Ideas Emerging

The World Without Us is easily one of the best books I’ve read this year — no other piece of nonfiction even comes close. The premise is a thought experiment — if mankind were to suddenly disappear from the face of the planet, what would happen? The author, Alan Weisman, is a journalist (and a good one) so the writing is crisp and, at points, haunting and beautiful. But the breadth of his imagination is pretty amazing, and it’s hard not to be impressed with the way he ties evolutionary fact with convincing speculation. He talks with experts around the world — conservationists in Africa; ecologists in Poland; an electrician charged with rewiring parts of a city abandoned for ten years by war. And when he describes way in which the subways of New York City will flood and how the George Washington Bridge will rust and slowly collapse, it’s hard not to get caught up in the beauty of the whole thing. I’m currently about halfway through and hope to say more once I’m done.

But I’m in the midst of reading a chapter on plastic. As I’m sure many of you know, plastic will be our greatest legacy as a civilization. Long after the climate crisis has cooled; long after all our monuments and towers have turned to dust; even after bacteria have figured out how to breakdown the complexities of rubber; plastics will still be with us. There’s nothing that has yet evolved that can break it down. Soda rings, trash bags, and (I’m not kidding about this) the little beads that come in exfoliant scrub — all of it winds its way through the various mechanisms we’ve put into place for trash control, and too much of it winds up in the water supply. And when it does begin degrade, it releases toxins and chemicals for which nature has no plan.

That’s why the trend covered in today’s NY Times is intriguing. Stores like Whole Foods are recruiting celebrity designers to create canvas shopping bags. And across the world, they’re becoming something of a sensation. That doesn’t mean anything for the plastics that are already floating in the oceans or buried in a landfill, but it is a hopeful sign for the future.

– mc