The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

1.  If you’ve seen the movie I Am Legend, you’ll have a picture in your mind’s eye of what the landscape may look like in this speculative examination of what the world would look like without humans.  Weisman takes us back into time and examines several cultures over time and the mistakes made which caused such harm to wildlife, nature, our habitat and the spread of pollution to date.  Before starting the book, can you speculate what may have been the most dangerous inventions of all time?

2.  Take a minute to think about some of the ridiculous inventions we have read about today that are purposeless and wasteful.  My example would be a robot which gets us a glass of water.  True story, I read it today in the paper. Which one do you suggest?

3.  Weisman undoes one of the basic myths we’ve come to believe, that nature takes back it’s own, that our structures crumble and eventually nature will win back its own territory.  But, given the exotic plastics and micro pollution we’ve generated, some of the  garbage and litter will last forever.  Consider how many plastic bags will be at the bottom of the ocean?

4.  While reading the book, consider some real life examples you’ve seen of damages caused by our “so called progressive” inventions and the cost on the environment.  My example would be:  on Burlington beach I saw several bird carcases on the ground.  They had be shocked by sitting on the high powered wires.  Couldn’t a barrier have been put up to save them from the damage?  Do you have any examples?

5.  Do you read the labels of products to see what damage they can do to the environment?  I’ve bought bags for composting which supposedly just become more minute in the soil once they decompose still causing damage seepage into the soil.

6.  This book has been a Times best book for 2007 and likened to Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth, both of which we have in the library for checkout.  Though the writer, Weisman is not a scientist, he is a journalist and has done a thorough job on his research as you can see by the 23 pages of bibliography following the story.  The book is classified as non-fiction because of the reliance on factual evidence but the premise is speculative, much like the writings of Michael Crichton, hence might be termed an eco thriller.  Yet, the purpose here is more to inform while the latter writer aims to entertain.  Nevertheless, both genres may appeal to the same readership?  Do you know of any other writers like this?

7.  Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma may be a closer match to this book in that it shows how genetically modified food has changed the agricultural business and destroyed the natural balance of slow farming methods.  Both books might make a good comparison.  Pollan offers very clear solutions.  Does Weisman offer any hope for us as a species?

8.   One particularly vivid section for me is the part about the elephants in Kenya who stomp down the growing trees creating grasslands whereas the grazing gazelles need the trees to ground the soil and maintain a balance of nutrients.  The symbiotic relationship is evident.  Which section did you find most astounding?

9.  Another high impact section deals with the African Aids epidemic.  There are whole towns with only children left without parents since all have died of Aids.  Only the Masai are not sick with the virus.  What other possible afflictions might we discover that may prove a threat to our species and lead to extinction?