Weisman investigates humanity's permanence

Author: Tess Russell

"Why would anyone want to write - or read - a book without people in it?" joked environmental journalist Alan Weisman, addressing an engaged crowd of students, faculty and community members in The Orchard of the Franklin Environmental Center at Hillcrest on Sept. 24.

The widespread success of Weisman's 2007 bestseller, The World Without Us, has certainly disproved that logic. In writing his book, the University of Arizona professor imagined what the multifaceted response of the planet Earth would be to a tidy and immediate evaporation of the entire human race. Weisman explained that this drastic and admittedly farfetched measure was a crucial component to involving readers in his "creative mind experiment."

"I wanted to figure out how to write a page-turner about the environment - to find a fresh, unexpected way to show what we were up against," said Weisman. "As a species," said Weisman, "we are hard-wired to be scared about our own death. So I decided to suppose the worst had already happened - to just kill everyone off in the beginning - and, if the future is so seductive, let the reader stick it out and see what happened. Could nature recover? How soon could the climate be restored? Might we have left some lasting glow on the planet? Would it miss us?"

Weisman's pursuit of answers to these kinds of questions led him around the world to locales as diverse as Chernobyl and the Korean demilitarized zone, both of which have flowered recently against all odds. The resilience of nature, Weisman explained, has been demonstrated in these environments by both the adaptations of familiar organisms and the influx of thousands of new species.

Another fascinating chapter of Weisman's book concerns a decidedly less exotic spot: the New York City subway system. In Henry Hudson's day, Manhattan was home to over 40 streams and rivers. Today the city requires thousands of underground workers to pump out 13 million gallons of water daily (and that's just when it's sunny outside). Weisman explained that the backup generators prepared to take over in the event of emergency would only work for a short time and that, three days after their expiration, all of the city's underground tunnels would flood. After 20 days, the system would collapse completely. Coupled with the regrowth of trees all over the island's surface, New York would soon return to its original, forested state.

"The future won't necessarily mirror the past," said Weisman, "because we've already ground some species into extinction. But it might not be so different either - after all, nature has been through tragedies before."

To be sure, humans have made certain indelible impressions on Earth, many of them negative - plastics and other polymers are now a full-fledged part of the geological record, and will remain there until microbes learn how to break them down. Still, Weisman pointed to the resilience of some human artistic contributions, such as Rodin's sturdy bronze sculptures, to deliver his decidedly hopeful message.

"I did not write this book because I'm one of those people who believes that we are a cancer on the planet," Weisman said. "I'm rather attached to my species, and I think we have as much of a right to be here as anyone else."

While Weisman pointed to the biological truth that "every species goes extinct eventually," his research also inspired him to search for a way that humans can exist, at least for their remaining days, in harmony with nature. Drawing from his personal experience, Weisman suggested that our bodies "remember," on some kind of primal level, a time when we were more connected to the world around us, however far removed we might be from that sort of experience.

To avoid a future plagued by water wars and epidemics, Weisman proposed a controversial zero population growth program, similar to the measures instituted in China over the past few decades but free of the problematic issues of politics and gender that inextricably linked to the Chinese policy. He acknowledged that the idea of regulating family size is unnatural, but countered that the concept of "wilderness management" necessitated by overpopulation is equally unnatural.

"The same economists who are always insisting that the health of the economy can be measured by growth will tell you that, when it comes to the efficiency of a corporation, the best way to insure success is to lay people off and become more lean,'" said Weisman. "Every day there are 4 million more people on this planet. What I'm suggesting is attrition - that as people pass on and retire, we recruit fewer people to their jobs. We need to start thinking about managing this situation or nature's going to do it for us."