Megafauna : First Victims of the Human-Caused Extinction

Baz Edmeades

ISBN 10: 1544526539 / ISBN 13: 9781544526539

Published by Houndstooth Press Nov 2021, 2021

About this Item

Neuware - Ecological competition began as slow arms races. Predators evolved to hunt. Prey evolved to defend themselves. Each improvement was small, barely shifting the odds of survival. Nature remained in equilibrium.Until the dawn of humanity.When our ancestors developed the unique ability to think up new devices and behaviors, humanity became able to overcome nature's defenses far more quickly than natural selection could respond. Humankind spread out of Africa, wiping out most of the megafauna in its path-mammoths, sabertooth cats, elephant-sized sloths, and a great many other species.Today, this formidable, inventive genius of our species-now grown to overwhelming and all-conquering proportions-is threatening to make the earth unlivable, even for ourselves. The only weapon available to us to counter this threat is, ironically, the same one that unleashed our destructiveness in the first place: the analytical and creative power of the human brain.

Seller Inventory # 9781544526539

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Megafauna : First Victims of the Human-Caused Extinction
• Publisher: Houndstooth Press Nov 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1544526539
• ISBN 13: 9781544526539
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 235W x 157H x 26D millimeters 235 millimeters width by 157 millimeters height by 26 millimeters depth
• Weight: 670 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Ecological competition began as slow arms races. Predators evolved to hunt. Prey evolved to defend themselves. Each improvement was small, barely shifting the odds of survival. Nature remained in equilibrium.

Until the dawn of humanity.

When our ancestors developed the unique ability to think up new devices and behaviors, humanity became able to overcome nature's defenses far more quickly than natural selection could respond. Humankind spread out of Africa, wiping out most of the megafauna in its path-mammoths, sabertooth cats, elephant-sized sloths, and a great many other species.

Today, this formidable, inventive genius of our species-now grown to overwhelming and all-conquering proportions-is threatening to make the earth unlivable, even for ourselves.

The only weapon available to us to counter this threat is, ironically, the same one that unleashed our destructiveness in the first place: the analytical and creative power of the human brain.

About the Author

Baz Edmeades was trained as a lawyer at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, where he grew up, and at McGill University in Montreal. His Canadian legal work focused on science and technology. Since the early nineties, his secret life as an anthropologist, big-game ecologist, and recorder of African natural history has gradually supplanted his legal activities.