There are at least three reasons to read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman: he’s a very good writer; there’s hope for this planet; and, this is important.
Near the end of the book, Weisman notes that our technology hasn’t killed us, yet; life will go on with or without humans. Intervention by Rapture or alien abduction is very slim and narcissistic, so we’re on our own. In the first few pages, gone is our house, our office and subways and bridges, New York, our world.
But what of our unique, creative, human, inner expression? Our art and music? Our hushed lullabies and whispered myths? Some sounds may live on, recorded on a gold record on Voyagers 1 and 2, but will we? There are complex causes; however, the cause of this current massive die-off seems simple, even singular: too many consumptive humans. Weisman’s solution? To have ‘the courage and the wisdom…poignant and distressing…but not fatal….[to] limit every human female…to one.’
Written when the world population of humans was 6.5 billion, this book is even more poignant now. He writes well. Deservedly, it was a best-seller and multi-award winner. Weisman travels the globe, seeking examples of nature’s resilience to human encroachment, but he also finds people who know, people who care, people who have courage. People like Susan Lapis and Judy Bonds of The Coal River Mountain Watch who show ‘what it takes to face and fight such devastation.’
For it is not enough just to reduce our numbers, not just enough to reduce our consumptive ways, but to change our ways altogether. He may write of the world without us, but Weisman wants very much a world with us.
