Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "microbes"

“Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction” by Chris D. Thomas, New York, Hatchette Book Group, 2017.

We can only hope that the author is right about what is thriving on Earth: In spite of the damage we humans have done to our home- (and most likely only) planet, we have created new homes for other life and stimulated their evolutionary creativity.

An award-winning professor of conservation biology at the University of York, UK, Chris Thomas gives us a rare glimpse of hope for Earth’s future, in spite of the excesses of technology and human over-population. Earth was once quite warm (three million years ago) and the continents’ future coming together again will change all Earth’s species’ options eventually, in spite of any human impact.

Meanwhile, ocean-going containers move species around so that “many microbes…have near-global distribution. It makes our “neophobia” and “hatred of foreign species” in our locales seem a little silly--certainly not worth a “costly control and eradication of…alien species.”

“Life is a process, not a final product, “ the author says. Therefore, maintain flexibility for future change. Humans are as normal as anything else that lives. Accept the fact that we must “..live within our planetary boundaries.”

What to do? Read pages 230 to 242, if nothing else. There the author tells us: 1) “…accept change” and prod it in a “desired direction.” 2) “…maintain flexibility for future generations,” for we cannot imagine their world. We should encourage “as many species as possible in minimizing extinction.” 3) Our evolution and presence “are natural within the Earth system…We should encourage “as many species as possible. Genes, like species, survive because they keep track of the changing world.” Specific options are suggested on page 240, following a thoughtful discussion of whether or not to resurrect those who have recently gone extinct. 4) “…create near biological success stories by whatever means” by helping “…direct the evolutionary process.”