Review by Choice Review
In his highly acclaimed best seller The World without Us (CH, Mar'08, 45-3778), Weisman painted a vivid portrait of how the Earth's biodiversity and ecosystems might heal from humankind's abuse if people were to suddenly vanish from the planet. Meanwhile, in the here and now, the world's human population stands at more than seven billion, with another 80 million added each year. Countdown, rooted in this grim reality, asks four questions. How many people can Earth realistically hold? What ecosystem services can humans absolutely not survive without? How can people be convinced to have fewer children? How does society design an economy based on a small, stabilized population? Weisman travels through more than 20 countries looking for answers. A skilled journalist, he weaves stories, making it clear that ecological degradation is a harbinger of human suffering--and that degradation is a direct result of overpopulation. Leaders and communities in many countries recognize this and have taken action with successful family planning campaigns, while others continue down a path of devastation. Informative, engaging, disturbing, and hopeful, this book is sure to interest a wide range of readers at academic and public libraries. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general audiences. K. A. Reycraft Florida Gulf Coast University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by New York Times Review
IF WE WANTED to bring about the extinction of the human race as quickly as possible, how might we proceed? We could begin by destroying the planet's atmosphere, making it incapable of supporting human life. We could invent bombs capable of obliterating the entire planet, and place them in the hands of those desperate enough to detonate them. We could bioengineer our main food sources - rice, wheat and corn - in such a way that a single disease could bring about catastrophic famine. But the most effective measure, counterintuitive as it may be, would be to increase our numbers. Population is what economists call a multiplier. The more people, the greater the likelihood of ecological collapse, nuclear war, plague. As Alan Weisman's "Countdown" amply demonstrates, we are well on our way. Some seven billion people are alive today; the United Nations estimates that by the end of the century we could number as many as 15.8 billion. Biologists have calculated that an ideal population - the number at which everyone could live at a first-world level of consumption, without ruining the planet irretrievably - would be 1.5 billion. Weisman's jeremiad amounts to a world tour of our overpopulation misery. He begins in Jerusalem, where he learns that construction firms worry about running out of sand, despite the fact that half of Israel is a desert. Water is in short supply, too. Because of agricultural irrigation, the Jordan River is now a "fetid ditch"; pilgrims who attempt to bathe at the spot where Jesus is said to have been baptized will develop a rash and, if they swallow the water, will most likely vomit. Niger has the world's highest fertility rate (about seven births per woman), maintained in part by the persistence of human slavery. The Philippines have a glut of fishermen, but are running out of fish. Pakistan is set to become the world's fourth-most-populous nation by 2050. "We're praying that Pakistan only doubles," the director of a Pakistani health organization says. "We are a crowded, underdeveloped nation - more a crowd than a nation. So we'll have more illiterates, more youths without productive jobs and more chaos." The question mark that ends the book's subtitle is as significant as what precedes it. If we dramatically reduce the planet's human population, we might have a future here. Then again, it might already be too late. Weisman raises the example of the passenger pigeon. During the 19th century it was one of the most abundant birds on earth, with as many as five billion in America alone. The passenger pigeon went extinct in 1914, but it was doomed long before then, even as it still numbered in the millions, since its habitat and food supply had already dwindled beyond sustenance level. "Was it possible," Weisman writes, "that my own species might also already be the living dead?" "Countdown" is a bleak sequel to "The World Without Us," Weisman's elegant account of what would happen to the planet should human beings suddenly vanish. That book drew its subtle and visceral power from Edenic descriptions of an Earth reclaimed by its forests and oceans, healing from the wounds inflicted by civilization. With its imaginative force and vivid storytelling, it had the power of the best speculative fiction; but in "Countdown," "there's no imagining." Perhaps motivated by the urgency of his theme, or frustration over the intransigence of the problem, Weisman abandons subtlety in favor of making his message - we need to slow our rate of procreation, if we want to survive - explicitly and didactically in every chapter. His dire warnings, and the warnings of the scientists and government officials he interviews, are unrelenting, with variations of the following sentence appearing at regular