The End of Eden
Wild Nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
New Yorker Best Book of the Year
"Exquisite."-DAVID WALLACE-WELLS "At once an elegy and an exhortation."-ELIZABETH KOLBERT "A book that goes deeper than any before into the meaning of the climate breakdown for all the rest of creation."-BILL McKIBBEN "Celebratory and heartbreaking."-DAVID GEORGE HASKELL
A revelatory exploration of climate change from the perspective of wild species and natural ecosystems--an homage to the miraculous, vibrant entity that is life on Earth.
The stories we usually tell ourselves about climate change tend to focus on the damage inflicted on human societies by big storms, severe droughts, and rising sea levels. But the most powerful impacts are being and will be felt by the natural world and its myriad species, which are already in the midst of the sixth great extinction. Rising temperatures are fracturing ecosystems that took millions of years to evolve, disrupting the life forms they sustain--and in many cases driving them towards extinction. The natural Eden that humanity inherited is quickly slipping away.
Although we can never really know what a creature thinks or feels, The End of Eden invites the reader to meet wild species on their own terms in a range of ecosystems that span the globe. Combining classic natural history, firsthand reportage, and insights from cutting-edge research, Adam Welz brings us close to creatures like moose in northern Maine, parrots in Puerto Rico, cheetahs in Namibia, and rare fish in Australia as they struggle to survive. The stories are intimate yet expansive and always dramatic.
An exquisitely written and deeply researched exploration of wild species reacting to climate breakdown, The End of Eden offers a radical new kind of environmental journalism that connects humans to nature in a more empathetic way than ever before and galvanizes us to act in defense of the natural world before it's too late.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
The End of Eden is a climate change book for everyone. In matter-of-fact, jargon-free language, author Adam Welz lays out compelling examples of how rising temperatures, unpredictable weather, drought, and fires are already affecting animals, aquatic life, forests, and us. His examples span the globe, and they’re all richly detailed and full of empathy. We learned how a slight increase in temperatures has allowed winter ticks to live longer and devastate Maine’s moose population and how warming oceans have changed currents and fish populations, leaving African penguins without food. Welz acknowledges that these real-life cases are discouraging, but the insight and passion found in his book might help push us to really grasp and address climate breakdown.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Environmental journalist Welz debuts with a lucid survey of the "ways that our gas emissions are fracturing and reshaping the entire natural world." He explains how rising temperatures, water shortages, and extreme weather have impacted ecosystems across the globe, highlighting the plight of the Kalahari savannah's yellow-billed hornbills, California's Joshua trees, and Puerto Rico's wild parrots, among others. New England's moose population, Welz notes, has been decimated by winter ticks, which used to freeze to death en masse during the colder months, but have been surviving at higher rates as their environs warm. In Mannus Creek, Australia, in 2020, forest fires devastated Macquarie perch, which suffocated as ash driven into the creek by rainfall clogged their gills. Welz also discusses how some animals are successfully adapting to climate change; for example, some of California's butterfly species are expanding their habitat by taking refuge in the "cooler microclimates" of urban gardens. Though textbook explanations of photosynthesis, hurricane formation, and genetic mutation might elicit yawns, Welz more than makes up for that with lyrical descriptions of the locales and their animal inhabitants (he writes of a Namibian cheetah: "She indulged in a long, tongue-flexing, canine-baring yawn as the first pulse of real blue began to wash the stars from the eastern sky"). It's a beautifully rendered tour of a natural world on the brink.
