Making Eden

Subtitled 'how plants transformed a barren planet' this fascinating book describes the rise and diversification of plant life originating in a certain type of algae and gradually colonising the land, leading eventually to large forests that impacted the climate through feedback mechanisms. The author also highlights their partnership with symbiotic fungi - later with soil microbes - and the way in which they contributed to the spread of greenery on land. I was glad to see a mention of the importance of Lynn Margulis with her idea of endosymbiosis, but surprised that there was no reference to James Lovelock and the role he attributes through his Gaia hypothesis to plants in maintaining the stability of the atmosphere. For the general reader, the final brilliant chapter is essential reading, having already considered key factors in shaping climate.

The author comments that our current crisis is urgent and unfolding at a time of burgeoning population and rising global food demand. He characterises this as Eden under siege. Biodiversity is declining at alarming rates, and this 'grim state of nature is our fault' with the latest projections on population reaching 12 billion by 2100. We are releasing 36 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year as a result of combustion of fossil fuels. He explains that a warming of between 0.8 and 1.7°C by 2050 - almost certain - commits nearly 1/5 of plant and animal species to extinction, and this figure rises to a quarter with over 2°. A new concept for me was 'extinction debt', describing the timeline between habitat destruction and terminal decline where species are 'sitting in the extinction waiting room.' He compares our current situation with the end-Triassic mass extinction of 200 million years ago involving huge injections of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. This wiped out biodiversity on land and acidified the oceans. To put this in perspective, the author comments that 'current rates of increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, climate change and ocean acidification far outstrip those experienced during any past extinction event. Humans have added to the mix with deforestation, habitat loss and fragmentation, expansion of agriculture, overfishing, over-hunting, and pollution. Lesson one from Earth history is this: human activities are creating the perfect storm for the sixth mass extinction, priming the engine of species extermination. (p. 183) If this does not concentrate your mind, it should! Especially when you learn on the next page that the recovery time of the biosphere from mass extinction runs into millions of years.

The author tells the story of post-1992 environmental policy development, which is quite inadequate to the scale of the crisis we face, prioritising as it does economic growth over ecological stability. We are 'systematically liquidating the Earth's assets, turning valuable natural resources into waste much faster than nature can regenerate them.' We currently use up the equivalent of 1.5 Planet Earth's renewable resources, a figure likely to increase to 2 by 2030. Beerling rightly notes that the only way of avoiding dramatic overshoot 'is to take action by shrinking the aggregate demands of humans on the environment, and moving towards a sustainable future' - for instance by reducing our meat consumption. We also need to leave some fossil fuels in the ground and abolish fossil fuel subsidies. He is also right that we have a question of intergenerational justice on our hands, but how to engage the political process in which economics is so decisive? We are absolutely at a crossroads where 'the window of opportunity this closing as the era of consequences dawns.' Extinction Rebellion understand how high the stakes are but hope is conditional on action, as Jason Drew and I argued in our book The Protein Crunch. The time for regenerating and working with nature has never been more pressing, so we must all push for the priority of ecology over economics, as Lester Brown has done in his work over many decades. If we continue to behave like ostriches, we will end up boiling like frogs.