Becoming Good Ancestors: How We Balance Nature, Community, and Technology

A brilliant writer and gifted "big picture" thinker, David Ehrenfeld is one of America's leading conservation biologists. Becoming Good Ancestors unites in a single, up-to-date framework pieces written over two decades, spanning politics, ecology, and culture, and illuminating the forces in modern society that thwart our efforts to solve today's hard questions about society and the environment. The book focuses on our present-day retreat from reality, our alienation from nature, our unthinking acceptance of new technology and rejection of the old, the loss of our ability to discriminate between events we can control and those we cannot, the denial of non-economic values, and the decline of local communities. If we are aware of what we are losing and why we are losing it, the author notes, all of these patterns are reversible. Through down-to-earth examples, ranging from a family canoe trip in the wilderness to the novels of Jane Austen to Chinese turtle and tiger farms, Ehrenfeld shows how we can use what we learn to move ourselves and our society towards a more stable, less frantic, and far more satisfying life, a life in which we are no longer compelled to damage ourselves and our environment, in which our children have a future, and in which fewer species are endangered and more rivers run clean. In the final chapter, he offers a dramatic view of the possibilities inherent in a fusion of the best elements of conservatism and liberalism. Our society has an inherent sense of what is right, says Ehrenfeld, and the creativity and persistence to make good things happen. It is now time to apply our intelligence, guided by our moral judgment, to the very large problems we all face. This book is an important first step.

Table of Contents:
Preface Bookmap Part 1. In Search of Honesty 1: Pretending 2: Brainstorming Has Its Limits 3: Nothing Simple 4: The Comforts of Fantasy Part 2. Keeping Track of Our Losses 5: Rejecting Gifts 6: The Uses and Risks of Adaptation 7: When Machines Replace People 8: Pseudocommunities 9: Obsolescence 10: Accelerating Social Evolution 11: Writing Part 3. Towards a Sustainable Economics 12: Affluence and Austerity 13: Energy and Friendly Fire 14: Durable Goods 15: Preserving Our Capital 16: Conservation for Profit 17: Hot Spots and the Globalization of Conservation 18: Putting a Value on Nature 19: The Downside of Corporate Immortality Part 4. Relating to Nature in a Human-Dominated World 20: Wilderness as Teacher 21: As Opposing View of Nature 22: Death of a Plastic Palm 23: Scientific Discoveries and Nature's Mysteries 24: I Reinvent Agriculture 25: Thinking about Breeds and Species 26: Strangers in Our Own Land 27: Teaching Field Ecology 28: The Ubiquitous Right-of-Way 29: A Walk in the Woods 30: Old Growth 31: Intimacy with Nature Part 5. Restoring the Community 32: The Utopia Fallacy 33: Traditions 34: Jane Austen and the World of the Community 35: Universities, Schools, and Communities 36: What Do We Owe Our Children? 37: Epilogue: A Call for Fusion and Regeneration Notes Index

About the Author :
David Ehrenfeld is Professor of Biology at Rutgers University and holds degrees in history, medicine, and zoology. He is the founding editor of the journal Conservation Biology and the author of The Arrogance of Humanism and Beginning Again.

Review :
"Becoming Good Ancestors reads like a natural history field trip: cogent comments on large questions are intermixed with astute observations on immediate circumstances and sometimes lengthy anecdotes about Ehrenfelds career, colleagues, and family." --Bioscience "The book is an expanded and revised collection of some three dozen essays...The result is a very good read...The essays retain the qualities that made them appealing when they were first published - brevity, passion, and accessibility."--Nature