The Future of Life
by Edward O. Wilson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Edward O. WilsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2003-03-11
ISBN: 0679768114
Number of pages: 256
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The Future of Life
Book Review: A Good Look At Where Life Is Headed
Summary: 5 Stars
This book starts out with an interesting conversation between Wilson and Thoreau at the Walden cabin. While this only takes place in Wilson's imagination, it goes a long way towards showing how the study of life has changed since the mid-1800s and how much further our understanding of the complexity of life has come. We now know about all of the microscopic forms of life that larger forms of life (such as us) are dependent on.
The final chapter of the book gives his recommended solution along with a progress report of how various governments and non-govermental agencies are doing to save the existing natural spaces that contain so much undiscovered life. There is cause for some hope as well as concern.
I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the vast diversity of life on this planet as well as how its most successfull animal (humans) have done great damage to it. If we and the life around us are to survive the bottleneck that he mentions, we all need to read a book such as this and take action to make as much life passes with us to the other side of the bottleneck or the future of life will be bleak indeed.
Summary of The Future of Life
One of the world?s most important scientists, Edward O. Wilson is also an abundantly talented writer who has twice won the Pulitzer Prize. In this, his most personal and timely book to date, he assesses the precarious state of our environment, examining the mass extinctions occurring in our time and the natural treasures we are about to lose forever. Yet, rather than eschewing doomsday prophesies, he spells out a specific plan to save our world while there is still time. His vision is a hopeful one, as economically sound as it is environmentally necessary. Eloquent, practical and wise, this book should be read and studied by anyone concerned with the fate of the natural world.The eminent Harvard naturalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Edward Wilson marshals all the prodigious powers of his intellect and imagination in this impassioned call to ensure the future of life. Opening with an imagined conversation with Henry David Thoreau at Walden Pond, he writes that he has come "to explain to you, and in reality to others and not least to myself, what has happened to the world we both have loved." Based on a love affair with the natural world that spans 70 years, Wilson combines lyrical descriptions with dire warnings and remarkable stories of flora and fauna on the edge of extinction with hard economics. How many species are we really losing? Is environmentalism truly contrary to economic development? And how can we save the planet? Wilson has penned an eloquent plea for the need for a global land ethic and offers the strategies necessary to ensure life on earth based on foresight, moral courage, and the best tools that science and technology can provide. -- Lesley Reed
Environmental Science Books
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