As someone with no background in ecology, I felt uneasy at the prospect of reading the latest work of Darryl Jones, an expert in the field. Partly, my fear was that Jones’s lessons would be too technical for me to understand. Partly, it was a murkier fear: I pictured the Professor of Ecology despairing and exhausted because nobody was heeding his warnings, and readied myself to be scolded, or at least left feeling vaguely guilty.