The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History

I bought this book because I was impressed with how well Elizabeth Kolbert managed her interview with John Stewart on the Daily Show and suspected I was in for a great read based on her work in "The New Yorker". Even with such high expectations I was still stunned by the beautiful craftsmanship this book represents. This is not another global warming book. Kolbert walks us through many other examples of ways in which human presence on the planet has changed the rules in ways that make it difficult, if not impossible, for other life forms to survive their encounter with us. Things like predation by early hominids, and the global transport of pathogens are also major human contributed forces that are responsible for the current acceleration of extinction events. Another thing that I think Kolbert does a good job of explaining is the concept of "instantaneous" events on the scale of geologic time. Extinction events that may stretch over a few thousand years are quick in terms of the process of evolution. Many times we humans have a hard time grasping the significance of events that happen on time scales that are significantly longer than our own life spans,. I feel that Kolbert did an excellent job of addressing this issue from many directions. She started with the fundamental realization by early investigators, like Cuvier, that the evidence pointed to extinction as an obvious explanation of observed evidence (i.e., the fossil record). By its very nature paleontology is a science with more questions than answers. The fossil record is not complete. If it were the evidence would be less credible. But the big game changer is in the area of paleogenetics that takes advantage of the fact that each and every living thing on the planet carries a much more complete record of evolutionary history than the few bones and other body parts that have been fortuitously preserved in geologic layers that are occasionally pushed up where we can find them. In my opinion Kolbert went to the right source to make her case for the power of paleogenetics when she managed to hang around with Svante Paabo at the Max Plank Institute. Many of us consider Paabo the father of paleogenetics. I heard him speak a dozen years ago at a scientific meeting in Edinburgh and was stunned by the power of what he was doing. At the time I remember thinking how much fun it would be to share a beer with him but now the experience would not be as good if Eizabeth Kolbert were not tagging along to ask the good questions. This is not a book that preaches about the terrifying future we are creating for ourselves and our fellow earthlings. Kolbert lets the facts speak for themselves and puts enough effort into the story that her readers can not help but come to the logical conclusion because she has helped them understand the issues rather than just taking her word for it. .

Six extinction is a new concept that this book brought to my attention. While knowledgable regarding global warming I had little understanding of extinctions that have already taken place. I was aware of bats in the US in decline, but not aware that a disease has totally wiped them out across the U.S. Likewise I was aware of problems with some frogs becoming extinct, but not aware that frogs have already become extinct worldwide. Nor did I know some of the science of how coral reefs are impacted. Kolbert does a very good job reviewing previous extinctions, explaining the science behind current extinctions, and the potential for a sixth extinction due to human activitiy. Kolbert's writing style for The Sixth Extinction is personal interactions and discussions with researchers in locations throughout the world. Her approach is engaging, highly personalized, and detailed whle keeping the reader focused on the big picture. I found the Sixth Extinction to be a quick, easy read, and left me wanting to know more.

"When the world changes faster than species can adapt, many fall out. This is the case whether the agent of change drops from the sky in a fiery streak or drives to work in a Honda. To argue that the current extinction event could be averted if people just cared more and were willing to make more sacrifices is not wrong, exactly, but it misses the point. It doesn't matter much whether people care or don't care. What matters is that people change the world." Thus is the premise and sad reality stated in Elizabeth Kolbert's "The Sixth Extinction." Part travel log, part history of the world and part zoological introduction to some wondrous creatures, yet at all times a sobering look at what "one weedy species" (mankind) has done to our fair planet, Kolbert's book is a must read for anyone interested in knowing what the not too distant future holds. I saw Kolbert interviewed on Jon Stewart about a month ago and became intrigued by this book. After a couple of entertaining novels featuring shady characters and twisting plot lines I was ready for a different kind of reading experience. "The Sixth Extinction" was not as laborious a read as I feared. Kolbert keeps the writing brisk and the science light. And she takes us around the world as she visits places as diverse as the Coral Reefs off Australia, bat caves in New England and an island off the coast of Italy. Along the way we meet some splendid creatures, many of whom are already extinct or well on their way. Plus we learn the history of the first five mass extinctions, how they happened and just as importantly how scientists have been able to figure out how something that happened hundreds of millions of years ago took place. The part of the book that I found most surprising is that it's not just climate change and extreme hunting that has killed off so many species. It is the movement of man around the world (and the introduction of new species into a region where they never existed that this movement allows) that has threatened so many creatures. The book opens with the case of frogs in a South America who are dying off at an alarming rate due to a fungi that was introduced into the forests of Panama just a few years ago. The fungi is from Asia where the amphibians have evolved through the millennia to be immune from it. But in South America, the frogs never needed whatever mutation Asian frogs have and thus many species there (which are hundreds of millions of years old) have become extinct. Similar situations are happening to the bat population in the US and many other creatures. And that, as Kolbert points out is why all the "Save the Whales" movements in the world will not completely stop this sixth extinction. Kolbert also gracefully spells out the irony of man, how so many of our actions lead to these latest extinctions - yet how so many work so diligently to avoid them. (The scientist giving a handjob to a crow to extract semen being perhaps the clearest example of this "diligent" work). Ultimately the book cannot answer the question that surely every reader has: will we (mankind) alter the world to such a degree that even we become extinct? Will we create an environment that no longer supports us? Or will we, as history's greatest innovators, continue to find a way to save ourselves (even if as the book says that means establishing communities in space should earth someday become unlivable). Surely this situation will not happen in our lifetime, and probably not in our children's lifetimes or their children's lifetimes. Thousands of years are immense when measured by man. In earth time, they are but a blink of an eye. If you want an interesting book, a readable story with some amazing insights, I'd highly recommend "The Sixth Extinction." Meanwhile I'm going to bury my head back in the sand and return to novels with shady characters. Even when the endings are depressing they aren't this depressing.

