Book Reviewed: The Rescue Effect: The Key to Saving Life on Earth by Michael Mehta Webster

Reshuffling the environment The author uses a term “Rescue Effect” to describe the fate of endangered species and how humans could assist them to evolve naturally under renewed environmental conditions. The author cautions that humans need to diminish the destructive aspects of the fossil fuel burning, loss of forests and raising sea levels. This could transform habitats, offer opportunities to for endangered species evolve, or move species to new locations. He observes that this will engineer the reshuffling of species on the planet that is honed to evolutionary processes under new challenges and opportunities. The author uses examples of Bengal Tigers in India, Cichlid fish in the great lakes of Africa, Coral Reefs in the Caribbean, and the Mountain Pygmy-Possum in Australia to illustrate his theory. African cichlid fish have tremendous morphological variations that allow them to live in niche habitats. Some fish have adapted to eat the scales of other fish. Others have adaptations that allow them to live among rocks. Several species adapted to reproducing in turbulent waters by carrying fertilized eggs in their mouths until they hatch. More than 50% of all coral species in the Caribbean went extinct between one and two million years ago, probably due to drastic environmental changes. But one group of corals in the genus Orbicella adapted to these climate changes because of their high genetic diversity and prospered. This book is a collection of essays that does not provide the ecological or biological or statistical data that supports his hypothesis. He merely offers narratives but doesn’t get to the core issues with scientific data that would be helpful to readers who are interested in protecting the environment and the preservation of endangered species.