Summarized by Daniela Berenguer

1. Alan Weisman Summarized by Daniela Berenguer

2. Prelude- A Monkey Koan Subdivision I Alan Weisman opens his book with the story of Ana MaríaSanti, a Zápara Indian of the Equatorian upper Amazon. Her old age and the decay of her tribe is evident when, during a minga or barn raising celebration, she is offered spider monkey meat. This animal is considered the spiritual ancestor of the Zápara tribe, and she rejects the meat saying, “When we’re down to eating our ancestors, what is left?” Weisman connects this upsetting comment making us wonder if we are ‘eating up our ancestor’, if we’ve “poisoned or parboiled the planet, ourselves included” to a point of no return. Although he recognizes that it is impossible to know what effect we have had and will leave on the planet, he presents a hypothetical situation in which all humans simply disappeared form the face of the planet overnight. Through extensive research and expert opinions on the subject, he will try to answer the question, what will happen after we leave?

3. Part I Subdivision I Alan Weisman is not an expert in geology, a climatologist, or a biologist, but through broad research and help from different sources he is able to establish a prediction: if humans were to disappear from the planet overnight, nature would find a way of outlasting and conquering the ‘human world’, just as it has since the history of the world can remember. In chapter one, A Lingering Scent of Eden, Weisman illustrates the Białowieża Puszcza. This is an amazing ‘forest primeval’ in Poland, alive with five-hundred-year-old oak trees, elk, foxes, and animals and plants of all kinds. This natural oasis has been around from millions of years and has managed to survive World Wars, changes of government, and human disasters. He concludes by saying that “given 500 years without people, true forest could return” to all of Europe. In chapter two, Unbuilding Our Home, the author gives us a specific account of how, in not a very long time, nature will take over and destroy our houses, “Clean them right off the face of the Earth.” He describes how water will seep in, wind blow the walls down, and mold finish tearing the buildings down. This contrast demonstrates how something that we think to be as sturdy and enduring as our houses can easily be regained by the power of nature.

4. Part I Subdivision II In chapter three, The City Without Us, Alan Weisman insists that if humans were to leave the planet, some man-made and man-built materials might persist but eventually there would be “nothing to indicate that it was us who put it there”. He gives a point-by-point account of how each aspect of our ‘strong’, modern cities would decay until they fell to the ground. Ironically, he mentions that ‘old’ buildings like St. Paul’s Chapel, which are made of stone, will be some of the last to crumble down. Weisman dedicates a large part of the chapter to describing what will become of Central Park’s botanic and animal life. After doing extensive research and dedicated enquiries, he is able to describe how, even though people have introduced many foreign species to the park, in very little time local species will rule, others will adapt, animals will start intensely migrating. He uses specific examples to convince the reader of just how superficial our trace on the planet would be, if we were to leave before we made any irreversible, tragic changes.

5. Part I Subdivision III The next idea that Weisman argues is whether or not humans have evolved to such an extent that we can be compared to a ‘force of nature’, and if our actions are unavoidable and could be repeated by another species after we are gone. In chapter four, The World just Before Us, Weisman gives an accurate description of how the world was… just before us. He then focuses on Lake Tanganyika in Africa, an amazing wildlife forest that due to human intervention has suffered unimaginable genetic changes. He describes how this came to be and how humans came to evolve, and ensures that “no enticement is readily evident for another primate to […] follow in our futile footsteps. Until, of course, the ice returns.” By implying that our effects on that region can be compared to the effects that an ice glacier can have on it, we can understand that we have risen to the level of a natural ‘force of nature’, and all the power and responsibility that comes with it, even though we might have chosen to ignore it. In chapter five, The Lost Menagerie, Weisman paints the picture of the pre-human, thriving animal kingdoms that were the Americas. He also introduces the various opinions on why this natural sanctuary suffered from an immense ‘megafaunal genocide’. Paul Martin’s theory, a renown paleoecologist, says, “When people got out of Africa and Asia and reached other parts of the world, all hell broke loose.” However, countering his idea that humans are responsible for the extinction of a continent, there is also talk of this genocide being the effect of extreme climate changes. We are, once again, being compared to a ‘force of nature’ or at least being charged with the same crimes as one.

6. Part I Subdivision IV Continuing his battle, Alan Weisman wonders, or makes us wonder, if it is not to late to turn back now. In chapter six, The African Paradox, he compares the situation he had talked about in chapter four- the disappearance of an animal haven in the Americas perhaps due to the sudden, seemingly harmless appearance of homo sapiens- to the effective side-by-side evolution that animals like elephants and humans went through in Africa. He explores places like the Abedares moors in Kenya, Tsavo ‘brushy country’, and the Nairobi National Park to sustain that theory, and to describe what would happen in a post-human world, “No people and 20 times more elephants would restore them as the undisputed keystone species in a patchwork mosaic African landscape. By contrast […] American forests represent vast niches awaiting any herbivore big enough to extract their woody nutrients.” If we were to leave right now we could expect the African natural kingdom to come back as it used to be, a hope that we might have obliterated for the wild life of the Americas. Weisman seems to indirectly want to suggest to stop now, before any more irreversible damage is done.