Alan Weisman on “Earth without people”

We favor population reduction to about one billion people. That’s to allow all other species, which the current six billion people have decimated, to grow back toward paradise proportions. One way to grasp the paradise that Earth would be with fewer people is to think about how Earth would be if all people were removed. Alan Weisman discusses just this in an interview, “An Earth Without People,” Scientific American, July 2007, pages 76 - 81. Losers on Earth with no people include domesticated cattle (no one to raise them), rats (no garbage to eat), and head lice. All others win, including birds (no skyscrapers, power lines, and wind turbines to crash into and die), and trees and grasses (they’d repossess cities and developments). As for global warming, atmospheric carbon dioxide would return to preindustrial levels in 100,000 years.
    The truth everybody turns a blind eye to: most problems are caused by rampant unprotected sex. The population of India, for instance, passed the one billion mark in 2001. Every three years, India adds as many people as the whole population of the UK.   
    Some indicative facts caused by a world overrun with people: India has fewer than 1,500 tigers; Russia and Sumatra have about 400 each. A recent 3500-kilometer survey of China’s Yangtze River failed to tally even one baiji, the river dolphin. Another China survey recorded only 300 of the world’s only freshwater porpoise.
    For a bibliographical sketch of Alan Weisman, click here. For a description of his new book, The World without Us, click here.