The Fate of Nature, Now Dependent on Human Nature

"Therein lies my audacious purpose in writing: to prod this unseen organism of collective belief. I’ve started the book by asking what we are—what makes a person? The answer also tells why the lives and freedom of other animals should matter to us. After that exploration, The Fate of Nature follows the varied ways cultures and ideologies relate to nature. It happens that I live in a place of sublime beauty and biological wealth where conflicting worldviews have repeatedly collided and reshaped the ecosystem. The vital ferocity of the Gulf of Alaska coast seems untamable, but even these waters have been poisoned with oil and chemicals and the foodweb has been torn and weakened. With such damaging marks, invaders wrote of their supremacy, questionable certainties penned on the land and under the water, and engraved as generational grief upon people living along the shore."