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Title: The Future of Life by Edward O. Wilson, Ed Begley ISBN: 1-59007-083-6 Publisher: New Millennium Audio Pub. Date: 01 February, 2002 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 6 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.12 (42 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Situation desperate but not completely hopeless
Comment: The Future Of Life is a great book and a perfect antidote to: a) unwarranted optimism about the state of the environment, which by almost any measure appears desperate; b) unwarranted pessimism or fatalism regarding man's ability to DO something about this situation; and c) the reams of misinformation, uninformed opinion, and ridiculously wild-eyed optimism on environmental matters that exists out there (i.e., "The Skeptical Environmentalist").
Unlike The Skeptical Environmentalist, which is written by a statistician, The Future Of Life is written by one of the world's greatest living scientists, Edward O. Wilson, author of 20 books (including Sociobiology, and Consilience), winner of two Pulitzer prizes plus dozens of science prizes, and discoverer of hundreds of new species. Dr. Wilson is often called, for good reason, "the father of biodiversity." Wilson is also one of the rare breed of scientists, like Stephen J. Gould, Carl Sagan, and Stephen Hawking, who can actually communicate their thoughts and findings to the general public. This is particularly important when it comes to Wilson's area of expertise, given that the environment is something which affects all of us and which all of us can play a part in protecting (or destroying).
Wilson's main theme can be summed up as "situation desperate, but not hopeless." Why desperate? Because humans--all 6 billion of them--are the most destructive force ever unleashed on Earth. According to Wilson, humanity's "bacterial" rate of growth during the 20th century, its short-sightedness, wasteful consumption patterns, general greed and rapaciousness, ignorance, and technological power have resulted in a mass extinction: "species of plants and animals...disappearing a hundred or more times faster than before the coming of humanity," and with "as many as half...gone by the end of the century." Americans in particular are an environmental disaster, consuming so many resources (oil, meat, timber, etc.) per person that, according to Wilson's calculations, "for every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology would require four more planet Earths." Well, we don't have four more planet Earths, and at the present time, we are well on our way to trashing the one we've got. In short, Wilson concludes after chronicling the sorry, depressing, nauseating history of man's mass slaughter and destruction of the environment, our species richly deserves the label: "Homo sapiens, serial killer of the biosphere.''
Given all this, how can I say that Wilson's book is not hopeless? First, because human population growth is slowing (finally!), as women gain education, careers, and power over their reproductive choices. Luckily, when given this choice, women increasingly have opted for "quality over quantity," and average family size has plummeted. In most advanced industrialized nations, in fact, fertility rates have now fallen below replacement level (2.1 children per woman), meaning that populations in those countries will actually start to decline (barring immigration) in coming years. Wilson points that the worldwide average number of children per woman fell from 4.3 in 1960 to 2.6 in 2000. This is still far too high, and still means years more of absolute human population growth, but it's at least a bit of hope amidst the environmental carnage and constant drumbeat of bad news.
Second, there is some hope because many humans do love the environment and want to preserve and protect it. Here, Wilson uses the fancy, scientific-sounding term "biophilia" to describe man's "innate tendency to focus upon life and lifelike forms, and in some instances to affiliate with them emotionally.'' In this instance, I believe Wilson may be overly optimistic. When confronted with the choice of a Big Mac or an acre of rainforest, let's say, most people appear to choose the Big Mac. Or when given a choice of driving their gas-guzzling SUVs and living in sprawling suburbia vs. driving smaller cars, living in cities, taking mass transit, and helping to prevent disastrous global warming, most people choose the SUVs and suburbia. Still, much of this is undoubtedly a result of ignorance and skewed economics (i.e., billions of dollars per year in government subsidies doled out to agriculture, fossil fuel production, wasteful water usage, among other things), and these can be corrected--at least in theory. Also, there are undoubtedly millions of humans who strongly care about the environment--whether for aesthetic, religious, ethical, "biophiliac," or other reasons--and are volunteering, donating money, or altering consumption patterns in order to help save it.
