Introducing naturalist David Attenborough's successor...

In this episode, ecologist Adam Welz gives us a peak into the writing of his first book The End of Eden and his intentions as well as his difficulties in writing it. He explains why he chose to focus on wild species as the characters of the bigger climate change story, and how he told small stories within a bigger context, and supported by scientific research, to paint the grim picture of a planet breaking down.

We delve into why he sees it as important to reframe the 'limp' phrase 'climate change' and to understand the many linked effects global warming has on all the wild species around us.

Adam's book and this interview helped me look past the usual clichés that are splashed across the mass media pages, and see a different world, with different eyes, and a much better understanding of how to make sense of the isolated shifts that are happening in nature. Shifts that are small, but taken as a networked whole, create a looming terrifying instability and 'age of uncertainty' befalling our world.

I knew Adam over 30 years ago, but that is not why I am encouraging you to read his book. As a communicator and writer myself, I understand how hard his job was and how magnificently he has done it. Enjoy this conversation, but the meat is in the book.

For more information on Adam Welz, visit his page on the AfricanOptimist website, where you can find his bio, show notes and episode transcript.

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Time Stamps

00:00 Into Quote Adam Welz

00:54 Podcast intro

02:51 Adam Welz gives an overview of his first book 'The End of Eden'

05:40 Why Adam focuses on wild species and not humans to tell the story of climate change

07:33 Bridging the gap between micro stories of wild species and a greater context of their situation

08:48 'I want you to try and understand what it's like to be a non-human.'

10:16 Adam as naturalist filmmaker David Attenborough's successor

11:29 Why the intro of the book is based in new York City

12:50 You can see the effects of climate change all around you, if you just look, even in big cities

15:57 The lessons we can learn from surviving species

18:15 What we need to survive in this Age of Uncertainty

20:04 Stability of nature in the past 11.000 years

22:49 Climate breakdown as a more accurate description than climate change

24:28 The role of cognitive linguistics framing 'climate change' in a particular way in our minds

29:38 The 200,000 - 300,000 years: Earth's Eden

31:34 How South Africa saved homo sapiens from extinction

31:34 How Adam crafted stories that elicit empathy for wild species in the reader

40:58 How writing the book affected Adam personally

41:40 Adam's 'oh shit' moment regarding climate breakdown

42:57 The effect of seeing Australia's 2019/2020 bushfires personally

45:30 The isolation felt by scientists who are constantly exposed to climate change data

47:33 New opportunities present themselves as we all have to move away from fossil fuels

50:09 Earth-changing events do happen - think of Apartheid and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the ubiquity of cell phones within a very short period of time

53:40 Before you come up with solutions, you have to understand.

55:45 'You actually have got to be quite careful where you plant trees. They're not all just a great thing everywhere - you have to plant the right trees in the right places.

57:10 The response to the book

58:39 Adam's next book