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radmartigan's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
leonard_gaya's review against another edition
4.0
This is a worldwide documentary book, in the fashion of Jacques Cousteau, or more recently a few BBC programs. The inciting question is a bit strange: what would happen, should the whole of the human race suddenly vanish from the face of the Earth? Of course, even if entire populations could be decimated by war or natural catastrophes, an utter extinction of the human race is a highly improbable event. Yet, this odd hypothesis is a way of exploring how much humanity’s footprint has changed and is still changing this planet, and reflect on the possible legacy of our current global civilisation.
Weisman, a journalist and nonfiction writer, investigates different aspects of this question. He starts off pointing out how much human beings since they left their African cradle, have changed their environment. One illustration being the mass animal extinctions, due to human development, that have already taken place since prehistorical times (e.g. the giant proboscideans of the Holocene). These extinctions have been going on, presumably at an ever-increasing pace, up to the present time. But if human beings disappeared, what would happen in the immediate aftermath or in the farthest future? What would become of our houses, our sometimes massive megalopolis? What would become of the unfathomable amount of waste (mainly plastic waste) that we are continually dumping into the soil and the ocean? What would become of our highly hazardous petrochemical and nuclear facilities? What would become of our most significant achievements to transform the environment? What would become of the climate of our planet, that (despite the outrageous and deceitful denial of some politicians in recent times) we are contributing to change in radical ways? What will become of our intellectual and artistic legacy?
Weisman has travelled the world to find some answers, from New-York to the Panama Canal, from Korea to Cyprus and from Houston to the atolls of the Pacific Ocean, and overall his research is well documented albeit easy to read. What I take away from this book is that, should we suddenly depart, we would leave the Earth in a pretty disastrous state. But in time, perhaps a very long time (possibly millions of years), wild nature would wipe away almost all memory of our presence on this planet. The hitch is that, for now, we are still around and more and more so: what calamity we might well leave behind will sadly be for our descendants to live or die with and, hopefully, mend. It seems Weisman's more recent book advocates some form of demographic decline, as a solution to this massive issue…
Weisman, a journalist and nonfiction writer, investigates different aspects of this question. He starts off pointing out how much human beings since they left their African cradle, have changed their environment. One illustration being the mass animal extinctions, due to human development, that have already taken place since prehistorical times (e.g. the giant proboscideans of the Holocene). These extinctions have been going on, presumably at an ever-increasing pace, up to the present time. But if human beings disappeared, what would happen in the immediate aftermath or in the farthest future? What would become of our houses, our sometimes massive megalopolis? What would become of the unfathomable amount of waste (mainly plastic waste) that we are continually dumping into the soil and the ocean? What would become of our highly hazardous petrochemical and nuclear facilities? What would become of our most significant achievements to transform the environment? What would become of the climate of our planet, that (despite the outrageous and deceitful denial of some politicians in recent times) we are contributing to change in radical ways? What will become of our intellectual and artistic legacy?
Weisman has travelled the world to find some answers, from New-York to the Panama Canal, from Korea to Cyprus and from Houston to the atolls of the Pacific Ocean, and overall his research is well documented albeit easy to read. What I take away from this book is that, should we suddenly depart, we would leave the Earth in a pretty disastrous state. But in time, perhaps a very long time (possibly millions of years), wild nature would wipe away almost all memory of our presence on this planet. The hitch is that, for now, we are still around and more and more so: what calamity we might well leave behind will sadly be for our descendants to live or die with and, hopefully, mend. It seems Weisman's more recent book advocates some form of demographic decline, as a solution to this massive issue…
bracketboi's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Review:
This is a very well put together book on information regarding the negative impact human society has had and will undoubtedly continue to have on the planet and its delicate ecosystem if we are too late to do something about it.
I found some sections to be a lot more interesting than others. I loved the evolutionary stuff! It interested me so much that i watched about 5 hours worth of youtube content on the subject haha. I didn’t love the farming sections but nonetheless i think it had its place in the message this book was trying to get across.
People complaining that all this information could be found online or learned in school are silly because the same could probably be said for more than 90% of informative non-fiction literature if you did enough research.
The message this book sends out to the reader is a powerful one and should be shared.
This is a very well put together book on information regarding the negative impact human society has had and will undoubtedly continue to have on the planet and its delicate ecosystem if we are too late to do something about it.
I found some sections to be a lot more interesting than others. I loved the evolutionary stuff! It interested me so much that i watched about 5 hours worth of youtube content on the subject haha. I didn’t love the farming sections but nonetheless i think it had its place in the message this book was trying to get across.
People complaining that all this information could be found online or learned in school are silly because the same could probably be said for more than 90% of informative non-fiction literature if you did enough research.
The message this book sends out to the reader is a powerful one and should be shared.
adhdmamagreen's review against another edition
Very interesting topic but so dense and it felt more like a textbook at times. I imagine that I would have loved to be taught a course about it, but it was too much to just read by myself.
mstenor's review against another edition
4.0
A thought experiment worth taking, but still haunting. I will never look at a piece of plastic the same way again. Still, up against the list of how humanity's imprint would outlive us stands some examples of nature's power to take advantage where it can.