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Earth Without Humans

Morgan Maher
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This interview with Alan Weisman, author of "The World Without Us" investigates the concept of Earth minus Humans. With an ultimately positive outlook, Weisman asks and explores the question, "What would happen if we were not here?" The answer: plants, wildlife and natural processes take over, "asphalt jungles give way to real ones, hotel lobbies are filled with sand dunes."

Thankfully avoiding a gloomy or preachy disposition, the book explores the real processes of decay, the consequences of architecture and infrastructure without maintenance -- what structures would flood or be overcome, what would crumble quickly and what might stick around. The book provides insight and contemporary examples of what does and will flourish provided the absence of human presence.

Speaking on the Korean demilitarized zone, Weisman relates a story characteristic of his overall tone.

"I linger over Korea's demilitarized zone, which has become possibly the most important nature preserve in Asia, a thin strip where for more than fifty years now some of the most magnificent and endangered species in all of the continent have found refuge. One of them, the Red-Crowned Crane, is an animal of both ecological and mystical importance. You see it in Japanese paintings. It's the Korean national bird. Next to the Whooping Crane, it's the most endangered."

"Standing at the DMZ, you always have to be at some bunker. There are guns pointed across and guns pointed back, and you can see the propaganda going back and forth -- it's only two and a half miles wide -- two of the biggest armies on Earth just seething at each other. And in the midst of these hostilities, these cranes waft in. Most of their bodies are pure white; it's like innocence falling down into the middle of human mayhem. They light down -- they're light enough that they don't touch off land mines -- and most of them winter there."

In a current world rampant with doomsday scenarios, Alan Weisman gets realistic, painting a picture of humankind's lasting and not-so-lasting architectural footprints.

Comments

Lyrical

Submitted by Kal Cobalt on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 11:26.
Weisman's lyrical and metaphorically dense description of the cranes was not what I expected when I clicked this link. Fascinating stuff...great to know that someone's tackling this topic without getting too doomsdayish. I'll be keeping an eye out for this one.

Humility

Submitted by sidecross on Mon, 09/24/2007 - 23:08.

Most species have a live expectancy of 2 million years.

Part of our species crated the ability to create fire at will; we are the only species to have done so, and that was 1.4 million years ago.

Since the last major ice age some 13,000 years ago we have become a part of almost every habitat on the planet.

The idea Darwin put forth about separate eco systems is now irrelevant as most species live now in the habitat of the human species.

We are at a point now of either choosing to see our place as a part of nature or as the species who has had the arrogance to think it can control Gaia.

What we lack is not the knowledge, but the will to see our place on this planet.

There's a quote from the

Submitted by Andy Hahn on Tue, 09/25/2007 - 16:09.
There's a quote from the Marriage of Sense and Thought that seems appropriate here: "If we systematically imagine a world in which human beings don't exist, we will eventually create a world in which they can't exist." Wiseman's descriptions of the crane's is quite beautiful and moving, very serene. But what seems to be missing from his description is that he himself is recognizing this beauty and I wonder if this is something he touches on in his book. That a world without us would be a world without beauty, without truth, without wonder because there would be no one there to seek out and take part in those experiences. Rather, the world would go on and nothing would really be there to notice.

A Human Folly?

Submitted by sidecross on Tue, 09/25/2007 - 22:30.

I have had the good opportunity to work with and train both horses and canines and I would never consider these mamals to not enjoy the same basic pleasure of life that we as humans enjoy.

I hope Andy Hahn does not believe only humans have the appreciation of what life can offer.

The human concepts of ‘truth’, 'beauty', or ‘wonder’ may be only a human folly and arrogance at worst, if it places these values as a premium.

I'm a Fool

Submitted by Andy Hahn on Wed, 09/26/2007 - 23:57.
I have a cat that is the happiest living being I know.  All you have to do is rub her belly and she just about disappears because she's melting so much with pleasure.  She also enjoys playing fetch, so much so that she'll wear me out when she is the one skillfully pouncing on and proudly bringing back the ball.  She can also be a real bitch though.  This doesn't seem to bother her too much, and understandably so since it is at time when she feels threatened by another cat or is in some strange circumstance.  What she does not seem to do is evaluate the situation; she allows her emotion to fully live out through her, holding nothing back, rather than recognize that 'hey, there's a piece of glass between me and that cat, it can't hurt me' or 'hey, that cat's looking for food, it's not really interested in me.'  She has no impulse to live out something that may override her immediate feelings and result in a more harmonious encounter than a violent outlash does.  If we listen to music, I don't catch her swaying with the beat or mewing along.  I don't mean it completely blows by her, but she doesn't display in aesthetic sense where she might be carried away on a crescendo into starry imaginations or identify with the sense of alienation, loss, and longing in some lyrics.  And as of yet, I have not caught her sneakying paints out and puzzling over the relations of red and blue and how they might be different from red and yellow.  She may clean up well though.  These are the kind of qualities I was getting towards with 'truth,' 'wonder,' and 'beauty.'  Striving for truth, and not saying I've got it.  Living in wonder and not getting lost.  Recognizing beauty in the relationships that connect each with each, and not saying that's pretty or that's ugly.  The world is open to human beings in a unique way that is not open to any other aspect of the universe.  We are humans and the world is open to us in a human way, not a cat way or maple tree way.  And we live on Earth.  We don't live on Mars or the other side of the milky way.  We belong to the Earth and the Earth belongs to us along with everything that comes with it.  We find our home on the Earth and the Earth finds it's home within us.  And that's another thing I wonder, if Weisman recognized that it still took a human being to imagine a world without human beings.