This brings us to the third reason for not losing all hope: humans have the ability to save the environment, and Wilson lays out a clear, realistic, step-by-step plan for doing so. Ironically, one of the very characteristics of environment which causes it to be so vulnerable --its concentration of biological diversity in a small areas ("hotspots") --means that it is possible to target that land and save it. Wilson estimates that biological "hotspots" cover "less than 2 percent of the Earth's land surface and [serve] as the exclusive home of nearly half its plant and animal species." In Wilson's calculations, those "hotspots" can be saved "by a single investment of roughly $30 billion." Just to put this in perspective, the U.S. gross domestic product is over $10 trillion, or more than thirty times the $30 billion needed to save the "hotspots."
The Future Of Life ends on a note of cautious optimism: although right now we find ourselves in a "bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption," Wilson believes that the race between "technoscientific forces that are destroying the living environment" and "those that can be harnessed to save it" can be won. In order for this to come to pass, however, humanity needs to take action immediately along the lines that Wilson lays out. Ultimately, The Future Of Life is a passionate, brilliant, clarion call to arms by a great scientist, and a great man as well. If we don't hear Wilson's call, we will have only ourselves to blame. And whichever way things turn out, we can't say we weren't warned.
Rating: 5
Summary: vision of a radical "conservative"
Comment: E.O. Wilson is one of my heroes. He is radically sensible, and has advocated positions that have drawn the wrath of both the left (sociobiology) and right (environmentalism). "The Future of Life" is a continuation of Wilson's earlier "The Diversity of Life." It is an eloquent diagnosis of our planetary situation, along with an optimistic vision of the future, and should be required reading. Here are some quotes to give you the flavor:
"We are inside a bottleneck of overpopulation and wasteful consumption. If the race is won, humanity can emerge in far better condition than when it entered, and with most of the diversity of life still intact." (xxiii) "The choice is clear: the juggernaut [of technology-based capitalism] will very soon either chew up what remains of the living world, or it will be redirected to save it." (156) "The central problem of the new century ... is to raise the poor to a decent standard of living worldwide while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible." (189)
Wilson's diagnosis is grim, his analysis radical, and yet he is optimistic that these lofty goals can be attained without structural transformations of the social system. He believes that the combination of democratic governments, capitalist economics, and advanced technology can save the planet. Of course that is no endorsement of the status quo! Radical change is necessary, but Wilson is confident that it can take place "within the system." The ace up Wilson's sleeve is the increasingly influential network of non-profit NGOs (non-governmental organizations), groups such as the World Wildlife Fund. The message of "The Future of Life" is that there is a huge job to be done, but it is doable. Let's get to work!
Rating: 5
Summary: The Future of Life
Comment: I really enjoy reading the book ¡§The Future of Life¡¨ by the Biologist Edward O. Wilson. It is a rich and vivid book where the writer uses lots of brilliant and detailed description about the animals and other habitats. The sufficient amount information provides me a great and accurate picture of how the wild lives out there truly live.
This book depicts how Agriculture, one of the vital industries, endangers the remaining wild species and the nature environment. The world's food supply is hung by a slender thread of biodiversity. Ninety percent of the food supply is actually provided by slightly more than a hundred plant species out of a quarter-million known to exist. Of these hundred species, twenty species carry most of the load, of which only the main three--Wheat, maize, and rice---stand between humanity and starvation. Furthermore, most of the premier twenty are those that happened to be present in the agricultural region.
In a more general sense, these important species are the major potential donors of genes that genetic engineering utilize to improve the crop performance. With the insertion of the right snippets of DNA, new strains can be created that are variously cold-hardy, pest-proofed, perennial, fast growing, highly nutritious, multipurpose, water-conservative, and more easily sowed and harvested. And compared with traditional breeding techniques, genetic engineering is all but instantaneous.
In sum, Genetic Engineering have drastically changed our old ways of growing crops and thus, it threatens the future existence of the other species since it have significantly decreased the diversity of the nature wild lives.
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Title: The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson ISBN: 0393319407 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: May, 1999 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge by Edward O. Wilson, Edward Osborne Wilson ISBN: 067976867X Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: On Human Nature by Edward O. Wilson ISBN: 067463442X Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 1988 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Naturalist by Edward O. Wilson ISBN: 0446671991 Publisher: Warner Books Pub. Date: 01 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Biophilia by Edward O. Wilson ISBN: 0674074424 Publisher: Harvard University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1986 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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