While many humans have done all they can to overcome the prevailing gloom and doom about Earth’s current and future well-being, we also are in a crisis in which the Anthropocene, often called "the age of humanity," has morphed into an era more aptly labeled "the rage of inhumanity." We all need something more positive to maintain the collective optimism that is essential for compensating for the plethora of widespread harms, and Joe Gray and Eileen Crist's new collection of essays in their book Cohabiting Earth: Seeking a Bright Future for All Life is just what we need, right now, to change the course of present and future trends that clearly will have dire consequences for current and future generations. Global rewilding, rewilding our hearts, and connecting with other humans and all sorts of other nature are essential and means we need to get over ourselves.

Here's what Joe and Eileen had to say about their extremely important, forward-looking, and deeply inspirational new book.

Marc Bekoff: Why did you co-edit Cohabiting Earth?

Joe Gray and Eileen Crist: First, we would like to thank you, Marc, for inviting us to share information about our new book with your network. We co-edited this anthology because we felt there is a need for an ecocentric volume that advocates strongly for Earth’s entire living community, humans included. From different angles, the book’s contributors agree that our moribund plight reveals the utter bankruptcy of nature’s domination by modern humans. Our plight also exposes the profound entanglement of Earth’s and humanity’s fate: The only options are mutual well-being or an interlocked and devastating decline. To exit the death spiral instigated by anthropocentric civilization, humanity must become a loving planetary presence. This change of heart demands a revolution in how we inhabit and comport ourselves on Earth.1

MB: How does your book differ from others that are concerned with some of the same general topics?

JG/EC: The idea of the Anthropocene, and how to make a human-dominated planet sustainable, is a frequent theme of environmental writing these days. The reformist approach of this way of thinking is not remotely viable, for it refuses to face the root of our predicament: that humanity and the technosphere have overrun the planet........

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