Author: Alan Weisman
_Alan Weisman_
Reading time: 21 minutes
Synopsis
In The World Without Us, Alan Weisman writes about a made-up situation. In this situation, all people suddenly disappear from Earth. Nature then takes back our living areas. In many thousands of years, most signs of humans will be gone. This is because humans have lived on Earth for a very short time compared to the Earth’s age. But we have also caused damage that cannot be fixed. Weisman shows these effects of human life. He does not point fingers. He also describes possible ways to reduce this damage.
What’s in it for you: A realistic look at a world without people.
What would happen if we were no longer here? And what if “we” means all of humankind?
Alan Weisman looks at The World Without Us. He takes a clear look at something that has fascinated us for a long time. This is a strange but real situation. In it, all people suddenly disappear from Earth. Would plants really grow in old New York skyscrapers, like in films about the end of the world? Would old pets walk through empty temples in Japan’s mountain forests?
These summaries give you answers to these questions. They also challenge the romantic idea we have of a world without people. They describe the bloody future that will happen to our pets and farm animals. They also show how nature will spread across the Earth again. And if New York skyscrapers will even stay standing.
If you think about what human-made things will last the longest, the answer is not marble statues or Moai. Instead, it is chemicals and radioactivity.
Here you will learn:
- what plastic, CFCs, and other harmful substances really are,
- what terrible effects our use of nuclear energy will have on Earth, even after we are gone, and
- what we can do to limit the damage to our ecosystem as much as possible.
Blink 1 – Back to Nature: Plants and animals quickly undo almost all human changes.
We have changed our planet a lot in a short time. No other species has done this. Our cities and villages, fields, and forests are all man-made landscapes. We changed them for our needs. But nature will take over again if people are gone. This will happen quite fast.
Humans have always changed their surroundings to use them. For example, we changed rivers to water fields. We cut down forests to get wood for building. We also made fields and pastures on the cleared land. Large parts of Earth were covered with concrete and turned into cities and roads. Europe, for example, was mostly forest before. But today, the landscape is very different. Cities, villages, factories, and fields are what you see.
But nature will slowly take back all these areas. Rivers will go back to their original paths. Forests will grow again. Most signs of humans will disappear over time.
Many of our big cities can only exist because nature is pushed back. In New York, for example, almost 50 million liters of water are pumped out every day. This keeps the subway tunnels dry. Without these pumps, it would take only a few days for the subway system to fill with water. Rivers would form where streets are today.
Even here in Germany, keeping our environment as it is, is like a constant fight against nature. We use weed killers to stop weeds in fields. Potholes in roads are fixed every year. Hunters control the number of wild animals.
If humans disappeared, a small part of what we left behind might last longer. But most human signs would be gone from Earth in less than a thousand years.
Blink 2 – Eat or Be Eaten: Pets and farm animals become food for the stronger ones.
Your neighbor’s dog might howl like a wolf. Your house cat might hiss and show its claws. But both are tame pets. How would they do in a world without people, out in the wild?
The animals we see every day were all bred by humans for certain reasons. When people started to live in one place, they also began farming animals. This was to make sure they always had food. They did not want to rely on hunting, which was not always successful.
Breeding stopped natural selection and evolution. The animals that survived were not the strongest or best at living in the wild. Instead, they were the ones that helped humans the most. For example, cows did not need to run fast from predators. They needed to give a lot of milk.
Without humans to care for and protect these bred animals, only the strongest would survive again. Most of our pets and farm animals would not have a chance. They would quickly be eaten by wild animals.
Many animals could not live without humans, even if there were no predators. For example, the cows we bred and some other animals could not feed themselves. There is not enough open land for all these hungry animals. Our farm animals need humans to give them special food every day. Or think about chickens bred for meat. They are bred so much for meat that some cannot walk. Their legs cannot hold their body weight.
Animals kept in houses, barns, and zoos would starve or die of thirst after a few days. This would happen if no one brought them food.
Also, without hunters, many more predators would roam our lands. They would have no natural enemies. And with all the slow farm animals, they would have plenty of food. All predators that exist now, like birds of prey and foxes, would grow in number. Animals pushed out today, like wolves and bears, could spread again.
Blink 3 – Good Chance of Survival: Endangered species get their homes back.
It is a sad truth: Humans have already killed off many animal species. Examples include the Dodo, Aurochs, and the Passenger Pigeon. Some were hunted for their meat. Others were hunted for their fur. But most simply died out because we took away their homes.
