The World Without Us

Alan Weisman



Just before I started reading this one, I watched the History Channel special Life After People. Not to be outdone, the National Geographic Channel made Aftermath: Population Zero, which I watched after reading the book.

Life After People focused mostly on manmade structures and broke the show down into timelines. One month, six months, one year, ten years… you get the idea, and showed what would be left at each juncture through graphics and interviews with people who worked in different divisions of the cities featured. Very well done and interesting.

The book was initially a disappointment. I guess because I was expecting the same thing as the History Channel show. Yeah, stupid me. The book was very well done and intriguing. There were no breakdowns in time. What the book did was look at spots around the world (Chernobyl; Cyprus, Turkey; Poland) where nature has been left alone or has reclaimed the land and analyzed what has happened, applying the results to the rest off the world. New York City, nuclear waste dumps, etc. It looked at plants, animals, structures…the most disturbing part of the book? Plastics. They will survive and affect the environment for centuries to come. Or maybe it’s just because the Author makes us look into the mirror to see who the enemy really is.

So what will survive the test of time? Mount Rushmore. The space probes sent out of the universe. Even after our sun explodes, they will still be out there. The Huygens probe sent to land on Titan was to have a diamond with information about Earth and humans in it, but the idea got nixed. Even our radio/television waves released out into the ether will in reality be so dispersed as to become background noise and unuseful in reconstructing the original message.

Finally we come to the National Geographic Channel show Aftermath: Population Zero. I was interested to see the NGC’s take on the subject. In reality the title should have been Aftermath: Zero Viewers. This show was crap. Much like the History Channel show, the NGC divided the show into time periods. The first hour of the two hour show got us up to about 4 days A. H. or after humans.

My biggest problem with the show was that they assumed that all humans just suddenly disappeared. So planes were left without pilots and start crashing into the ground. Car accidents happened as cars suddenly had no drivers. It was just crazy. They focused on all of the disasters that would occur. Chemicals were released by plants with no electricity, producing explosions and ragging fires.

In all fairness I should say that I was a little tired when I watched this show. But if it had been engaging then I would have been able to stay awake no problem. Instead I kept nodding off. It was a disappointing way to end my 3-part series of the world without humans.

To conclude, read the book, and then watch the History Channel when they rerun the show, and consider yourself informed.