The World without Us
I read with great interest of Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us when it first came out in 2007. It is a book about, as a thought experiment, what would happen to the the world if humans suddenly disappeared. It describes, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Eleven years later in 2018 during my visit to the world famous Angkor Wat city in Cambodia which was built around 13th century but abandoned for reasons unknown for five centuries, I saw how the vines and tree roots intertwined with the building structures as shown in the cover photo. In both examples, the theme was about the power of nature to retake the planet from man made structures with time.
I recently watched a BBC documentary “The Year Earth Changed” which featured many examples of how animals thrived during a?year?of pandemic without as much?impact from?human interference, i.e.?traffic, noise pollution, and travel due to the pandemic. Out of the misery of pandemic for human, it was a pleasantly uplifting story which highlights some of the more positive stories from around the world about the effects of a global lockdown.
On the one hand, it is wonderful to have the opportunity to document whales communicating in a way that had never been heard before, jackass penguins roaming through the empty street of Cape Town, capybaras wandering the South American suburbs, or the Himalayas being visible for the first time due to a lack of pollution. The film showcases the world around us as we have never quite seen it before, or at least have not seen for a long long time. On the other hand, it is also sobering to realize how much human presence is directly or indirectly interfering with the life of other animals. Mother turtle could not lay their eggs while human crowding the beach. Cheetah could not communicate with her babies due to tourists. Noise pollution has led to multiple whale-strandings and poses a threat to thousands of ocean creatures.
“You never want to let a serious crisis go to waste.” Let’s hope we all take this pandemic as an opportunity to learn how to do things we did not think we could do before, and learn to co-exist peacefully with nature and other living things on this planet.
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Thanks for sharing Xinjin! I also have enjoyed watching and hearing our creatures enjoy the earth as well during the pandemic.
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3 年Too bad the world is going back to the same as it used to be by the end of 2019. You start to see more and more travelers everywhere, people going to the beaches as nothing happened, and plans to travel to remote regions like we need to go and see them and disturb them because of YOLO. Companies pushing for this Pandemia be over at any cost, even the price of our Planet and forgetting we have "Only ONE Planet."
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3 年While humans should ever seek to be better stewards of this gorgeous blue orb, I think the article misses the mark, but certainly in vogue in it's lexicon. I find this penchant to view homo sapiens as some sort of infectious disease spoiling an otherwise perfect and pristine environment akin to the naval-gazing of past torts (CRT etc.) piling on our 2021 woke self loathing. Aside from being inaccurate, the work is unproductive. I'd like to see the conversation tact toward a more helpful direction. Many present day solutions provide the comforts we seek while reducing negative impacts. Lost on many,;new to this conversation, the earth was in far worse environmental shape in the 1970's. Improvements in how we use combustible materials and water treatments brought many metropolitan areas back from the brink. 8 billion people is certainly a significant load for our 25,000+ mile circumferenced home, yet there are huge swaths of uninhabited areas. Is that where Nirvana exists? Sadly, hyperbole is the new black, outrage the sword, and ignoring progress the norm. Tangible progress ignored! This author paints in bleak shades. Humans a teeming virus standing in the way of a more harmonic Terraform. Not my cup of tea.
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3 年I too read the World Without Us when it was first released and it taught me to think differently, from all sides. I look forward with gusto to watching the BBC documentary “The Year Earth Changed” and thank you for your article. Added to my queue is also the interview with Alan Weisman at https://youtu.be/n9swtBlO91U.