Survival

(Review-1)This book is a wake-up call. Climate change is real and threatening. We are watching its effects manifest with growing horror. Some of us are somewhat aware of what’s happening; some of us are extremely aware; and some of us deny its existence or simply don’t care. We’re told of the disastrous results it will have, and is having, on our environment, our weather, on the planet, and on the quality of human existence itself. But Survival, by taking a broad look at the whys and wherefores of previous changes in the Earth’s climate and their consequences on the planet’s previous species, including some of our ancestors, brings home the fact that this time it is quite possible the human race may not survive and could actually go extinct.

The author claims the dominant values driving our modern civilization are profit and power, innovation and technology, and explores how these values have the potential to make us participants in our own extinction. Think nuclear war. Think destruction of forests, rivers, oceans, wildlife, habitats, natural resources. Think genocide. Yet he proffers that evolution is on our side. He lays out a pattern that evolution itself seems to have given us to follow to survive. But this pattern requires that we, individually and collectively, choose to evolve past this trajectory toward extinction in favor of values that preserve life — returning to living in accordance with Earth’s natural ecosystems and bringing no harm to them or any species living within them.

The author does not give us much hope that we will make this choice. He enumerates the many ways in which our freedom to make this choice have already been taken from us. Yet why write this book if he did not have some faith that we can and will wake up and take the steps necessary to mature? He does not give us specific instructions on how to do our part individually, but reading this book has the potential to inspire us to view our world with new eyes: Do our everyday decisions, actions, and interactions harm anyone or anything and keep us on the road to extinction, or do they affirm life for all beings and lead toward evolutionary maturity and survival? 

(Review-2) Survival: Evolutionary Rules for Intelligent Species Survival is a compelling and timely book with a prophetic message, one that if unheeded can lead to the ultimate extinction of our species. The author stipulates that Homo sapiens has evolved in a universe in the grip of an endless cycle of birth, life, and death and that that evolution has found a way to perpetuate life by evolving species capable of reproducing themselves. However, this cycle has been threatened and is about to be broken; in fact, it is being broken by the threats of climate change that have been continuously fueled by our egoistic culture that capitalizes on the principle of profit and power, innovation and technology. Our technology and our greed have pushed us past values that preserve life and while we perpetrate acts that threaten the well-being of the earth’s ecosystem, we continue to fool ourselves that all will be well.

This book sends out a clarion call and a powerful warning that humanity might not survive again the devastating effects of climate change this time. The faint hope of survival for humanity is migration to another planet. But why migrate elsewhere when we can actually save our planet by freely choosing to live and to evolve within her ecosystem as did our forebears?  Everyone needs to read this book, it is a compelling essay that presents, with graphic and frightening images, the fate of Earth and of humanity. The author presents very compelling images and hard facts to illustrate the message of the book. This is a timely and revolutionary book that everyone should read - its message concerns us all.