Book Review: Terra

Nearly everyone has a book out about environmental crises these days, from scientist E.O. Wilson (The Creation) to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (A Contract With the Earth), but in many cases the conciliatory volumes aren't very good. Everyone has something to say about pollution and global warming, but the amount of people who seem to actually know anything about ecology seem to be in the minority when considering recent popular treatments, but Michael Novacek's Terra is a refreshing break from books that try to cash in on current environmental concerns without having much substance.

Ecology is a science of connections, requiring researchers to be well versed in the details of various systems, cycles, interactions, and life histories that covers any given spot on the globe. Add to this a historical perspective, perhaps even going so far as adding a paleontological view, and even greater trends appear. This is the advantage that Novacek, a paleontologist working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, brings to Terra, intertwining evolution, paleontology, and ecology to tell a compelling story of a dynamic planet that has always been changing. The difference now, however, is that we have entered what some have called the Anthropocene, a time in earth's history where just one species (Homo sapiens) wields the power to both repair and destroy so much of our home planet.

To some, discussing the history of change on the planet as well as the fragility of ecosystems is equated with ecologists speaking out of both sides of their mouths; surely life on earth has endured warming events and other changes in the past, so why should we worry about the loss of a few species now? What Novacek successfully shows, though, is that our environmental impoverishment goes beyond the aesthetic desire to keep animals like tigers and the giant panda around when we turn a blind eye to ecological degradation; the loss of species represents both an irreversible change in ecological relationships as well as a signal that all is not well in nearly any ecosystem you care to examine. While I would have personally liked Novacek to follow in the tradition of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac or David Quammen's Wild Thoughts From Wild Places and defend the preservation of nature for its own sake in some of the book, it is understandable that the focus primarily rests on how we are poisoning our own well, a trend that (if not reversed) could very well lead to our own destruction. Indeed, our own species is capable of becoming extinct just like any other, and the book leads us to ponder a time when there may be no one around to read the warnings of researchers like Novacek.

The book does suffer a little from Novacek's primary field being paleontology rather than ecology, however, and ecological discussions often involve sweeping generalities rather than a focus on specifics that illuminate a larger trend. Even in the areas where paleontology makes an appearance, it is often fleeting and not given much detail, and the one area which is delved into with some relish (how Apatosaurus and other sauropods held their necks) seems a bit out of place. It is difficult to blame Novacek for this, though, as there are so many ecological problems that it is tempting to try and fit everything in so that the most impressive case for conservation can be made. Conversely, I enjoyed Novacek's tentative approach to anthropogenic climate change. There is no doubt that the current climate changes are being caused by human activity, Novacek rightly notes, but there are still many questions about what is going to change and how, the blaming of "global warming" for an unusually hot day or a conspicuously late snowfall having more to do with weather variations than climate change. Just as most people do not understand the difference between a fact and a theory, the majority of the public do not understand the difference between climate and weather either, and severe weather events (like hurricanes and tornadoes) still hold many questions even for those that spend their lives studying them. Indeed, Novacek hits a good balance between informing the reader of the reality of the situation without falling into the trap of frantic fear-mongering that North America is going to be destroyed by killer-hurricanes in the coming year.

Like Novacek, I'm somewhat pessimistic about the future of our species on this planet. Just as we've seen in Bali this past week, the biggest polluters don't want to make changes and developing countries cry that it's not fair to restrict their advances by demanding higher standards, short-term gain trumping more importance long-term consequences every time. Life on earth will surely continue, but we may very well be excluded from the list of those written down on the earth's own "Book of Life." Whatever changes we make, even if we started today, there are some consequences of our actions that cannot be avoided and must be endured. In the end, Novacek's book is not one that is meant to make you happy or feel good about the environment, we've crushed the planet under our heel and it seems like we'll continue to do so, and the idea that there was a time when humankind lived in "harmony with nature" is little more than a myth. It is for this reason that I hope that whomever picks up Novacek's book will get angry, too, for we have long passed the time when we can afford to be complacent and think only of "progress." The answer to this cannot be urging the 6 billion people on this planet to go back to living in grass huts or caves, but I do hope for a day when "consumer" is no longer the best way to describe a member of our species

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