Awe, Despair, and the Annihilation of Nature: A review of The Annihilation of Nature by Liam Heneghan

Liam Heneghan reflects on The Annihilation of Nature: Human Extinction of Birds and Mammals by Gerardo Ceballos, Anne H. Ehrlich, and Paul R. Ehrlich:

Although it can be hard to discern at times, every academic subject is accompanied by a particular mood; for example, patient industry in the case of history, righteous indignation in peace studies, refined querulousness in philosophy, stolid deliberativeness in chemistry, head-spinning giddiness in cosmology, and, at first glance at least, sadness in the case of contemporary environmental science. Although gloominess may be inevitable in a discipline into whose domain falls the triumvirate of anthropogenic climate change, the radical alteration of biogeochemical cycles, and the torquing up of biodiversity loss, nonetheless historically there has been another mood, albeit somewhat muted in recent times, that accompanies the environmental disciplines, and that is awe.

The full review has been made available by the author here, and those with journal access to Trends in Ecology and Evolution can also find it here. More information about The Annihilation of Nature is available in the MAHB Library.