 A sense of history (and pre-history) may provide an important lens for synthesis across different perspectives. The IPBES (2019) Global Assessment reported that one million species may be at risk of extinction. Compare that to a report 40 years earlier, headlined, “The Threat to One Million Species” (Norman 1981). Significantly, both reports highlighted how the threat of extinctions is a potential loss of variety and future options for humanity. However, in the more recent reporting, this message is just one of many storylines in a complex, overwhelming, “biodiversity” narrative. This tangle of different storylines suggests that we now also face a “second biodiversity crisis” (Faith 2019), in which “biodiversity” has become a malleable term that is shaped and re-shaped to serve various scientific and policy agendas. The fate of “biodiversity” (the term) may have a lot to say about the fate of “biodiversity” (the variety of life).