Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: contemplative

Earth Minus Humanity

A friend tipped me to the book The World Without Us. It describes what would happen to the Earth if humanity suddenly disappeared -- how long our works would outlast us, how quickly the environment would adapt to our absence. It's not exactly science fiction, because it's nonfiction, but it reads similarly.

There's an excerpt from the book on the website, talking about plastic. It's only been around for about 50 years, but it's all over the oceans. I recently learned something horrifying about plastic. It does not biodegrade at all. Physical weathering reduces it to microscopic fragments eventually, but those fragments are still plastic and they go right on being plastic ... sort of indefinitely. We know the "half-life" of radioactive waste; we don't know anything similar about plastic. This cannot be good.
Tags: environment, reading, science
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  • 4 comments
sythyry

sythyry

October 15 2007, 13:55:26 UTC 13 years ago

I am less worried about plastic not biodegrading than many of the other things we leave around. 'cause there's lots of naturally occurring stuff that doesn't biodegrade (viz. stone, including microscopic fragments of stone). Life just sort of goes around it.
ysabetwordsmith

ysabetwordsmith

October 15 2007, 15:07:48 UTC 13 years ago

It's true that stone doesn't biodegrade, but stone has been around for the life of this planet. Thus the biosphere incorporates it comfortably. Since plastic is only about 50 years old, the biosphere doesn't really "recognize" it. Animals swallow pieces of plastic and often die from intestinal blockages. But nothing can actually *digest* plastic. You know the proverbs about how we should be grateful for flies, dung beetles, etc. because without them we'd be buried in waste? That's exactly what's happening with plastic. (This may give us a useful preview of what happens to things unfamiliar to a biosphere, as we're likely to see something similar if we introduce Terran plants and animals to an alien biosphere someday.)

On the other hoof, there are certainly lots of things to worry about. Which ones were you thinking about that worry you more than plastic?
ynysafallon

ynysafallon

October 15 2007, 22:11:55 UTC 13 years ago

Yes... I found that website a few weeks ago. It's rather sobering, especially the paintings depicting the decay of New York City. Living here, it hits rather close to home on many levels.

Interesting info about plastics. Quite frightening indeed.
ysabetwordsmith

Deep time

ysabetwordsmith

October 16 2007, 04:32:14 UTC 13 years ago

It also reminded me of the book _Deep Time_ by Gregory Benford. That's another example of thinking in very long spans. For me that's a natural and comfortable mode, but I find that other people are frequently baffled when I say things like "You can't put radioactive waste that will be dangerous for 50,000 years in barrels that will only last 10,000 years -- that's not a permanent solution!" It seems like most people consider "permanent solution" to mean "anything that keeps the problem from becoming acute during my own remaining lifespan." That's a dangerous definition.