#8 Adam Welz - introducing David Attenborough’s next successor - why ‘climate change’ should be renamed ‘climate breakdown’, how humans have disrupted 11,000 years of relative stability, how nature is reacting to this and why we should care
05 April 2024
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1 Guest Bio
2 Episode Description
3 Show Notes
4 Time Stamps
5 Transcript
1 Guest Bio
South African Adam Welz is a name to look out for as a significant new voice in the evolution of ‘climate breakdown’ writing and reporting. It takes a special skill to distill scientific research and isolated stories into a bigger riveting story, but through his articles, and now his first book, The End of Eden, Adam proves he is that rare nature observer who can get it right.
As per his website, Adam's writing 'focuses on wildlife, nature conservation and climate change, and has appeared in numerous publications worldwide including The Guardian, The Atlantic and Yale Environment 360. He's directed, shot, researched and scripted a number of movies (mostly documentaries) and is seldom far from a stills camera or two.' (I found this last detail particularly funny as I knew Adam during his student days, and have a vivid memory of a blonde, lanky, long-haired always-moving Adam with a camera slung over his shoulders and a burning, curious look in his eyes). Am so thrilled nothing has changed, though one write-up added binoculars to his tools of the trade.
He is a self-proclaimed birder and all around naturalist who has travelled on six continents, with extended periods in the United States and his home country, South Africa.
His book was released in September 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing and immediately received ‘a rave review’ by the New York Times. A month later it was fêted by Apple Books as ‘Book of the Month for Non-Fiction’.
In an Instagram share in March 2024, Adam marvelled that his book pipped even a rugby biography to the post, reaching #1 in South Africa’s Exclusive Books’ ‘Bestsellers’ category after a successful Cavendish Square launch - a feat by any standards.
He lives in Cape Town, South Africa, with his wife and triplet daughters.
2 Episode Description
In this episode, Adam gives us a peak into the writing of his first book The End of Eden and his intentions as well as his difficulties in writing it. He explains why he chose to focus on wild species as the characters of the bigger climate change story, and how he told small stories within a bigger context, and supported by scientific research, to paint the grim picture of a planet breaking down.
We delve into why he sees it as important to reframe the ‘limp’ phrase ‘climate change’ and to understand the many linked effects global warming has on all the wild species around us.
Adam’s book and this interview helped me look past the usual clichés that are splashed across the mass media pages, and see a different world, with different eyes, and a much better understanding of how to make sense of the isolated shifts that are happening in nature. Shifts that are small, but taken as a networked whole, create a looming terrifying instability and ‘age of uncertainty’ befalling our world.
I knew Adam over 30 years ago, but that is not why I am encouraging you to read his book. As a communicator and writer myself, I understand how hard his job was and how magnificently he has done it. Enjoy this conversation, but the meat is in the book.
3 Show Notes
00:39 Sommer - colloquial Afrikaans term meaning ‘just’ or ‘for no real reason’
01:17 The End of Eden - wild nature in the Age of Climate Breakdown, Adam Welz, 2023
04:47 Ecology is the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.
09:57 Sir David Attenborough is a British broadcaster and naturalist who has spent over 60 years bringing the wonders of the natural world to global tv screens through groundbreaking documentary series like ‘Life’ and ‘Planet Earth’. In the podcast episode, I muse how Adam could be Attenborough’s successor, so found this article of particular interest: Why David Attenborough cannot be replaced. The Conversation
10:56 Greenhouse gas emissions are greenhouse gases that are released in the air. They are created by burning fossil fuels or other human activities. Greenhouse gases are mostly carbon dioxide, methane and water vapour that insulate the earth and cause the earth’s temperatures to rise.
11:56 In New York City, the Odds of spotting a rare bird are rising, Lola Fadulu, 2023. Intro: ‘Birds that were once rare in New York City have been making more frequent appearances in recent years, to the thrill of local bird-watchers. But that excitement is tempered by the knowledge of what may be causing these changes: warming ocean temperatures, melting snowpacks and wildfires.’
13:07 Half of all Species are on the Move - And We’re Feeling it, Craig Welch, 2017
24:16 Cognitive linguistics is the study of how our brains and experiences influence how we use language. It's like thinking about the mental connections between what we know about the world and the words we choose. The field emerged in the 1970s as a reaction to other theories. For more, visit the Cognitive Linguistics Society
24:48 Frames, cognition, ideology and Chomsky, Johannes Scherling, 2018
‘Within the field of cognitive linguistics, Frame Semantics and Conceptual Metaphor Theory are two major and influential players. While Charles Fillmore created his approach to provide a model for how knowledge is stored interdependently in our minds via frames, Lakoff further developed this model to the level of metaphors and gave it a political dimension. He linked metaphors and frames to ideology and the struggle for power, epitomized by his engagement in shaping the discourse used by US Democrats in their struggle for interpretative dominance against their Republican counterparts.’
