The Future of Life | E.O. Wilson

“We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless,” writes the naturalist, biologist and ecologist E.O. Wilson. By the time of his death in 2019 Wilson’s pioneering work in the fields of biodiversity and socio-biology had made him one of the world’s most influential scientists.

Over the decades Wilson became increasingly alarmed by humankind’s destruction of the world’s fragile ecosystems. In The Future of Life he argues that we have a moral obligation to restore and conserve them if we are to survive: “Destroying a rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”

 

Read more of our Climate Classics: timeless works exploring themes of climate change and biodiversity loss.