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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.
Adam Welz is an enthusiastic naturalist and widely traveled environmental writer, photographer, and filmmaker. His work has appeared in The Guardian, Yale Environment 360, The Atlantic, Ensia, and many other outlets worldwide. He's a recipient of a Middlebury Fellowship in Environmental Journalism and currently lives in Cape Town with his wife, Sarah, and triplet daughters.
"A moving, chilling elegy for biodiversity as we know it [...] The world that Adam Welz describes is in terminal collapse. The tone of the book [...] is measured and precise, the atmosphere cool, displaying not outrage but instead careful attention to accuracy in descriptions and analyses. A disturbing and important book."
– New York Times
"Climate change, Adam Welz shows, is already pushing many creatures toward oblivion, and its impacts are only going to grow. The End of Eden is at once an elegy and an exhortation – a plea to save what's left of the Earth's magnificent diversity."
– Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize winner and author of The Sixth Extinction
"A book both celebratory and heartbreaking, Adam Welz revels in the marvels of life's diversity and delivers a devastating account of ecological crisis. He brings climate breakdown's effects on the more-than-human world to vivid life, revealing in the process the interconnectedness of all species."
– David George Haskell, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Sounds Wild and Broken
"Welz's elegy for the natural world will leave you marveling at the intricacies of animal adaptations over millenniums of evolution even as you mourn their rapid loss in the face of human culture."
– New York Times Review of Books
"Adam Welz's The End of Eden should begin with the same kind of content warning that flashes across TV screens before the start of certain shows. "This program contains graphic images. Viewer discretion is advised." . it is a book that fundamentally changes us as we read."
– Washington Independent Review of Books
"Welz's study, which he conceived as an attempt to examine such disruptions 'without turning myself to stone,' amounts to a haunting warning."
– The New Yorker
"Eye-opening [...] A poignant elegy for creatures lost to climate change and a rigorous call to arms against further devastation."
– Kirkus Reviews
"An eloquent, deeply informed account of the unfolding consequences of the climate crisis for all life on Earth."
– Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction
"A beautifully rendered tour of a natural world on the brink."
– Publisher's Weekly
"Adam Welz has thrown a wonderfully wide net over the natural world, from birds to corals to mammals, in Europe, North America and Australia, to portray the array of life at risk in a rapidly warming world. He evokes wonder, which may well be the last arrow we have in the quiver to convince us to change our course."
– Jim Robbins, New York Times correspondent and author of The Wonder of Birds
