News
ISPE Faculty Spotlight
Alan Weisman: exploring a world without people
May 11, 2006
By Stephanie Doster
Alan Weisman
From New York City subway tunnels and the Korean Demilitarized Zone to our African origins and a fertilizer research site in England, Alan Weisman has journeyed to the far reaches of the globe and the frontiers of science to capture what Earth would be like if humans suddenly vanished, leaving nature to her own devices.
“Hypothetically wiping humans out gives us a way of looking at the planet without us getting in the way and to say, ‘Wow, look what nature could do without us,’ and then wonder, ‘Okay, is there a way nature could do that with us still here?’” said Weisman, a noted environmental writer and journalism professor at the University of Arizona.
Weisman explores these ideas in his essay, “Earth Without People,” which originally appeared in the February 2005 issue of Discover Magazine and was selected for publication in the forthcoming anthology, The Best American Science Writing 2006. In the essay he describes how plants and trees might devour cities. Vegetables revert to their wild roots. Nuclear reactors leak for millennia. Dams and bridges ultimately give way. And many creatures, some of which are now struggling, flourish. His book, The World Without Us, an expanded, more in-depth version of the essay, will be published in 2007.
“The research for this book has really taken me to some strange places that I hadn’t thought about,” Weisman said. “What materials that we’ve created will last the longest?”
To find out, Weisman plied peer-reviewed scientists with questions about the fate of plastics resting in the ocean’s depths and of the probes exploring the universe. He poked around buried cities; overgrown, mine-laden rice paddies; and the underbellies of bridges. And he explored medieval forests, Mayan ruins, Micronesian coral reefs, Antarctica, and Chernobyl, the site of the devastating 1986 nuclear accident.
In Chernobyl, he said, tree roots have burst through pavement. Buildings and public spaces are being overcome by their own landscaping. And swallows nest in the dormant reactors, although no one is certain what effect lingering radiation will have on the birds.
“It was the world’s worst environmental disaster and nature is just absolutely implacable and irrepressible, and comes back,” Weisman said. “Nature was having a good time.”
Much of Weisman’s writing focuses on the interplay between the environment, economics, international relations, and human society and culture. His reports, set in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Antarctica, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle and Far East, have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Audubon, Mother Jones, Discover, and Condé Nast Traveler.
Weisman also is a senior producer and editor for Homelands Productions, a non-profit journalism cooperative that has produced a number of documentaries for National Public Radio and Public Radio International, including “Vanishing Homelands,” a series that examines the loss of land and culture among indigenous people and others in the southern hemisphere. Work on a follow-up series led to Weisman’s acclaimed 1998 book, Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World, which chronicles the evolution of an innovative and environmentally sustainable community in an isolated area of Colombia.
“It’s a hopeful little place surrounded by darkness,” Weisman said. “That book has turned into a college speaking tour that still hasn’t ended.”
Back on the UA campus, Weisman teaches a spring international journalism course to fluent Spanish speakers. For his 2004 and 2005 classes, he led his students to Chile and Panama to report and write articles on various topics that were picked up by the Tucson Citizen, the city’s afternoon daily newspaper. This semester, students focused on environmental issues along the Colorado River and the Sea of Cortez in Mexico.
“It’s a terrific learning lab for students because here you’ve got this river of huge importance for North America and it flows into—or did before the dams—what was once one of the biologically richest bodies of water on Earth, the Sea of Cortez,” Weisman said.
Weisman said he would like to see the UA blend journalism courses with its strong tradition in the sciences so that the important ecological and environmental issues facing the world today are conveyed accurately to decision makers and voters in a way they can understand.
“I would really like to see some journalism students be trained in how to cover the sciences and I’d like to see some scientists from all disciplines learn how to write for the lay audience because that’s the lifeblood,” he said. “The best thing about this university right now is its science curriculum. The work is so vital. And whenever you get scientists who can talk directly to voters in ways that are eloquent, inspiring, clear, and have the ring of truth, that’s when stuff starts to happen.”