Earth Without People Reaction Paper

Earth Without People Reaction Paper

            Alan Weisman, the author of Earth Without People, uses an immense amount of imagery.  Weisman starts off by explaining about an area in Korea that has been abandoned for almost seventy years.  This certain area is currently a Demilitarized Zone that has once provided fertile land to farmers for 5,000 years, which now only families in desperate need migrate to.  However, this Demilitarized Zone is more useful than it looks; it provides answers as to what the world would look like if humans didn’t exist.  Over a certain amount of years without human contact, the world would eventually look as if there were no humans at all.  Animals would all become “wild” and the endangered species list would soon balance out with the population of animals.

            Weisman provided a great amount of examples as to what would happen to New York City if humans would ever suddenly disappear.  First off, within ten years the sidewalks would start to wear off; weeds would start to crack the sidewalks and push it aside.  The balance of animals that depend on human interaction and man-made objects would drastically decline (ex: rats who depend on human garbage and cockroaches who depend on warm buildings), and finally natural plants such as carrots and broccoli would regress back to how they used to be grown without farmers harvesting them.

            Within twenty years, the subway tunnels underneath New York City would collapse due to the amount of water rusting down the supporting structures, and soon the tunnels would be completely gone.  Wolves, bears, and other fierce creatures would make their way into Central Park and make that their habitat as the city slowly demolishes itself around them.  After Most of the buildings have collapsed, and the sidewalks have been completely covered with weeds, trees would start to grow and populate the land, making a bigger region for violent animals to roam.  Without humans on top of the food chain, there would be many more battles between groups of animals trying to find a dominate species.  Soon horses would become completely wild (a species that has never been wild for thousands of years).

            During the time period that the buildings collapse and the trees start to grow, the Indian Point nuclear reactors would start to leak radioactivity into the Hudson River.  This would greatly harm the fish in the river, and hurt the animals that depend on that river for cleansing and drinking water.  About 300 years later, most bridges across major lakes around New York City would collapse due to lack of maintenance and water erosion.  Then, around one thousand years after the humans have disappeared; the famous Hell Gate Bridge would collapse.  This would greatly affect the animals on the island because there would be no way to get back to the mainland with the amount of water in between each land mass. 

            Finally, with about twenty thousand years without humans in earth, glaciers would ruthlessly move across the island of Manhattan.  During this time, the Indian Point nuclear reactors would still be leaking radioactivity into the Hudson River, having leaked radioactivity for over nineteen thousand years! 

            Alan Weisman did a great job with imagery.  Without the imagery, I feel as if the paper would have less meaning to it and wouldn’t have been taken as seriously.  Weisman gives great examples as to how things would slowly demolish into the earth and how nature would grow over them.  He gives great examples as to what each species would go through to try and become the dominate species and thrive.  I feel Weisman did a great job with this paper and his examples were outstanding.