From Naked Ape to Superspecies: Humanity and the Global Eco-Crisis. Rev. ed.

Alexander Craig is a freelance journalist in Lennoxville, Quebec.

From Naked Ape to Superspecies will make you mad. How on earth can
humankind manage to make such a mess of the globe?

But Suzuki and Dressel’s book will also make you comprehend. Suzuki
is Canada’s best-known environmentalist (in June 2004, he was awarded
the Citation of Lifetime Achievement) and Dressel is a CBC writer who
helped him with earlier works and the TV program The Nature of Things.

In this thoroughly revised and updated second edition, the authors set
out to dissect how and why the global eco-crisis came about. They
examine social as well as biodiversity, the problems of information
overload, and a host of other complex and contributory factors that have
made the eco-crisis what it is.

Suzuki is by training a geneticist, so he brings his scientific
expertise to bear, but this highly readable book is clearly written for
the general public and aims to mobilize public opinion. Each section is
introduced, for example, with a pertinent quotation from an expert, and
the authors provide extensive references, lists, websites, and email
addresses of organizations to contact.

One of the book’s cited experts, Bill Rees, a population ecologist at
the University of British Columbia, says that “in order to bring
everyone on the planet to the same general level of consumption and
well-being of the average Canadian, we would need four or five more
Earths—right now!” These figures are frightening, but they’re
real, and they give us a clear idea of how far we have to slim down
consumption, population, and wastes, as well as readapt technologies, if
the majority of humanity is to have a decent future. At this point,
scientists tell us, that is still an achievable goal.