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Summary: A Wonderful book By An Eminent Biologist!
Review: This thought-provoking new work by prolific Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson, an outspoken and acclaimed Harvard naturalist who founded the field of sociobiology, is in effect a paean to the hopes for recovering some sense of balance and perspective between the natural world and the political, economic, and social forces now posed against it. There is much passion as well as polished prose herein, and Wilson employs his fabled ability to tell a story well to spin his thoughts and perspectives into a convincing and often compelling argument for a much more rational and intelligent approach to the issue of reconciling the goals of the so-called civilized world with the needs for radical change in how we affect the natural environment. Wilson wisely poses the issue in terms any intelligent reader can understand; showing us how dangerously close we are coming to fatally wounding the natural world, and what we must now proceed to do if this natural world is to be saved from the unwieldy hands of mankind. He employs a fanciful imagined conversation with Thoreau in the woods near Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts, and draws out of this dialogue a perspective lovingly laced with both an appreciation for the sanctity of the natural world and our own seeming inability to recognize how badly we have interfered with its vital processes and qualities. In an argument at once both intellectual and emotional, Wilson counterpoises his concerns with aspects of the ecosystem with similar concerns about how to manage and encourage human social and economic activities less antagonistic and more beneficial to the natural environment. He argues quite persuasively that the most meaningful and momentous debates of the new millennium will be to attempt to allow human economic, material and social progress while minimizing the deleterious effects of such efforts on the natural world. He also allows that issues regarding relative equity of material distribution make it difficult for western economists and politicians to suggest the rest of the world disengage from their enthusiastic quest for material plenty for themselves while we in the advanced industrial democracies of the west float in our well-cushioned laps of luxury. Yet, the fact remains that as this economic drive for material wealth proceeds, we are losing the race for biological diversity and an integrated and healthy biosphere. Indeed, he argues, what he terms the 'trajectory' of specific species loss is, when all else is said and done, a result of human choices and the human appetite for turning the biosphere in a material marketplace for human consumption. Finally, then, we have to recognize that if we are to slow or even reverse the alarming pace of biosphere degradation, we must shift to a more long-term orientation, one in which we recognize the fundamental ways in which our own long-term well being, health, and prosperity depend on our ability to walk more softly on the earth. As he says, we must come to see that conservation and active concern for the natural world is absolutely vital if we and the world itself are to long endure. Yet for all this, he ends the book on a positive note, sharing the idea that any civilization capable of envisioning God, embarking on the colonization of space, must surely have the intellectual and spiritual capital required to safeguard the natural world and the panoply of life it holds in its borders. Enjoy!
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Summary: Biologically necessary
Review: thoughtful, cutting edge material by one eminently qualified to write it. Wilson is one of the planetary heroes who becomes in turn a hero to the human race. Understanding the relationship between plant and human life is pivotal to preserving both. DNA has a plan, and its name is E.O. Wilson.
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Summary: For biologist
Review: Unfortunately this book was a little over my head. The book started off with a good point on extinction but then started to get into biological terms that made me lose my interested in the point the author was trying to make.
I think this book would be a good read for individuals that want to understand the future of life for species.
Enjoy the read.
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Summary: necessary
Review: Whether we like informational books or not, sometimes we need to read them so we're aware of what's going on in the world. The Future of Life is a presentation of what the world is coming to (something bad), and what can be done to stop it. If you're a stickler for nature and wildlife, Edward Wilson will strike home with you. If you hate environmentalism with a passion, this book will only upset you. But I implore everyone to at least skim through it because... well... the deterioration of Earth is something we can't hide anymore. However, after Chapter 3, the book begins a gradual decline until, by the last chapter, you've lost all interest. But the interest you gained in previous chapters is worth it.