intervals: "In the entire history of biology, every species that outgrows its resource base suffers a population crash - a crash sometimes fatal to the entire species." Weisman visits more than 20 countries and interviews countless local scientists, families and policy directors, but the problem is always the same: There are too many people. The culprits are modern medicine, which has caused life expectancy in the last two centuries to nearly double; innovations in agronomy, which have dramatically increased global food production; and a failure to provide contraception to women. From Thomas Malthus to Paul and Anne Ehrlich, authors of "The Population Bomb" (1968), population doomsayers have endured ridicule and vilification, largely because their predictions of imminent doom fail to materialize on schedule. In our own time, there are a few mitigating indicators. Much of the current population growth comes in the developing world, where carbon consumption remains low, so the environmental effect is relatively muted. The next thousand Americans will do more than twice as much damage as the next hundred thousand Nigeriens, though that is hardly a cause for celebration. Perhaps more significantly, the global fertility rate has declined every year since 1965, from nearly five births per woman to 2.4. The problem is that anything above 2.33 - the rate at which births equal deaths, when child mortality is factored in - will yield a population expansion. Even when fertility drops below the replacement rate, it will take decades for the population to begin to decline. At today's rate, world population would stabilize at 10 billion by 2100. But that will most likely never happen, Weisman writes, because seven billion people "are already turning the atmosphere into something unlivable." the grim prophecies are illustrated with statistics. Each year the world adds the equivalent of another Germany or Egypt; by 2040, China will have more than 100 million 80-year-olds. We add another million people every four and a half days. But statistics fail to tell the entire story. Weisman's problem - and the problem of all those who warn about overpopulation or, for that matter, the correlative dangers of ecological devastation - is a problem of imagination. Not Weisman's imagination. Ours. As one scholar says in "Countdown," "most people's minds go blank after 100,000." Large numbers are difficult to visualize. Numbers are even more difficult to feel Metaphors bring us closer. Over the course of the book, man is likened to a cancer; to "a voracious monoculture" that sucks "resources in at the cost of the rest of life on the planet"; and to the mule deer of Arizona's Kaibab Plateau, an example of a species once "doomed to overpopulate." But the book's most indelible image comes from Weisman's visit to Japan, where the fertility rate is so low - 1.4 children per female - that the population has been declining since 2006. This might make Japan something of a best-case situation, but an aging population means there are too many senior citizens, and not enough young people to take care of them. Already Japan has a shortage of geriatric nurses. Weisman visits Nagoya Science Park, where Japan's oldest scientific firm has built RIBA II, a robotic white bear designed to carry elderly people around the house. It has large, widely-spaced black eyes, cute little ears and a painted smile. "I will do my best," says the bear, as it approaches a man who is lying on a hospital bed. "I will carry you as though you were a princess." RIBA II slides one paw under the patient's knees, the other beneath his back. The robot cradles the man in its arms. It carries the man across the room, and lowers him tenderly into a wheelchair. "I'm finished," announces RIBA II, and it's hard not to wonder whether the robot speaks for us all. NATHANIEL RICH'S new novel is "Odds Against Tomorrow."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 22, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Intrepid planetary journalist Weisman put our minds in a whirl with his best-selling The World without Us (2007), a vivid projection of what would happen if humankind suddenly vanished. Here he asks a really tough question: What will happen on the warming earth if our population continues to grow? Aware that population control is a treacherous subject, Weisman boldly traveled to more than 20 diverse countries, from India to Italy to Japan, instigating remarkably candid conversations with religious leaders, scientists, and public-health experts. Spirited descriptions, a firm grasp of complex material, and a bomb defuser's steady precision make for a riveting read as Weisman takes a close look at China's one-child policy and the religious and political imperatives responsible for large Palestinian and ultra-Orthodox Jewish families in Jerusalem in spite of scarce resources. In stricken Niger, he talks with two brothers, both imams. One says man cannot hold back doomsday ; the other actively supports the use of contraception. In Uganda, he discovers the connection between family planning, wildlife protection, and economy-boosting ecotourism. Weisman's cogent and forthright global inquiry, a major work, delineates how education, women's equality, and family planning can curb poverty, thirst, hunger, and environmental destruction. Rigorous and provoking, Countdown will generate numerous media appearances for Weisman and spur many a debate.