G.T.: The book presents overdue concepts, particularly the intriguing idea of the “second body.” I found this perspective interesting as it may help those who struggle to grasp the urgency of ecological issues. However, I felt the narrative structure lacked fluidity, as the connections between events and themes were not always clear.

The author effectively brings back the exploitation of wildlife to human exploitation links, noting that “the geography of wildlife exploitation maps pretty much directly onto the geography of human exploitation.” This observation is a good reminder on how economic and power structures affect both humans and animals.

Meanwhile the quote on Valentina Tereshkova’s reflection on Earth’s fragility—”The beauty of the Earth was overwhelming… I realised how small Earth is and how fragile”—reinforces the paradox of a dominated yet fragile world. This duality was particularly striking, illustrating the historical context of exploitation on both humans and nature.

A recurring tension in the book is the duality of humans as both animals and beings who separate themselves from nature. The author questions: “Is a human an animal?” While we share biological traits with other species, we also distance ourselves through language and behavior. The way we describe slaughter—using terms like “humane” or “inhumane”—reveals our discomfort with acknowledging animal suffering. This highlights our tendency to see ourselves as “editors of nature” rather than participants in it. The exploration of this paradox was a thought-provoking aspect of the book.

While the themes resonated, I felt frustration with the author’s framing—particularly the idea of a sudden “awakening” to environmental crises that have long been discussed. The notion of the “second body” is compelling, but the delayed realisation of humanity’s impact felt out of step with ongoing discourse. The book argues that humans must reconcile their dual identity as both animals embedded in nature and as agents capable of profound destruction. By acknowledging our “second body” (our biological and ecological ties), we might develop a more ethical relationship with the planet and other species. However, this perspective arrives late in a conversation that demands immediate action.

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A.A.: I used to wonder how the genocides of the 20th century happened at the most basic psychological level, from a first-person perspective: didn’t people see what was happening right in front of their eyes? What made them just sit back and witness the destruction of whole peoples? What does it take to move people?

It was a different era, one explanation went—people’s basic needs were not met, so they were in no condition to extend care beyond their immediate vicinity. Think about it: if you don’t even know how you’re going to feed your family tomorrow, can you really care about others getting slaughtered somewhere else?

“Perhaps you would have behaved the same way if you were alive back then,” the voice in the back of my mind ventures to suggest. This voice has an amazing ability to rationalize everything. Give it some time, and it will rationalize and explain away all kinds of atrocities—moral, mental, physical, you name it. But as any healthy adult does, I learned to catch myself falling into its trap, and in my desperate attempt to self-correct, I produce an effort that falls well short of expectations while doing just enough to sustain my belief in my integrity. So it went for a long time.

As I grew up, my belief in my integrity was tested more and more frequently as the world gradually introduced me to new sets of moral conundrums, from full-scale destruction of nature to continued destruction of peoples. All around me—in every homeless child, polluted river, cleared forest, exploited worker—that belief was challenged to the point of bringing me face-to-face with my old question: what does it take to move me?

I don’t know the answer to that question, but my suspicion is that the thing may be similar to what Daisy Hildyard had in mind when she coined the term “second body.” She tried to imagine and give a name to that sensitive layer that gets pricked by the world, that elicits a reaction—often faint but perceivable—in all of us as we navigate life on this planet. Does it help to think about that capacity as that of a body stretched over all existence in all directions? Is this kind of framing sufficient to capture our relationship with it?

Or does it take a whole new secular religion, ethics, or irrationally held set of beliefs to fully embrace this capacity and unleash its potential? After all, my first body is what moves me, and it is not particularly rational: when my toe hurts, it doesn’t try to convince my brain by coming up with a list of reasons why it needs medical attention—it quite literally punches holes in my brain cells and forces my whole body to act to stop the pain. Perhaps the second body, or some other way of framing our ethics, must be something similar in character: something that moves us in the most direct way possible? If so, how do we get there?