Grappling with the thought of death has shown to cause fear, and in Worm at the Core, it is argued that this fear we encounter greatly influences how people live their lives. When reminded of their mortality, Worm at the Core shows how people tend to make pronounced differences in their decisions and behaviors. With the threat of if the world can even sustain the next generation as a result of climate change, death anxiety may be more at the forefront of people’s minds than ever. 

Terror management theory cites culture and society as distractions from an inevitable end noting how religion provides a comfort of what awaits in life after death. But regardless of whether people worship a god or healthy lifestyles, one thing remains true: if we can’t save the planet from ourselves, there will be no more fear because humans won’t exist as a species anymore. I can’t help but wonder, how does the mass extinction of species around us due to climate change affect death anxiety as we are headed towards the same fate?

Three recently extinct species: blue macaw, dodo bird, and western black rhino.

This brings us to an article written by the New York Times, The 8 Million Species We Don’t Know, that details the rapid rate of extinction of so many species at the hands of humans despite not knowing 80% of those species that exist on our planet. The piece details a plan created by conservation scientists called the Half-Earth Project that aims to protect large areas of land and water on the planet, keeping them in their most natural state to protect species and the biodiversity they bring as foundational elements.

The Worm at the Core showcases that fear is a common sentiment when people are reminded of their mortality through terror management theory, but how are people affected when people are reminded that we are a species that can go extinct just like those in the NYT article? If people change their actions for fear of their own death, shouldn’t they change their actions to help save the disappearing species around us so that we may avoid that being our fate?

To quote the last line of Worm at the Core, “By asking and answering these questions, we can perhaps enhance our own enjoyment of life, enrich the lives of those around us, and have a beneficial impact beyond it” (Solomon et al., 225).