after we are gone [mild spoilers]
August 30th, 2007 by herichon
Journalist Alan Weisman has a new book called The World Without Us, which discusses what would happen to the earth if, one day, all humans just vanished. There’s a great infographic on his site which starts with the day after tomorrow and shows some of the repercussions of our absence over the coming years.
I really like this page. It’s soothing, in a way. I wish I could be there to see it (if that weren’t by definition impossible). Plus it gives me that same sense of satisfaction and closure you used to get at the end of those old movies with closing titles that explained what happened to the various characters after the movie ends. (You don’t see that so much these days… I think it was probably “9 to 5” that ruined it for everybody.)
One of my main issues with dying has always been not knowing how things end. I expect it’ll feel like walking out of a movie just when things are getting good. This kind of thing helps, though. On my death bed I’ll be able to say to myself, well, I’ll never know what happens tomorrow, but at least I’ve got a pretty good idea of how the whole story ends, right? The camera pans out as the dying sun envelops the earth, and somewhere light years away in the darkness we hear the echo of an old Honeymooners episode making its way past the faintest stars, bearing the last traces of humanity out into forever, fade to black, roll credits.
I can live (and die) with that, I think.