Just completed an interesting read. I picked up The World Without Us in a San Francisco bookshop a couple of months back with no prior knowledge of the author, Alan Weisman. The cover and the title intrigued and the contents don’t disappoint. The notion is a simple one: what happens if we disappeared from the face of the planet? What would remain of us and how would the world cope, or in fact recover? Science journalist Weisman imagines and investigates the impact of our immediate departure from the planet on nature itself as well man-made constructs such as our built environment, tricky substances such as plastics and the results of our dabbling with nuclear power as well as our art and artefacts. The results are at times deeply disturbing at others surprising.
Underlying the book is the rather obvious thought that we’re all about to collectively buy it, given our performance so far on earth since finding a function for our thumbs. One of the many experts called on for the book, extinction expert Doug Erwin, confirms this. “Humans are going extinct eventually. Everything has, so far. It’s like death: there’s no reason to think we’re any different.” And there’s a group that is aiming to achieve such a feat that Weisman speaks to. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is aiming to do exactly what is says on the tin. “May we live long and die out,” is the group’s motto and it would like us to willingly throw the towel in collectively rather than end up kicking and screaming ourselves to disaster and oblivion.
Weisman ends the book by putting forward a middle way between the two. This would be by us collectively proving “intelligence really makes us special” and would “require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test”. It would “be poignant and distressing in ways, but not fatal”. “It would henceforth limit every human female capable of bearing children to one.”
If this started now world population would drop by a billion to 5.5bn by 2050, instead of the projected 9bn. By the end of the century we would have eased down to 19th century levels, namely 1.6bn. “At such far-more manageable numbers, however, we would have the benefit of all our progress plus the wisdom to keep our presence under control.”
The notion is as fascinating as the book’s original one. It also suffers from an equally very low likelihood. Yet I get the feeling that Weisman has hit on a debate that is in its infancy but will need to be had very soon. Is anyone really convinced we can really be at it like rabbits this century while conjuring jaw dropping reductions in consumption? I’m not.
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on Jul 6th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Having children has become just another consumerist activity in our society, sadly, so think youre right, it is unlikely.
Of course one can always be ‘at it like rabbits’ with the benefit of contraception.
Su (who just passed her cot on to another)
on Jul 6th, 2009 at 9:22 am
I’m thinking back to ‘O’ Level Human Geagraphy lessons of ca. 30 years ago – so please bear with me.
Birth rates in the developing nations would be expected to decrease as their ecomomic wealth increases (following the past trends of all developed nations). However I would suggest that this would not happen with any major significance in the 21st Century – but it ‘may’. The biggest factor on birth rates may be government interventions in the style of China as competition for resources (water and other) increase. Interesting moral debates ensure….
However, even if birthrates were to decrease, the kick in the teeth for the human race will be the decrease in death rates which would be expected to occur – resulting in net increases in population numbers despite decreasing birthrates. Has Weisman taken into account this fact in producing his predicted population growth/deacrease numbers??
Prof. Lovelock (of Gaia fame) suggested that the ideal sustainable human population for the planet is something like 500 million (please don’t quote me on that). If true, we have some way to go and I wonder who is going to ‘volunteer’ to fall on their sword. I’ve go a few things I’d like to do first, but I would gladly I will volunteer when I am about 80.
Alex (married with no kids – just doing my bit)
on Jul 7th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Alex,
You amply prove that reducing population as a panacea (if that is not somewhat misguided phrasing) for our soon to be pains is probably not on the cards. Can’t see an orderly queue forming over the white cliffs of Dover just yet.
Phil (married, no children)
on Jul 12th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Hi Phil, nice post about the book. Quite an intriguing topic the book covers. Got me thinking! http://climatarians.org guesses since most of the mess that the environment is in was created by us, with us gone the world should be able to heal itself. Nature has the ability to heal itself once the damage being done is stopped. Anyway it’d be nice the read the book and see what the author has to say.
Thanks for sharing!
Joost Hoogstrate