Title: The end of Eden: Wild nature in the age of climate breakdown
Author: Adam Welz
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 9781399415873
The end of Eden by Adam Welz (Bloomsbury Publishing)
Do biologists dream of climate grief?
This book answered a persistent question which has been troubling me for some time. In The end of Eden: Wild nature in the age of climate breakdown, Welz describes with great care and scientific acumen his experience with climate grief. Over the past four years, I have found myself submerged in this subject – or rather, firstly, in this condition that I suffer from, which grew into a fascination and later a research study. Sadly, I discovered Welz’s book too late for it to form part of my research proposal. However, on a non-academic level, I found this book to offer immense comfort in bringing the solace of knowing that I am not alone in my feelings of loss and solastalgia.
As I listened to the stories Welz tells of countless species on the brink of extinction due to human-induced climate collapse, I thought to myself that this is how we make sense of it – this feeling of impending doom, the gaping chasm of loss – real, perceived and feared. No matter our place in this world which we so greatly love and grieve for, we try to make sense of it through the lens of our gifts, fortes and insights.
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Welz is a zoologist, a biologist, a nature conservationist, but perhaps most tellingly – by his own admission – an old-fashioned naturalist. His stories are woven with a sense of wonder for the world he loves, something that sets him apart from other scientists in his field.
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Welz is a zoologist, a biologist, a nature conservationist, but perhaps most tellingly – by his own admission – an old-fashioned naturalist. His stories are woven with a sense of wonder for the world he loves, something that sets him apart from other scientists in his field. And yet, this is not new. Robin Wall Kimmerer has written extensively on the natural world. Her oeuvre includes works of wonder and ambient poetics as a native Potawatomi biologist, mother and scholar (her works do form a large part of my study). So, what is it that makes the tales within The end of Eden stand apart?
Here, I offer a disclaimer, as the answer may seem biased and generalised, and yet it is the only solution I can find. From the perspective of a woman artist who works within the field of an ecological ethic of care and tries to live by the tenets of ecofeminism, for me the thing that sets Welz’s writing apart from that of others is this: he is a man who is not afraid to engage with his feelings of grief, loss and solastalgia – not even in an overly empirical scientific domain, where “reason” should dominate. And here, I may generalise, but I do so from personal experience. Whenever I am asked about my interest in climate grief, I am met with the question: “But surely you are talking about climate activism; surely this is not new. Many good people around the world are fighting for the safety of the planet. Your work should be more aggressive; it should be more defiant.”
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And yet, very often women are bound [...] to try to save all we can save, while making sense of the loss and devastation. This, while explaining to our pandemic-traumatised children that yes, the world will never be the same again, but hope prevails.
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This reaction is usually from male colleagues and peers. And I answer, no, this is not about activism; it is not so much about affecting change. It is about making sense of the overwhelming sense of loss that I, and many women artists like me, are dealing with. This is not to say that there isn’t still, and always should be, a place for activism. I myself am an avid supporter of “extinction rebellion”. It is simply that very often, and still in the 21st century, women are left to make sense of the emotional side of disaster. It is a gross generalisation, and yet also completely true, that men are motivated to find solutions – to solve the problem, to be the saviour of the planet or, failing that, to colonise another planet – while we, the women, the mothers, the carers, are the ones who seek to understand, to care for, to stand in the gap, while the world around us burns. And yet, very often women are bound to do both: to step up and try to save all we can save, while making sense of the loss and devastation. This, while explaining to our pandemic-traumatised children that yes, the world will never be the same again, but hope prevails. This, while the places that once were sacred to me growing up – with my feet in the soil, the sand, the mud – are rapidly disappearing and being taken over by ever-expanding housing developments (or, in the case of one of my sacred spaces, by yet another billionaire’s glass and concrete palace), by urban encroachment, by habitat loss. Yet, still, look here, we have a mountain, we have a biodiversity corridor worth preserving, so that if you do choose to have children, if I am to become a grandmother, my grandchildren may still have quiet places to feel the soil, the sand, the mud, between their toes.
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Welz uses scientific sources to make sense of the grief, loss and solastalgia he is experiencing. Here, our approaches converge, as I try to make sense of my lived experience through using paint made from pigments extracted from the earth, and doing so at the places I love, and on canvas that was buried in the earth at these sites.
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Adam Welz tells me that African hornbills, which provided such entertainment to my children on our frequent visits to Nossob, are not breeding fast enough to escape extinction. That we may see more leopards than cheetah in Namibia due to habitat loss. He tells story after story of death and extinction through a scientific lens – stories of places that my children and I know and love deeply, places where our footprints rest easy in the soil. But also, of places I have only read about or seen on television. Throughout the book, his tone is steeped in loss; his tellings are gentle yet scientific in nature. I often wondered how he managed to mediate the hard line between fact and feeling. The answer lies in the notes at the end of the book. Welz cites his many academic sources, as befits a true scholar, but very often the phrase “in my personal experience” crops up. Welz uses scientific sources to make sense of the grief, loss and solastalgia he is experiencing. Here, our approaches converge, as I try to make sense of my lived experience through using paint made from pigments extracted from the earth, and doing so at the places I love, and on canvas that was buried in the earth at these sites. Welz strives to make sense of his lived experience within his domain. “It is beyond the scope of this book to lay out a detailed roadmap for getting our societies off fossil fuels.” This sentence is academic, for I do not have all the solutions, but I am hopeful.
Science may bring solace; it need not be only bad news and imminent apocalyptical collapse. Evidently, for Welz, making meaning through following scientific threads through familiar and foreign landscapes brings comfort. For me, it did not, but what did bring me much solace was knowing that I am not alone in my grief, and that there are good men who are able and willing to do the work of women in being vulnerable, in bearing witness, in offering care. Welz does not suffer from saviour syndrome (nor does he suffer it, thankfully); he does not offer solutions. He is acting as what Donna Haraway calls a “speaker for the dead”. And so, Adam Welz, in his beautifully crafted book The end of Eden: Wild nature in the age of climate breakdown, in true ecofeminist tradition, is “staying with the trouble”, offering solace through telling the stories of species on the brink of extinction, many of them on our doorstep. For this effort, this act of care, I am eternally grateful.
Sources:
Haraway, DJ. 2016. Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Paperback edition. London: Duke University Press.
Kimmerer, RW. 2003. Gathering moss: A natural and cultural history of mosses. London: Penguin Random House UK.
Kimmerer, RW. 2013. Braiding sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants. First edition. Canada: Milkweed Editions.
Lambert, J. 2020. “How scientists wrestle with grief over climate change,” Science News, 2 March 2020. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/scientists-grief-climate-change-warming-mental-health-ecology.
Also read:
All rise: Tales of human rights and wrongs by Roger Chennells: a book review
Education in the shadow of the Anthropocene: Critical posthumanist experimentation
Uitdagings van die Antroposeen: onderwys in die era van ’n mensgemaakte wêreld