Other animal species that exist today will soon die out. This will happen if we do not change something basic. For many species, like some sea turtles or wild woodpeckers, only a few are left. Some species disappear before we even find them. Or they disappear without anyone noticing. The WWF says that thousands of animal species die out every year.
Without humans, these animals would lose their biggest natural enemy. Some will survive because they are no longer hunted, like different kinds of rhinos. But most will recover simply because they get their natural homes back. The more nature spreads, the more living space there will be for these species.
But for some animal species, it is too late for any help. One type of animal died out forever because of humans. Another faces new enemies because of human actions. These animals cannot win against these new enemies. In the 20th century, the Asian ladybug was brought to North America to fight pests. No one thought it would become a danger to local species and the ecosystem. Now, it is also a pest in Europe. It pushes out other insects and has few natural enemies to stop its numbers from growing.
Whether on purpose or not, humans have brought many animal species to new homes. There, the native species often have no way to defend themselves. Neither human action nor the disappearance of humans could stop this process.
Still, most endangered species would recover in a world without people. Where forests grow again, natural cycles start anew. Plant-eating animals find food where there was none before. Predators find prey again. Insects will multiply again and break down dead animal bodies. Every single animal in the food chain benefits from humans disappearing. This is especially true for those that are now in danger of dying out.
Blink 4 – With Water and Patience: Nature will bring our houses down to the ground.
For many people, their home is still their cave. It offers one main thing: safety from the outside world. But even if buildings made of concrete and steel seem strong and safe today, they are not as strong as we think.
Buildings often stand for several centuries. But for this, they need to be kept up. We regularly renew paint and plaster. We replace windows or put on a new roof. Without this work, nature would slowly but surely destroy our houses. Nothing would be left of them.
If people disappear, water will be the first enemy of our buildings. One day, the first raindrop will get inside through the roof or a broken window. With patience and time, water will break big holes in roofs and walls.
Inside, the weather will keep working. Many houses have wooden support beams. These will rot quickly once water gets in. A house with rotten wood will not stand for long. But even concrete cannot withstand water forever. Even though it takes much longer than wood, concrete houses will also start to crumble in the end.
With the first crack or hole made by water, more water gets inside. But also, life gets in. Plants and animals finish what the rain started. Once the old strong walls lose their power, small animals and insects will dig holes in the walls. Plants will grow through the floors.
Houses will finally fall down. Only very strong materials like aluminum or vinyl will stay in the rubble for a longer time. But over time, nature will also break down these materials. Where a building once stood, there will eventually be nothing left to see.
Blink 5 – Gold and Silver: Only a few materials survive the weather.
We have changed our planet in many ways. But most of these changes will not last forever. Only a few materials can stand against the forces of nature for a long time.
One example is objects made of precious metals like gold, platinum, or copper. Normal metals are made of different minerals. Over time, air and salt will break them back down into these minerals. But precious metals do not react with oxygen or other elements. So, they will stay as they are. The Statue of Liberty, for instance, is made of copper. It will still stand (or lie) in its shape when not much else is left of New York. The same is true for all other statues and monuments made of bronze or copper.
Carved rocks will also remind people of human existence for a long time. Rocks are some of the strongest materials nature has ever made. They are billions of years old. They wear away only a few centimeters in 10,000 years.
For example, the four large faces at Mount Rushmore will last for millions of years. This is because they are very big. Also, the mountain they are carved into is made of granite. Granite is one of the hardest rocks there is. Geologists have figured out that this new wonder of the world will remain for about 7.2 million years.
Of the seven old wonders of the world, only the Pyramids of Giza have lasted until today. The same will likely happen to new wonders of the world, like the Colossus of Rhodes and the Lighthouse of Alexandria. They will turn to dust.
In a world without people, most buildings will disappear after a fairly short time. Only a few buildings made of certain materials can then still show that humans once existed. But more often than gold chains and bronze statues, our animal descendants will find something else: plastic.
Blink 6 – Strong, Stronger, Plastic: Plastics survive all environmental effects.
Before humans came, our ecosystem had closed cycles. Everything that grew and thrived also went away again. Nature recycled everything, and there was no trash.
Only humans invented materials that last longer than any natural substances. PVC was the main one. This invention brought many good things. But the big problem was clear from the start: It cannot break down naturally.
Plastic gets smaller over time. But it never fully disappears. This means tiny living things do not turn it back into soil. Our thrown-away yogurt cup will get crushed. It will finally break into thousands of smaller pieces. But it will still be plastic, and its chemical make-up will stay the same.
