The Future Is Wild

by John Adams, Dougal Dixon, John Adams

Book Overview

Imagine the world in the far distant future -- a world without humans, a world so different from ours that, until now, it's been impossible to consider. What creatures will roam the land or swim in... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1552977234
• ISBN13: 9781552977231
• Release Date: December 2002
• Publisher: Firefly Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 1.76 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 10.1" x 10.6"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

I wouldn't be suprised if squid did take over! Yay for squid!

I love how they made all of the animal based on science to make them all propable, most of the reason people criticize the show is because of the Mammal extintions and the squid, but I believe it is propable, seeing that the dinosaurs died out, because the dinosaurs shared most of the niches that mammals did and were too warm blooded, but they died out anyways, and seeing that the squid, octopus, and cuttlefish are extremely intelligent animals (a little known fact), I wouldn't be suprised if they could spawn a new civilization. Octopuses already have some adaptions to make them amphibious, because they have been known to escape from aquariums and crawl across land to steal food when they're human companions aren't around, so they could also evolve to take on land. I wish they explained some of that stuff in the show and book, but it's still awesome!

commentary about the future

It is very interesting the presentation of a possible future of our planet. According to the DVD, a group of scientists from different universities gathered to describe a possible vision of out future. We could say, of course, that scientists are better qualified than the rest of us to present this type of scenario. They have studied about this. But we should remember that scientists are also human beings, and as such, they can be fallible. As one of them says: "Will this really happen ?" No one knows. We will not be there to see what really happens. Some people wrote saying that what they say is NOT POSSIBLE. They are very emphatic. But that attitude is very risky, because whenever new things have been reported, people refuse to believe them. The giraffe, well known nowadays, a century ago some people said that such an animal could not exist. The celacanth, a fish that lived together with the dinosaurs, was supposed to be extinct until it was caught last century, alive. In the XVIII century people in England refused to believe that some central African tribes ate raw meat. The okapi, a strange kind of antelope, was said to be a fantasy. According to some ancient Phoenician documents, when some mariners described the ice in the northern seas, the listeners laughed and told them that they were insane. Arthur Conan Doyle said once, by means of his very famous character, Sherlock Holmes:"Life is much stranger than anything that human imagination can conceive." I would say that some things are unlikely, but impossible is a very strong word. That is my own experience as well. Thank you very much for your attention The English

Very informative book.

Any fan of "The Future is Wild" and other speculative future evolutionary theories would be pleased by this great coffee table book. Not only does it have large, splendid full-color pictures of all the animals from the documentary's episodes, but it explains in-depth the evolution of each creature: what it looks like, what its lifestyle is, and why. Dougal Dixon is quite good at predicting based on science what life will be like millions of years in the future. After all, billions of years ago, who would have guessed that humans would have evolved, or any of the other amazing creatures of today? When you consider some of the weird animals the crawl the earth right now as we speak, this book seems much more credible than you might originally think. There are definite scientific reasons behind these predictions; they're not the work of crazy science fiction authors who are just trying to be as "far out" as possible.

The Future Is Wild

How wonderful it would be if we could only peek out of our windows and see how the world would be 200 million years from now!What kind of creatures, birds, mammals, flowers, organisms, and humans, would inhabit planet earth?Authors Dougal Dixon and John Adams with the support of several scientists specializing in Geology, Zoology, Paleontology, Biology, Marine Biology, Herpetology, and other inter-related disciplines, have authored a fascinating book entitled The Future Is Wild.Testing our imagination to its limits, the authors have been able to give us a glimpse into what life will be on planet earth 200 million years from now. As indicated in the introduction, "the organisms you'll encounter in this book are based on fundamental biological and evolutionary principles. They could, and may yet, exist."The organisation of this magnificent book is divided into five sections each giving the reader a broad perspective of what has transpired in the past and what can be expected in millions of years from today.In order to imagine how the future of planet earth will appear, it is necessary to have some basic knowledge of what transpired during the past millions of years.The first section of the book presents a brief resumé of earth's history illustrating the recurring patterns of evolution.The next three sections devote themselves to showing earth 5, 100 and 200 million years from today.If we were to return 5 million years from now we would notice that Earth is at the peak of an Ice Age that has been going on for million of years. According to the authors, the glacial cycle of an Ice age lasts somewhere in the order of 100,000 years. During this time frame, 90,000 years consists of a cold spell while 10,000 years consists of a warm spell, known as interglacial. Our era, or as it is termed in the book, the Human era, took place during one of these warm spells.As a result of the destruction of habitats and ecosystems, as well as the extinction of so many plants and animals,various new animals take over. Among them would be rodents called shagrats filling the ecological niches left vacant.They are the largest animals in the North European region.One hundred million years from now earth is seen as moist and warm; the average temperatures would be four or five degrees higher than what they are today.The ice has melted, sea levels have risen and the world is a global hothouse.Organisms begin to diversify and adapting to their stable environment.The ecosystem will be very vigorous and dynamic.Two hundred million years we can visualize a changing planet. There is a single, huge super continent that shares Earth with a vast, warm ocean.A globe of extremes has been created.One million years have elapsed since 95 percent of species on Earth were extinguished.Science- fiction you might say-however, did we not say the same about the space age, or many of the other inventions during the past century?This is an extraordinary imaginative book that is all the more convi