Imagine witnessing a prototype baby that you have the opportunity to raise in a neat, observed environment, like a shiny glass bubble, where you are able to watch that sweet child grow up right before your eyes. You watch it learn how to walk and play with toys and you admire its intelligence from afar.
Then imagine that you slowly watch this cute little being grow into a super-intelligent animal, due to brain size and evolutionary progress, that teaches itself to kill other animals with weapons, to kill the environment with technology and eventually to kill its egomaniacal self with overpopulation and self-destruction through massive pollution and nuclear war, eventually burning the metaphorical glass bubble and the observers outside of it.
In this informative book, created by two of today's most highly revered ecological advocates, this very scenario is presented for the reader over the span of 400 pages. Paul and Anne Ehrlich begin their journey through time by introducing the reader to the basics of evolution and genetic mutation: Gregor Mendel's recessive and dominant gene discovery, Charles Darwin's evolutionary findings and a massive amount of supplementary information about experiments conducted by a plethora of other scientific greats, including the Ehrlichs. Although the book is scientific from the get-go, the award-winning writers meander through the halls of cultural dynamics, sociological theory and political doctrine with little transitional difficulty.
The third chapter introduces the reader to the harmless man-ape Homo sapiens, who evolved around the same time as the now extinct Neanderthals, around a million years ago. The writers assert that the main reasons that humans have been able to dominate other species is due to long-term evolutionary differences. Our ability to walk upright on the savannah supported the desire for more efficient travel, the ability to hold weapons and the need to have less body mass exposed to the sun.
Most important was our species' relatively rapid brain growth, which supported our ability to develop complex speech patterns. Speech is the keystone development that helped mankind construct the massive global web of information that we rely on for everyday communication. The authors write that, "Possession of such a language is the foremost characteristic distinguishing today's Homo sapiens from all other animals." Indeed we have seen this form of communication morph from grunts and yelps to a treasury of over 6,000 languages.
This giant leap in cultural evolution took place 50,000 years ago, when H. sapiens began to construct sharp tools out of bone and ivory while also evincing its artistry in cave painting and sculpture. Language skills continued to develop; organized burials began.
Although these beginnings seem quite harmless, "Animal" goes on to show that, eventually, H. sapiens takes a turn for the worse as the human population explodes and competition for food, resources and energy becomes paramount.
The Ehrlichs begin their discussion about energy with basic background knowledge concerning the first and second laws of thermodynamics. The first is that energy cannot be created or destroyed and the second that "entropy -- the randomness or uncertainty -- of the universe is increasing." With this in mind, they lay the foundation for a mountain of information about energy that any reader could benefit from. They examine the history behnd our current local and global energy crisis, and then map out the possible (or impossible) ways that we could get ourselves out.
Like most scientists, the writers of this book are highly skeptical about the future of mankind unless there is a "paradigm shift" of political and environmental ideals. There are small steps that can be taken and the Ehrlichs aver that although they my seem minor, conservation, controlled birth rates and efficiency can open doors to health and wealth for mankind. Furthermore, they focus on how the United States alone can quit "mortgaging our future" by doing simple things like cutting back on beef consumption to convert pasture to farmland and implementing mass transit systems instead of super highways.
One warning to any reader: you will not get a warm and fuzzy feeling after reading about global heating (the Ehrlichs claim that global warming is a term that is too comforting) and nuclear annihilation. Following the second law of thermodynamics, humans seem to be moving towards total randomness and uncertainty. However, if you like to be informed on what it is we have gotten ourselves into, then pick up this book and memorize it cover to cover.