--Seaman, Donna Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this follow-up to The World Without Us, journalist Weisman visits more than 20 countries to explore four urgent questions. How many people can our planet hold? Is it in our own best interest to limit population growth? Which species are essential to our survival? And how can we design a prosperous economy that does not depend on endless growth and consumption? Weisman argues that this will be the century in which we must manage our population, "or nature will do it for us in the form of famine, thirst... crashing ecosystems, and wars over dwindling resources." To seek answers, he visits some of the planet's most overcrowded regions, including the Philippines, Niger, and India-with its "archetypal new megalopolis," Mumbai, swollen beyond comprehension at 21 million. He also visits countries that have slowed their population growth (Iran and Thailand), and those whose populations are dwindling, such as Japan. Weisman interviews Catholic clerics; Buddhist monks; biologists, including Paul Erlich (The Population Bomb); physicists, demographers; and others. He also analyzes the repercussions of China's one-child policy; the Haber-Bosch fertilization method that led to higher food yields; and the chronic malnourishment afflicting one billion people today. Provocative and sobering, this vividly reported book raises profound concerns about our future. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Journalist Weisman (The World Without Us) here highlights the critical connection between human population growth and ecological degradation, a subject that's not on the table at environmental summit meetings. The author takes up the issue popularized by Paul Ehrlich's The Population Bomb. Human proliferation (the global population presently numbers seven billion, plus 220,000 more births per day) is a major factor in resource depletion, pollution, and climate change. Even "green revolution" hybrid crops have limitations, and climate change is beginning to effect yields, so feeding a projected peak population of ten billion sustainably looks impossible. Weisman traveled widely while researching this book, investigating the religious, cultural, and political influences that produce large families and how attitudes about family size might be changing. He concludes that education and empowerment of women, along with access to reliable contraception, is beginning to limit family size and slow the global birthrate. The process is uneven: the transition has already happened in some nations, particularly as people continue to migrate from farms to cities. VERDICT The issue of human population control needs to be part of environmental collections, as it is key to the future quality of the biosphere and human lives. Recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 3/18/13.]-David R. Conn, formerly with Surrey Libs., BC (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Following up The World Without Us (2007), which explored how the Earth might heal from our depredations if humans became extinct, journalist Weisman writes a more conventional but equally astute analysis of how humans might avoid extinction. Overconsumption, not overpopulation, will destroy the planet, but no one except enthusiasts expects us to renounce our meat, cars, single-family houses and air conditioning anytime soon. After traveling the world, Weisman delivers a dozen often painful journalistic essays on efforts to answer four questions: How many people can the Earth hold at a tolerable standard of living? How much ecosystem do humans need; at what point do we eradicate an organism our existence depends on? Today every nation depends on growth for prosperity. How can we design an economy for a stable population? Is there an acceptable way to convince people of every religion, culture and political system that it's in their interest to stop having so many children? Despite the maxim that poor people yearn for huge families, that turns out to be true only for poor men. Poor women mostly yearn for birth control, and Weisman offers heart-rending portrayals of nations already suffering demographic collapse (Pakistan, the Philippines, Uganda and Niger are the worst) and admirable individuals and organizations struggling to help despite little support from national governments or American aid. "I don't want to cull anyone alive today," writes the author. "I wish every human now on the planet a long, healthy life. But either we take control ourselves, and humanely bring our numbers down by recruiting few new members of the human race to take our places, or nature's going to hand out a pile of pink slips." Some news is hopeful, and a few nations have taken action, so this is not a jeremiad but a realistic, vividly detailed exploration of the greatest problem facing our species.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
