In Praise of Mother Nature
Science writers generally don't do whimsy, particularly those who have witnessed the aftermath of Chernobyl or the plundering of Latin America's resources. But in his provocative new book, The World Without Us, Alan Weisman adds a dash of fiction to his science to address a despairing problem: the planet's health. Weisman wonders how Earth would fare if people simply disappeared. With help from experts, Weisman discovered that, untended, humanity's achievements would stand little chance against Mother Nature, even in her weakened state. Sans electric pumps, the New York subway would flood within days. Pretty flowers would quickly crack sidewalks. And the life span of your house? About 50 years. Weisman spoke to U.S. News.
Environmental books are often depressing reads. Does framing a message around a hypothetical make it more approachable?
I would say so. I was looking for some way to seduce readers to keep following along so they could see what is going on in the world and how it all connects. Ultimately, once we take humans out of the picture we see how the rest of nature could flourish. We think, "Wow, if nature could do all that, then is there a way that this could happen that does not depend on our extinction?"
Your book takes us to a 14th-century European hunting preserve and demilitarized zones where nature has a free hand. Were you surprised by what you saw?
It was pretty weird. This fragment of primeval European forest on the Poland-Belarus border literally feels like it's out of Grimm's fairy tales. That's what it looks like, that's what it sounds like, that's what it smells like. But the incredible thing is that it doesn't feel exotic. For someone growing up in Europe or North America, it feels familiar. It feels right.
How did your visit to Chernobyl lead to this book?
I got a call in 2003 from an editor at Discover magazine who read the 1994 story I wrote after the explosion at Chernobyl, where I described how abandoned houses were being taken over by their own landscaping. Roots and trees and even flowers were breaking up sidewalks. A population of radioactive deer kept growing, and radioactive wolves kept coming after them. In 1994, she thought the article was depressing, but as she was editing all these depressing environmental stories, she said it had become one of the most hopeful stories: that no matter how badly we screw up, nature will find a way to overcome it.
What did you take away from these places?
I wasn't really expecting to realize the history of architecture is kind of like a bell-shaped curve. Our first dwellings were caves, then we started making caves-houses out of rock-and as we got more refined, our buildings grew higher and less permanent. Engineers tell me that our oldest buildings will outlast the newer ones...because we don't make them the way we used to, out of material from the Earth. The World Trade Center collapsed and St. Paul's Chapel, which is made out of Manhattan schist, is still standing. Other buildings around the World Trade Center that did not get hit by the airplanes collapsed anyhow.
Is this book a cold splash of water for humanity's many triumphs?
In some ways it's a wake-up call, but at the same time humans have done some beautiful things, things you have to admire. One of the surprises for me is coming away with so much respect for the people who maintain our infrastructure. If it wasn't for these guys keeping the bridges from rusting, or who keep our subway tunnels pumped, or who show up every day at our nuclear plants, stuff would start to disassemble rapidly. We live on the backs of some unsung heroes who are keeping it all together.
What will be the most indelible impacts of mankind?
Three things: One of them is lovely, the Voyager spacecraft carrying our artwork, our music. I talked to John Lomberg, who put all that together for Carl Sagan, and it was beautiful to talk to someone who thought about what the message to posterity should be. On the darker side: nuclear waste. Depleted uranium has a 4.6 billion-year half-life. The planet is only going to last about 5 billion years before the sun expands. The other thing is plastics. No one really knows how long it will take for plastics to break down because they're relatively new. Plastic isn't filling up landfills; it's blowing into rivers and flowing to the ocean. It's breathtaking how much plastic we've generated.
Your book ends on a controversial note.
I ask: What if we tried one child per family for everyone? I don't want to deprive people of siblings, but I don't want to deprive people of species that are wonderful and part of our life. We can't live without them. If we could bring our numbers down, that would buy us some time to clean up our act.
This story appears in the July 23, 2007 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.