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Summary: Catch 22
Review: Wilson does a good job in describing the current threats to biodiversity, what he calls the bottleneck, but fails to identify or to emphasize the true roots of the problem. His ideas of a solution for maintaining a high level of biodiversity seem rather superficial and palliative. He barely touches the real problem, the true catch 22. What's best about the book is its conciliatory tone. For example Wilson defends the use of genetically engineered crops, which would produce more per acre therefore allowing a smaller portion of the planet's surface to be taken up by agriculture. Hardcore conservationists would probably oppose this as well as the use of pesticides. Wilson's ideas make more sense. Wilson also includes, maybe timidly, economic aspects of conservationism by discussing, among others, the value of biosphere; the monetary cost of setting aside wildlife reserves; and, in a surprising move by a conservationist, defending free trade and the removal of subsidies. He mentions the Kyoto Protocol and the so called "carbon credits" but not with enough detail. He jocosely stereotypes readers of The Economist and The Wall Street Journal but refrains from utilizing principles of economics that would reinforce his thesis. Some of those principles are the notion of externalities and the "tragedy of commons". The most important and most threatened biodiversity reserves remaining are located in developing countries with the Amazon and the Congo rainforests as the foremost examples. These sanctuaries for most of earth's biodiversity are being destroyed by impoverished populations which, in order to secure tonight's supper, jeopardize tomorrow's lunch by destroying the habitats that could generate sustainable income. The catch 22 is that to increase the third world per capita income is the only way to defuse the population bomb and to educate and motivate third world populations to preserve what's left of the earth's most important biodiversity reserves. However to increase third world per capita income would represent bringing its level of consumption closer to first world standards and that would be the final blow to wildlife on earth. To sustain six billion people at American consumption levels would require according to Wilson four earths. The painful truth missing from Wilson's book is that the first world consumes too much while the third world doesn't have enough money to afford luxuries such as family planning or long term cost-benefit analysis on resource use. But economists can offer a possible solution that is partially embedded on the Kyoto protocol: the cost internalization of externalities through taxation. The best selling cars in America are gas-guzzling SUVs, which sound like a cool thing to have when the gas price is $ 1.70 per gallon. Urban sprawl in the US Southwest destroys fragile desert environments and the longer commutes are made on the spacious and powerful but highly ineffective SUVs. But let's consider a taxation on gas that would raise the cost to five dollars a gallon. Now let's consider that the tax revenues are used to reduce third world debt. What Wilson supports that is buying and securing large traits of land in third world countries through environmental NGOs means that local populations are going to be squeezed. Than it's easy to reduce population growth, it's just a matter of carrying capacity. But before that happens the cost of keeping starving desperate people out of biodiversity reserves will raise beyond what Wilson forecasts on his book. Leonardo Alves - Houghton, Michigan - March 2003
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Summary: Wake up if there is to be a future of life
Review: Wilson is one of our foremost thinkers and writers on biodiversity and conservation. Other books have spent time looking at the diversity of life across the globe and the forces that have and continue to play upon nature's existence. Following these, Wilson takes a look back, then takes a big breath and looks forward to where we are going. To put the issues in perspective Wilson looks at the situation in Hawaii - a land where the native diversity of life has been enhanced, supplanted and destroyed by deliberate and accidental immigration of foreign flora and fauna. The changes to Hawaii over the years give us a more concentrated and contemporary illustration of what has happened often over the globe. The population grows, but nature to support it remains at the same level, if not declining. But all is not lost in Wilson's mind. His final chapter helps spell out the positives for the future of life. He looks at the arguments of the Environmentalists and the People-Firsters and what they see, or miss-see, in the other's. He states that the central problem of the new century is how to "raise the poor to a decent standard of living worldwide while preserving as much of the rest of life as possible." He shows some ways this is happening through conservation organizations and governmental protections. So despite the bleak picture he creates in earlier chapters, Wilson offers up hope in the last. Wilson has a very good way of weaving the situation around the reader so he or she understands his point, and sees why he is passionate about avoiding the mistakes of the past. A wake up call is issued to the present, to preserve the future. For everyone.
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