The Future of Life
April 14th, 2003by Edward O. Wilson
ISBN: 0679768114
This is a Big Picture book, and because Wilson is a conscientious scientist, he presents a well-constructed and thought-out Big Picture.
His focus is the biosphere of planet Earth, the sum total of living matter that is nevertheless “so thin it cannot be seen edgewise from the space shuttle.”
He starts with a prologue that is an imagined conversation with Thoreau, and you realize right then this isn’t going to be a screed, Wilson isn’t going to preach, he is going to educate.
The next chapter “Ends of the Earth,” is a fascinating biology lesson, if you find things like SLIMEs and the classification of living organisms interesting (which I do.) “The Bottleneck” explains the situation we are now in — how a human population spiralling upward cannot be indefinitely sustained given limited natural resources. He defines environmentalism not as a “special interest lobby”:
Environmentalism is something more central and vastly more important. Its essence has been defined by science in the following way. Earth, unlike the other solar planets, is not in physical equilibrium. It depends on its living shell to create the special conditions on which life is sustainable. The soil, water, and atmosphere of its surface have evolved over hundreds of millions of years to their present condition by the activity of the biosphere, a stupendously complex layer of living creatures whose activities are locked together in precise but tenous global cycles of energy and transformed organic matter.
In “Nature’s Last Stand” Wilson explains the acronym HIPPO and gives copious examples of the process at work. H stands for habitat destruction, I is invasive species, P for pollution and P again for population, and finally O for overpopulation. While the first P gets most of the press and often most of the worry, it is the second P — population — that is the biggest problem, the one generally leading to all the others.
People are the problem, we have acted throughout history as, and he makes this a chapter title, “The Planetary Killers.” This chapter can be summed up (and he does this) in three lessons: “The noble savage never existed”; “Eden occupied was a slaughterhouse”; and “Paradise found is paradise lost.”
This makes it sound like Wilson sidetracks into a rant, that he is the sort of guy who would always put species preservation over human welfare and progress — but he isn’t. He makes this clear in the next chapter, “How Much is the Biosphere Worth?” The problem, as he sees it, is that short-term gain has historically trumped long-term, sustainable development — and this can’t continue. Not because it is wrong (though it is) but because it is actually impossible for it to continue forever — natural resources will be exhausted.
In “For the Love of Life” Wilson looks at “biophilia” and the possibility of human beings being genetically “prepared” if not hard-wired to be comforted by or seek out certain habitats. He tries to get at the non-dollar sign value nature gives us.
Finally, Wilson proposes “The Solution.” This I admire, because it is much easier to point out what is wrong than to have solid ideas about how to change it to make it right. His answer boils down to conservation, sustainable development, and education and economic assistance for the largely poor countries in which the most biodiverse and important wilderness areas lie. Unlike many others, he actually talks numbers — number of hectares to be preserved, numbers of dollars this kind of thing will cost, successful models already in place for this kind of work.
It is a pleasure to read someone write about what they really love and feel passionately about; this is one reason to read Wilson’s book. It is the kind of book you wish more people — particularly more people in decision-making roles — would read, because to read this book is to be convinced by its arguments. That is another reason. Wilson’s tone is more reasoned than alarming, which actually makes what he says all the more alarming. But there is hope in this book, which I hope can be sustained, just like the living shell too small to be seen from space.
