Chicago Tribune Interviews Weisman

Today's Trib has an interview with author Alan Weisman. An excerpt from the story:
Among those interesting facts:

- Humans use more than a third of the world's land surface for food production.

- In the ocean, north of Hawaii, there is a 1,000-mile-wide area containing 3 million tons of trash -- bottle caps, fish netting, six-pack rings, limp balloons, plastic bags and other detritus of human civilization -- that oceanographers have dubbed the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

- Over the past half-century, humans have produced 1 billion tons of plastic.

Virtually all of that plastic remains somewhere on the planet, and, even if humans disappeared tomorrow, it would stick around for a long, long time.

How long?

"No one knows," writes Weisman, "because no plastic has died a natural death yet. It took today's microbes ... a long time after plants appeared to learn to eat lignin and cellulose. More recently, they've even learned to eat oil. None can digest plastic yet, because 50 years is too short a time for evolution to develop the necessary biochemistry."

Provocative stuff, right?

The World Without Us

Saw journalist Alan Weisman speak last night - was truly remarkable. His book "The World Without Us" is just out and he's on tour. The book explores a world without humans, and Weisman interviewed hundreds of people to explore the notion. For example, he talked to city managers in Manhattan to learn how long the city's bridges would survive if workers stopped coming to take care of them. And how long it would take for New York's subways to flood and streets to cave in if workers stopped arriving each morning. It's a fascinating journey - largely about the resilience of nature - and worth picking up.

Gaviotas Comes to Chicago

The Peace Museum has just inaugurated the exhibit "Gaviotas: An Oasis of Imagination" on one of the world's most innovative sustainable cities. At the Harold Washington Library through January 2008, the exhibit features the writing of journalist Alan Weisman. The story is a remarkable one and explores the many creative solutions that residents of Gaviotas have implemented to resolve the challenges of living in one of Colombia's most inhospitable regions. The exhibit also features Gaviotas-like projects in Chicago; several of my photos appear there.