Inheritors of the Earth
How Nature Is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
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Narrated by:
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Bob Reed
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By:
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Chris D. Thomas
About this listen
Human activity has irreversibly changed the natural environment. But the news isn't all bad.
It's accepted wisdom today that human beings have permanently damaged the natural world, causing extinction, deforestation, pollution, and of course climate change. But in Inheritors of the Earth, biologist Chris Thomas shows that this obscures a more hopeful truth - we're also helping nature grow and change. Human cities and mass agriculture have created new places for enterprising animals and plants to live, and our activities have stimulated evolutionary change in virtually every population of living species. Most remarkably, Thomas shows, humans may well have raised the rate at which new species are formed to the highest level in the history of our planet.
Drawing on the success stories of diverse species, from the ochre-colored comma butterfly to the New Zealand pukeko, Thomas overturns the accepted story of declining biodiversity on Earth. In so doing, he questions why we resist new forms of life and why we see ourselves as unnatural. Ultimately, he suggests that if life on Earth can recover from the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs, it can survive the onslaughts of the technological age. This eye-opening book is a profound reexamination of the relationship between humanity and the natural world.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
©2017 Chris D. Thomas (P)2017 Hachette AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Silent Earth
- Averting the Insect Apocalypse
- By: Dave Goulson
- Narrated by: Dave Goulson
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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In the tradition of Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking environmental classic Silent Spring, an award-winning entomologist and conservationist explains the importance of insects to our survival and offers a clarion call to avoid a looming ecological disaster of our own making.
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Important book for all
- By Wren Jen on 03-24-24
By: Dave Goulson
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The Wonder of Birds
- What They Tell Us About Ourselves, the World, and a Better Future
- By: Jim Robbins
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 11 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds, Jim Robbins posits, are our most vital connection to nature. They compel us to look to the skies, both literally and metaphorically, draw us out into nature to seek their beauty, and let us experience vicariously what it is like to be weightless. Birds have helped us in so many of our human endeavors: learning to fly, providing clothing and food, and helping us better understand the human brain and body.
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Stories about birds with something for everyone
- By D on 07-24-17
By: Jim Robbins
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The Nature of Nature
- Why We Need the Wild
- By: Enric Sala
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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In this inspiring manifesto, an internationally renowned ecologist makes a clear case for why protecting nature is our best health insurance, and why it makes economic sense.
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Amazing
- By Lars Pardo on 11-21-24
By: Enric Sala
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Superlative
- The Biology of Extremes
- By: Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 9 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The world's largest land mammal could help us end cancer. The fastest bird is showing us how to solve a century-old engineering mystery. The oldest tree is giving us insights into climate change. The loudest whale is offering clues about the impact of solar storms. For a long time, scientists ignored superlative life forms as outliers. Increasingly, though, researchers are coming to see great value in studying plants and animals that exist on the outermost edges of the bell curve.
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Fascinating survey of amazing biology
- By Nerd's-eye view on 12-06-19
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First Peoples in a New World
- Colonizing Ice Age America
- By: David J. Meltzer
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 11 hrs
- Abridged
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More than 12,000 years ago, in one of the greatest triumphs of prehistory, humans colonized North America, a continent that was then truly a new world. Just when and how they did so has been one of the most perplexing and controversial questions in archaeology.
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Last Gasp of American Anthropological Orthodoxy
- By Thomas66 on 01-05-17
By: David J. Meltzer
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The Ancestor's Tale
- A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution
- By: Richard Dawkins
- Narrated by: Richard Dawkins, Lalla Ward
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Abridged
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In The Ancestor's Tale, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins offers a masterwork: an exhilarating reverse tour through evolution, from present-day humans back to the microbial beginnings of life four billion years ago. Throughout the journey, Dawkins spins entertaining, insightful stories and sheds light on topics such as speciation, sexual selection, and extinction. The Ancestor's Tale is at once an essential education in evolutionary theory and riveting in its telling.
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Please do an unabridged version!
- By MovieExpertise on 09-29-16
By: Richard Dawkins
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The Triumph of Seeds
- How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses & Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History
- By: Thor Hanson
- Narrated by: Marc Vietor
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. And from the fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat.
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Delightfully simplistic!
- By Adrian on 03-30-16
By: Thor Hanson
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Guns, Germs and Steel
- The Fate of Human Societies
- By: Jared Diamond
- Narrated by: Doug Ordunio
- Length: 16 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Having done field work in New Guinea for more than 30 years, Jared Diamond presents the geographical and ecological factors that have shaped the modern world. From the viewpoint of an evolutionary biologist, he highlights the broadest movements both literal and conceptual on every continent since the Ice Age, and examines societal advances such as writing, religion, government, and technology.
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Compelling pre-history and emergent history
- By Doug on 08-25-11
By: Jared Diamond
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The Cabaret of Plants
- Forty Thousand Years of Plant Life and the Human Imagination
- By: Richard Mabey
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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A rich, sweeping, and compelling work of botanical history, The Cabaret of Plants explores dozens of plant species that for millennia have challenged our imaginations, awoken our wonder, and upturned our ideas about history, science, beauty, and belief. Going back to the beginnings of human history, Richard Mabey shows how flowers, trees, and plants have been central to human experience not just as sources of food and medicine but as objects of worship, actors in creation myths, and symbols of war and peace, life and death.
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Can't wait to listen to again!
- By hyacinthgirl on 12-27-16
By: Richard Mabey
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Population Wars
- A New Perspective on Competition and Coexistence
- By: Greg Graffin
- Narrated by: Tom Zingarelli
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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From the very beginning, life on Earth has been defined by war. Today, those first wars continue to be fought around and literally inside us, influencing our individual behavior and that of civilization as a whole. War between populations - whether between different species or between rival groups of humans - is seen as an inevitable part of the evolutionary process. The popular concept of "the survival of the fittest" explains and often excuses these actions.
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Life Changing Book. No other like it.
- By Abraham R. Herrick-Rough on 05-16-16
By: Greg Graffin
What listeners say about Inheritors of the Earth
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- MM
- 05-22-23
Combating the inconsistencies of today’s policies and emotional principles
This book makes great strides in combatting the inconsistencies of many current environmental credos. The author occasionally employs his own dose of selective ignorance throughout the book, which I hope will not cause people to write off the important points he is making. The perspective he highlights has been missing from the mainstream body of science, causing much of our policy to be based on emotion and flawed concepts of “baselines” and “nature.” This is an important book!
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- D. Scott Lee
- 11-06-18
Makes you re-examine your perspectives
I love books that offer a fresh perspective. This book does that and defends its position well
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- Ms./Mr. Doctor Missus
- 01-18-18
Vocal Ticks + Mispronunciations = no bueno
He sounds friendly but... Is hard as hell to tolerate when you're trying to learn...
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- Erik
- 08-06-18
A Much-Needed Dose of Optimism
In a time of oft repeated doom and gloom about the natural world and the damage we have (and continue to) wrought, “Inheritors of the Earth” offers a much-needed perspective on life on our planet and our place as its stewards and contributing environmental force.
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- Samuel Castonguay
- 08-28-19
Essential read
understanding evolution is hard enough, but to think about ways the Anthropocene changes will impact species evolution is harder. This book is essential for an accurate, up to date look at the possibilities of the future of animals.
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