“Part II: New Pangea” compares largely human alterations to the environment to the former Pangea - connected continents - that naturally facilitated explosive evolution across the planet. The book provides ample examples of how original habitats are “not so much destroyed as replaced by a new environment that still contains quite a lot of species.”
The interaction isn’t necessarily all bad, and may likely be mostly good. The book thoughtfully challenges traditional negative views of nature and humans interaction with nature. “Inheritors of the Earth” is a thoroughgoing study of the vast variety of species and their evolution. Thomas’ new book, “Inheritors of the Earth: How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction,” examines “the responses of species and ecosystems to human impacts over periods that range from years to millennia.” In his highly engaging book, he embarks on “a round-the-world tour of the planet’s diverse continents and far-flung islands, visiting locations where research has taken over the past several decades.” Thomas, professor of conservation biology at the University of York, U.K. After all, if life can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, might it not be able to survive the onslaughts of a technological ape?Ĭombining a naturalist's eye for wildlife with an ecologist's wide lens, Chris Thomas forces us to re-examine humanity's relationship with nature, and reminds us that the story of life is the story of change.The future isn’t all bleak for the natural world.
In so doing, he questions our irrational persecution of so-called 'invasive species', and shows us that we should not treat the Earth as a faded masterpiece that we need to restore. From Costa Rican tropical forests to the thoroughly transformed British landscape, nature is coping surprisingly well in the human epoch.Ĭhris Thomas takes us on a gripping round-the-world journey to meet the enterprising creatures that are thriving in the Anthropocene, from York's ochre-coloured comma butterfly to hybrid bison in North America, scarlet-beaked pukekos in New Zealand, and Asian palms forming thickets in the European Alps. Many animals and plants actually benefit from our presence, raising biological diversity in most parts of the world and increasing the rate at which new species are formed, perhaps to the highest level in Earth's history. Thomas overturns the accepted story, revealing how nature is fighting back.
In Inheritors of the Earth, renowned ecologist and environmentalist Chris D. Yet what if this narrative obscures a more hopeful truth? It is accepted wisdom today that human beings have irrevocably damaged the natural world.
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