The World Without Us is explained by Alan Weisman, through an in depth breakdown of humanity 's effect on planet Earth. Throughout the novel he warns against a path of devastation and ignorance to environmental issues. Educating the reader to the planet’s state with anecdotes of singular events that relate to the larger theme of stewardship, or the lack thereof. Weisman reflects on the past to predict the future, starting in a prehistoric era he traces the development of mankind as it leaves Africa and travels to other lands such Eurasia and then the modern Americas. Weisman starts his tale of devastation with Paul Martin 's theory of megafauna eradication in North America, placing blame on the Clovis tribes. The first known settlers in the modern Southwest United States, a small group that possibly introduced disease or overhunted the region. A natural extinction based on an inability to adapt quickly to the new predators or climate change are substitute theories, that also justify the extremely short time period in which the extinction occurred.
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The Industrial revolution begins, cities start to expand and population rises. Larger populations require greater quantities of food, the solution is fertilizer and later pesticides. Starting with ground bone marrow and quickly transforming into unidentifiable chemicals, fertilizers increased yield by adding additional nutrients to soil. The testing of such things earnestly began on the Rothamsted family farm in Britain, now the land is an extensive example of how overuse causes problems with pH and soil contamination such as heavy metals like cadmium or nitrates. The damage done to farm land will eventually be repaired, without further contamination for humans, metals would be naturally leached from soil or buried by new topsoil until the land is habitable by native plants once
The Industrial revolution begins, cities start to expand and population rises. Larger populations require greater quantities of food, the solution is fertilizer and later pesticides. Starting with ground bone marrow and quickly transforming into unidentifiable chemicals, fertilizers increased yield by adding additional nutrients to soil. The testing of such things earnestly began on the Rothamsted family farm in Britain, now the land is an extensive example of how overuse causes problems with pH and soil contamination such as heavy metals like cadmium or nitrates. The damage done to farm land will eventually be repaired, without further contamination for humans, metals would be naturally leached from soil or buried by new topsoil until the land is habitable by native plants once