woodge blog

The World Without Us ~ Alan Weisman
trade paperback 432 pages ISBN-10: 0312427905 ISBN-13: 978-0312427900

When I told people I was reading this non-fiction book and that the premise was "What would happen to the earth if the human race suddenly vanished?" the usual response was to say something like, "So it's fiction?"

Ugh. NO.

First of all, to understand what could happen, we have to understand what has already happened so far.  And then, backed up by scientific knowledge from various experts in various fields, the author explains a very likely outcome of what would happen if we were just -- poof -- gone.  This book is absolutely fascinating.  So much so, that I was routinely ignoring the fantasy fiction I was concurrently reading and kept heading back to this book.  I don't often find non-fiction page-turners but this one qualifies.  And along with fascinating, this book is frequently alarming -- but not in a strident, self-righteous tone or anything like that.  This book presented me with many facts about the earth and our impact on it in a straightforward manner that just makes your proverbial jaw drop.  The two most alarming chapters for me were Chapter 9: Polymers Are Forever and Chapter 15: Hot Legacy.  In the former I learned all about the plastic refuse that is currently clogging our oceans. A LOT of plastic, mind-boggling... the Great Pacific Garbage Patch was mentioned and then I learned that there are at least six other large plastic-strewn gyres*.

So. That's bad. But then along comes Chapter 15 which goes into detail about radioactive waste, how much of it we have, what we're doing with it, and just how bad it is.  HOLY CRAP.  Take Uranium-238, for example.  This "depleted" version of U-235 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.  In the United States alone, there's at least a half-million tons of it.  U-238 is an unusually dense metal, so we've been making armor-piercing bullets out of it.  (They can pierce tank armor.)  There's enough concentrated U-238 in the bullet points that radioactivity in the ashen debris can exceed 1,000 times the normal background level.  They'll emit radiation for more years than the planet likely has left.  (That is, this stuff will still be radioactive when 4 or 5 billion years from now our sun expands to a red giant and incinerates the inner planets in our solar system.  Nice.)

I could go on but suffice it to say that this book should be required reading.  An excellent book.

*Oceanography. a ringlike system of ocean currents rotating clockwise in the Northern Hemisphere and counterclockwise in the Southern Hemisphere.

Your Inner Fish: A Journey Into the 3.5-Billion Year History of the Human Body by Neil Shubin

pb 256 pages  ISBN-10: 0307277453 ISBN-13: 978-0307277459

Neil Shubin is a paleontologist who delves briefly into the history of the human body by way of fossils and DNA evidence.  Sure, I learned stuff... like how interconnected all the species really are; and that mammals have three bones in the inner ear while other species have fewer; and that there's a gene called Sonic hedgehog; and how to extract DNA using common household appliances and items you could easily buy in a store (a blender is involved and I'm easily reminded of the Bass-O-Matic).  But, really this short book (just over 200 pages) was a bit of a slog to get through (although the explanations are clear enough).  I've read other non-fiction that was much more compelling.  But if you've an interest in fossils and DNA and where we came from, you might find this enlightening.  But since this book deals with actual science, I definitely wouldn't recommend this book to Creationists. Though I suppose a Creationist wouldn't be picking up a title like this one in the first place.  They're probably looking for something more along the lines of Your Inner Godliness: A Journey Into the Four Thousand Year History of the Human Body. But I digress.

[amazon] finished on 28 april 2009