In the meantime, I finished the book "The World Without Us". My earlier fears of Weisman taking an anti-human tack were, thankfully, misplaced. He reconciles his utopian ideas of what a paradise Earth would be (save for those meddling humans!) and his sudden realization that his dream scenario is completely implausible. Not impossible, just implausible. He begins to veer toward offering a solution to the number of problems outlined in the book, but stops just short of sounding a call to action.
As someone doomed to be a landlubber for much of his life, I am happy to get a glimpse of what goes on beneath the waves of the ocean. After all, it's not often that I read about a part of Earth that is still literally teeming with life, such as Kingman Reef. Is anyone worried that people like me will want to visit the places described in the book, if only for a chance to glimpse what the author is attempting to convey to us? These Lost Edens could become overrun by armchair vacationers who want to get off the couch and go see it for themselves. Then where would those lovely schools - SCHOOLS - of shark go? That's not to mention the horrendous damage to the Reef itself from big-bottomed tourist boats grinding against them in order to deposit chubby men into the pristine water.
Let's talk about the coda, for a moment.
The coda to the book serves as a way to bring all the disparate chapters together with a few final questions. Interestingly, Weisman invokes the religious idea of an afterlife. What would happen to the Earth if we were suddenly raptured away, and the many apocalypses occurred? Oddly, the Ragnaroks of the religions of the world hardly mention the Earth at all. It seems that the human race was too selfish to give a thought to the planet that birthed them and bore them. We were - and still are, mind you - only mindful of where WE are going, what WE are going to be doing.
That's perhaps what made this book so fascinating. It was an unabashed look into a world without us, a world that would (haha) have to survive without us somehow. In most instances, it would appear to do quite well. It's true that humans spend a great deal of time beating back nature's advances on our achievements. Think of mildew, mold, and even a summer thunderstorm. Every day Mother Earth takes another potshot at our fragile achievements, and we fight back with all the science we have at our disposal. What if, Weisman muses, we were to stop fighting?
Weisman's other interesting proposal, enforced reproductive limitations, would solve the human problem without the terrifying idea put forth by the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. Rather than simply not having any more children at all, Weisman suggests that a worldwide ban go into effect on fertile women having more than one child. This would lessen our impact on the world over time, with only a moderate adjustment in society. Hell, the kids would be better off for it. No sibling rivalry, all the attention from Mom and Dad, all the money...ah, but...now that I think about it, no more siblings. I would certainly miss the bond and camraderie that my brothers and I share. There would have to be many tradeoffs, indeed...
Still, our population would drop dramatically by the turn of the 22nd century, enough to warrant a sequel to Weisman's original thought experiment. What would happen if world population fell to one billion in one hundred years? Cities would be abandoned, yet we humans would still be around to deal with the consequences of such a decline in our world population. Would one billion be enough to maintain the current infrastructure? Unlikely. We would have to scale back, but would we bother? Perhaps it would be better to let it decay; certainly easier, but what would happen to...
*sigh* I could go on all night. You might say that I could fill a book with wonderful "what-ifs", and make a killing.
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