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Missing Persons: Alan Weisman Imagines a People-free Planet

The World Without Us author Alan Weisman explores how Earth might fare without humanity

New York, NY — August 7, 2007 — Given the explosive human population and the phenomenal reach of our technologies, humankind has literally become a force of nature. While other organisms struggle to adapt to a new human-made world, humanity is inadvertently changing the climate, altering and polluting ecosystems, and driving evolution. So what would happen if humankind suddenly vanished?

That premise is the starting point for The World without Us, a new book by science writer Alan Weisman, associate professor of journalism at the University of Arizona.

Weisman will share his thoughts on the current environmental debate and other insights into conservation in an exclusive New York City appearance on:

Wednesday, September 5th, at 7:00pm

Helen Mills Theater,
135 West 26th Street
(between 6th and 7th Aves).

Due to limited space, reservations are highly recommended. 
Please contact nycevents@tnc.org or (212) 381-2195 to RSVP or for more information.

Expanding on a Discover Magazine piece selected for The Best American Science Writing 2006, Weisman’s The World Without Us reveals how in just days after humans disappear, New York City’s subways would impassably flood.  Within 20 years, Lexington Avenue would cave in and become a river, while the seemingly invincible cockroach would perish in freezing winter temperatures of unheated apartments.

Weisman explains how our massive infrastructure would collapse and finally vanish without human presence; what of our everyday stuff may become immortalized as fossils; how copper pipes and wiring would be crushed into mere seams of reddish rock; why some of our earliest buildings might be the last architecture left; and how plastic, bronze sculpture, radio waves, and some man-made molecules may turn out to be our most lasting gifts to the universe.

From places already devoid of humans (a last fragment of primeval European forest, the Korean DMZ, Chernobyl), Weisman reveals Earth's tremendous capacity for self-healing. As he shows which human devastations are indelible, and which examples of our highest art and culture would endure longest, Weisman's narrative ultimately drives toward a radical but persuasive solution that doesn't depend on our demise. It is narrative nonfiction at its finest and looks deeply at our effects on the planet in a way that no other book has.

This unique presentation with Alan Weisman is part of The Nature Conservancy’s public events and outreach initiative in New York, which is designed to engage Conservancy members and supporters in the Tri-State area.  This event is co-sponsored with New York City Audubon and the Westside YMCA Writer’s Voice.

For a full list of The Nature Conservancy’s year-round trips, talks and walks in New York, please contact nycevents@tnc.org.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.