If you're looking for a well thought out book that may change your perspective on humans and increase your observation of the world around you then this book is perfect. Elizabeth Kolbert's detailed analysis and writing style throughout the Sixth Extinction leaves the reader feeling informed and wondering about the future of the human race. The book explores the past extinctions and the various causes, then hones in on the current one that we are experiencing today. I feel that everyone should read this book as the topics discussed are now more important than ever. While species extinction is a commonly known idea that gets thrown around, people don't often talk of the specifics surrounding it. Everyone can get something out of this book if they are willing to put in the effort. The book is slightly more dense, containing many scientific terms and some parts read more like a research paper, but that adds to the level of detail the book goes into on each specific topic or species. I've talked about numerous topics from the book with friends and family, particularly the effect white nose syndrome has had on the bat population that's highlighted the effect of diseases spreading through travel and trade. To me, the making of a good book is if you continue to think about it after you've finished. I still find myself wondering about some of the ideas brought up and about past events that I never knew happened until I read this book. I would highly recommend this to anyone as this is a topic that is increasingly relevant today and something that would get the conversation started on what we could do to try and reduce our impact on the world around us.

Yes, human-caused extinction is upon us in full force. As science journalist extraordinaire Elizabeth Kolbert tells it, we humans have been killing whatever we could whenever we could since the beginning of our tenure here on earth. First the mastodons, the giant sloths, the great flightless birds, the woolly rhino, then the whales, the gorillas, the tigers, the buffalo, etc. The first cause was ignorance. Primitive humans just didn’t know that they were destroying the source of their subsistence until they had to move on. Today we know the truth. And that truth is there is nowhere to move on to. This book is a detailed and fascinating delineation of just what we are doing to the planet and how. From the fishes in the sea to the polar bears on the ice: all fall down. Why? Willful ignorance, stupidity, and the devil take tomorrow. (But it might be said, so what if we kill off all sorts of creatures great and small? We don’t need them. We have our pigs and cows and chickens. We grow corn and soy. Yes, the little foxes are cute and the lions magnificent. But we have zoos and preserves. After you’ve seen a few elephants you don’t need to see vast herds of them.) This is the view of many people in high places in government and at the helms of giant corporations whose main concern is staying in power and improving the bottom line. But here’s the rub: with the extraordinary rate of the current extinction what we might be left with is nearly sterile oceans, stunted scrub forests, destroyed ecologies and starving humans at one another’s throats. Combine that with global warming and desperate leaders flinging nuclear bombs around, and yes, Chicken Little, the sky is falling. Okay, rant over with. Let me say a few things about this splendid book that is so readable and so full of information, humor and the kind of passion that lights up the pages. Kolbert combines research, interviews and fieldwork into a very readable, vivid and informative narrative that is so good that…well, she won the Pulitzer Prize for this book in 2015. Some notes and quotes: “The reason this book is being written by a hairy biped, rather than a scaly one, has more to do with dinosaurian misfortune than with any particular mammalian virtue.” (p. 91) “Warming today is taking place at least ten times faster than it did at the end of the last glaciation, and at the end of those glaciations that preceded it. To keep up, organisms will have to migrate, or otherwise adapt, at least ten times more quickly.” (p. 162) Kolbert notes that during the Pleistocene (2.5 million years ago to about 11,700 years ago) “…temperatures were significantly lower than they are now…,” mainly because the glacial periods tended to be longer than the interglacial periods. What this means is that most life forms are probably not going to be able to deal with the heat “...since temperatures never got much warmer than they are right now.” In other words, we are experiencing an accelerated catastrophe. (p.171) Kolbert describes the red-legged honeycreeper as “the most beautiful bird I have ever seen.” (p. 178) So naturally I had to Google it. It is indeed beautiful. The reader might want to take a look. It’s very blue with some neat black trim and those incongruous red legs! Kolbert observes that we are creating a New Pangaea because our global transport systems are sending plants and animals all around the globe. Instead of the continents moving closer together the plants and animals are moving closer together as on a single continent. (p. 208) A joke: after the journal “Nature” published proof of the existence of the Denisovan hominids because of a DNA-rich finger found in southern Siberia, there came a newspaper headline: “Giving Accepted Prehistoric History the Finger.” (p. 253) As to the “controversy” over what killed off the megafauna in e.g., North and South America, in Siberia, in Australia, Kolbert minces no words and comes down strong on the likely suspect—us. And as for the Neanderthal, ditto. See chapters XI and XII. She writes: “Before humans finally did in the Neanderthals, they had sex with them.” She notes that “most people today are slightly—up to four percent—Neanderthal.” (p. 238) Personally, according to “23 and Me,” I am 3.8% Neanderthal. --Dennis Littrell, author of “Understanding Evolution and Ourselves”

