Post Apocalypse Now

OK, I may be getting carried away with all this postapocalyptic reading—I really need to find some more cheerful books! I just finished “The World Without Us,” by Alan Weisman, which is a scientific look at what would happen to Earth if humans just suddenly disappeared (assuming no nuclear fallout or asteroid-induced blocking of the sun, etc.). Think a virus that only infects humans and is 100 percent deadly.

Anyway, let’s grant Weisman those assumptions. What would happen to the world we left behind? Well, it turns out in some ways the planet would be much better off without us, and in some ways, much worse.

First, the positives: Some endangered species would retake and thrive in their former habitats. Deforested areas would regrow, and, of course, we would stop producing greenhouse gases.

Some not so good things: No one would be around to warn animals and the intelligent primates who might eventually evolve to replace us to stay away from nuclear waste storage sites. Nuclear reactors would eventually melt down without human monitoring, and oil refineries would catch fire and burn for years.

One of the book’s most alarming chapters featured plastics. Basically, every bit of plastic that has ever been manufactured (more than one billion tons) will remain on Earth, clogging waterways and choking animal and plant life, forever. That’s FOREVER. In a section of the Pacific Ocean called the North Pacific Tropical Gyre, an eddy the size of Texas draws in a never-ending stream of plastic. It’s choked with six-pack rings, sandwich bags and plastic grocery bags, and it will accumulate more as long as we continue producing plastic. Reading that chapter led to what I call my “plastic bag epiphany,” where I finally committed to taking reusable bags to the grocery store. (They are fantastic—you can fit so much more into them, so you don’t end up carrying 12 plastic bags, each containing two items.) I know it doesn’t help much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s something…

In the final chapter, Weisman offers what I think is, in theory at least, a fantastic solution to our environmental woes. He recommends that every woman able to bear children be limited to only one child. The current world population is about 6.5 billion and is projected to grow to a completely unmanageable 9 billion by 2050. If this measure went into effect immediately, population would drop to 5.5 billion at mid-century and 1.6 billion (19th-century levels ) by 2100. I admit the idea is a bit impractical (though China has had some success with it), but it just might be better than the alternative—finding out what happens when nearly 10 billion people are competing for the shrinking livable habitats on Earth.