To show how strong plastic really is, scientists put small pieces of plastic in a fish tank. The worms living there simply ate them with their normal food. Then they passed the pieces out completely unchanged. So, even an animal’s stomach cannot harm the material.
According to marine biologist Richard Thompson, plastic will keep getting smaller. It will become so small that you can hardly see it. Then, even the smallest living things, like plankton, can swallow it. This has big effects. Because the smaller the pieces get, the easier and further they can spread. This process will go on for thousands of years. It will not have a clear end.
Almost everyone uses plastic every day. So, plastic is already almost everywhere on Earth. Even in places very far from human life, like deep in the Pacific Ocean, plastic trash is found today.
No one can say exactly how much plastic has been made until today. But it is certainly a lot. In India alone, there are 5,000 factories that only make plastic bags.
Blink 7 – Not Forever, But Almost: Toxic waste harms Earth long after humans are gone.
Every day, we all touch harmful substances. These make our daily lives easier. But they also badly harm our environment. Examples are heavy metals in phones or CFCs in fridges and hairspray.
Heavy metals last an extremely long time. Chromium, for example, takes about 70,000 years to break down completely. Once they are broken into small pieces, they also spread through the air. Plants take them in. It is very possible that some plant species will die because of this.
Some heavy metals, like zinc and copper, are put into animal feed today. This means they are already in nature’s cycle. For example, cows on pastures pass them out. Then grass takes them in. A wild animal might eat that grass. This animal then carries the harmful substances into the forest. This is how they spread in nature, beyond farm animals.
Heavy metals are taken from deep underground. But there is no way for them to go back there. They stay on the Earth’s surface and cause damage there.
CFCs are a very dangerous substance for our ecosystem. They badly harm the ozone layer. Also, they are a main cause of global warming. After humans disappear, a very large amount of CFCs will be released. The results will be terrible.
Today, we try not to release some harmful substances into nature. For example, we take our old fridge to a recycling center. This way, the materials in it can be used again. But if humans disappear, these substances will slowly get into nature.
Even if we stopped making such harmful substances today, the amount we have already made will greatly harm the ecosystem for a very long time. Many types of animals and plants would likely die out because of these poisons. This would happen if they cannot change through mutation to live with the pollution.
Blink 8 – Global Accident: Nuclear energy turns large parts of Earth into a death zone.
Nuclear power might be the most dangerous invention by humans. But it is also one of the most important energy sources today. This is especially true for countries without natural oil or gas. Our neighbor country, France, for example, gets about 80% of its energy from nuclear power.
We are now very aware of the danger from making energy with nuclear fission. But even with our high safety rules, disasters like Chernobyl or Fukushima could not be stopped. If all nuclear plants were suddenly unsafe, the results would be much worse.
There are currently 441 nuclear power plants worldwide. If the electric cooling failed in one plant, the fuel rods would get too hot in a few days. A meltdown would happen. The entire plants would turn into a very radioactive lava-like mass in a few weeks. This would spread radiation to everything around them.
Also, the radiation would spread across the whole Earth by wind and weather. This would happen even if it was less strong. In this situation, the area around every nuclear power plant would be like a death zone. No plant or animal could live there.
This does not only apply to active nuclear power plants. Other problems would arise in nuclear waste storage sites or with nuclear weapon systems. Explosions like in Hiroshima could also happen here.
Also, radioactive materials give off radiation for an extremely long time. Uranium, for example, has a half-life of 704 million years. This means after this time, it gives off only 50% less radiation than it did at the start.
So, if people suddenly disappeared, not just one, but many nuclear disasters would happen. These would make large parts of Earth unlivable for other living things for a very long time.
Summary
The main message of the book is:
It is clear how much damage we have already done to our ecosystem. Even if humans disappeared overnight, parts of plants, animals, and the air are already harmed forever. Human society is changing the planet for the worse. If we do not change soon, the damage will be impossible to fix.
What you can do:
Think twice before you use plastic you don’t need.
Plastic does not break down naturally. Nature only makes it into smaller pieces. In this form, it causes damage that we cannot yet see the end of. Use plastic only when you really need it. Make sure to throw it away correctly so it can be used again.
Also, pay attention to other harmful substances in everyday items.
Buy your next fridge without CFCs. Take your special waste to a recycling center. Don’t just throw it in the regular trash. Also, learn about harmful substances in foods or cleaning products.
Show responsibility for the environment.
There is only one planet. Every harm we do leaves a wound in nature. This wound takes a long time to heal. If we want our children and grandchildren to be happy, we must rethink our wasteful way of living.
Source: https://www.blinkist.com/https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/die-welt-ohne-uns-de