31:37 When the Sea Saved Humanity, Curtis Marean, Scientific American, 2018. ‘Shortly after Homo sapiens arose, harsh climate conditions nearly extinguished our species. The small population that gave rise to all humans alive today may have survived by exploiting a unique combination of resources along the southern coast of Africa.’
36:04 Trailer for the Bee Movie, a 2007 animated movie set in New York
37:03 A colloquial South African word originating from Afrikaans. Usually referring to the butt end of a cigarette, in this case, to little ‘droppings’ of information
38:07 The Iguaca parrot, also known as the Puerto Rican parrot (scientific name Amazona vittata) is the only endemic parrot in Puerto Rico and is considered one of the rarest birds in the world.
41:35 Journey to Antarctica: Mapping Thwaites - Why mapping the sea floor in front of this glacier is so important, by Jeff Goodell, Rolling Stones, 2019
43:00 In-depth: Australia’s Bushfire Emergency, WWF Australia ‘The 2019-20 Australian bushfires were catastrophic in scale and impact - both for people and for nature. Up to 19 million hectares was burnt, with 12.6 million hectares primarily forests and woodlands. Nearly 3 billion animals were impacted by the blazes.’
47:40 Fossil fuels are hydrocarbon-containing materials formed naturally in the Earth's crust over millions of years from the fossilized remains of dead plants and animals. The burning of fossil fuels releases energy, which can be used for a variety of purposes, including heating, transportation and electricity generation. However, the burning of fossil fuels also releases greenhouse gases, which contribute to climate change.
50:11 ‘Apartheid was a unique system of racial segregation and white supremacy in South Africa. For nearly three centuries Africans were dispossessed and exploited by Dutch and British colonists. In 1948 apartheid (‘apartness’) became official policy. The National Party, elected by an all-white electorate, extended and formalised separation and discrimination into a rigid legal system.’
51:36 Dissolution of the Soviet Union announced at NATO meeting.
55:16 Planting more trees can mitigate climate change, but not on its own, Earthday, 2021
57:15 To Truly Understand the Climate Crisis, Ask the Animals. - The End of Eden is Adam Welz’s moving, chilling elegy for biodiversity as we know it, The New York Times Book Review, Adam Nicolson, September 2023
4 Time Stamps
00:00 Into Quote Adam Welz
00:54 Podcast intro
02:51 Adam Welz gives an overview of his first book ‘The End of Eden’
05:40 Why Adam focuses on wild species and not humans to tell the story of climate change
07:33 Bridging the gap between micro stories of wild species and a greater context of their situation
08:48 ‘I want you to try and understand what it’s like to be a non-human.’
10:16 Adam as naturalist filmmaker David Attenborough’s successor
11:29 Why the intro of the book is based in New York City
12:50 You can see the effects of climate change all around you, if you just look, even in big cities
15:57 The lessons we can learn from surviving species
18:15 What we need to survive in this Age of Uncertainty
20:04 Stability of nature in the past 11,000 years
22:49 Climate breakdown as a more accurate description than climate change
24:28 The role of cognitive linguistics framing ‘climate change’ in a particular way in our minds
29:38 The 200,000 - 300,000 years: Earth’s Eden
31:34 How South Africa saved homo sapiens from extinction
31:34 How Adam crafted stories that elicit empathy for wild species in the reader
40:58 How writing the book affected Adam personally
41:40 Adam’s ‘oh shit’ moment regarding climate breakdown
42:57 The effect of seeing Australia’s 2019/2020 bushfires on Adam personally
45:30 The isolation felt by scientists who are constantly exposed to climate change data
47:33 New opportunities present themselves as we all have to move away from fossil fuels
50:09 Earth-changing events do happen - think of Apartheid and the Dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the ubiquity of cell phones within a very short period of time
53:40 Before you come up with solutions, you have to understand.
55:45 ‘You actually have got to be quite careful where you plant trees. They’re not all just a great thing everywhere - you have to plant the right trees in the right places.'
57:10 The response to the book
58:39 Adam’s next book
5 Transcript
More on Adam Welz
Articles
To Truly Understand the Climate Crisis, Ask the Animals - The End of Eden is Adam Welz’s moving, chilling elegy for biodiversity as we know it, The New York Times Book Review, Adam Nicolson, September 2023
A naturalist finds hope despite climate change in an era he calls ‘The End of Eden’, OPB, Brian Mann, December 2023
Book