In some ways, I found this book distressing and in other ways it is hopeful. Frankly, there is an inevitability to it that paints humankind as the somewhat purposeful and somewhat accidental causation of what is fairly clearly a sixth mass extinction. The limits of this mass extinction are not clearly spelled out as it is simply not known yet. It is a thought provoking book that any reasonable person should take heed of. I considered giving this book a three star rating as it starts fairly slowly and the author's antecedonal writing style seems to make the book sort of a "bottoms up" tale. That is to say, it starts from specific examples and moves toward a bigger picture rather than the usual converse structure of most science books. This was a little troublesome to me as it seemed the author spent too much time on her personal travels and experiences before getting to the premise of the book. Nonetheless, when all was said and done, the author weaved a reasonable case for the proposition that mankind is ushering in a sixth mass extinction on Earth. She does this without being preachy, shrill, or overly dramatic. Indeed, she spends some time pointing out hopeful scenarios in this literal world of change. It is a worthy addition to the library of anyone interested in Earth science. It is not as good as some books on past extinctions and their causes (such as Benton's, When Life Nearly Died), but it is interesting and fairly even handed in approach and execution.

The Sixth Extinction I didn’t rush to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s book, The Sixth Extinction, because I imagined it would be a gloomy expose on the unfortunate consequences of way too much half-baked cleverness — and it was. But it’s also a fascinating story about the long saga of life on Earth, and the unclever antics of the latest primate species. It’s an outstanding book. We have soared away into a fantasy world, where godlike humans spend their lives creating brilliant miracles. But when observed in a 450 million year timeframe, from this moment when a new mass extinction is gathering momentum, the wonders of progress and technological innovation lose their shine. Kolbert rips off our virtual reality headsets, and serves us powerful medicine, a feast of provocative news. Today, the frog people are not feeling lucky. They have lived on this sweet planet for 400 million years, but many are now dying, because of a fungus called Bd. This fungus can live happily in the forest on its own, without an amphibian host, so endangered frogs rescued by scientists cannot be returned to the wild. The crisis began when humans transported frogs that carried the fungus, but were immune to it. There was money to be made in the frog business, and so the fungus has spread around the globe. This is similar to the chestnut blight of a century ago. Entrepreneurs profitably imported chestnut seedlings from Asia. The Asian species was immune to the fungus it carried. American chestnut trees were not immune, and four billion died, almost all of them. The fungus persists, so replanting is pointless. North American bats are dying by the millions from white-nose, caused by fungus that is common in Europe, where bats are immune to it. It was likely carried across the Atlantic by a tourist who dropped some spores in Howe Caverns, in New York. By 2013, the die-off had spread to 22 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces. Welcome to New Pangaea! Once upon a time, long before we were born, all seven continents were joined together in a single continent, Pangaea. Over time, it broke apart, and ecosystems on each continent evolved in a unique way. In recent centuries, highly mobile humans have moved countless organisms from one ecosystem to another, both deliberately and unintentionally. The seven continents no longer enjoy the long-term stability provided by isolation. On another front, many colonies of humans have become obsessed with burning sequestered carbon on an enormous scale. This is overloading the atmosphere with carbon, which the oceans absorb and convert to carbonic acid. Carbonic acid is a huge threat to marine life, except for lucky critters, like jellyfish. The world’s coral reefs are dying. Tropical rainforests are treasure chests of biological diversity. Tropical oceans generally are not, because of low levels of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. Coral reefs are the shining exception. They provide habitat for thriving ecosystems, home to more than 500,000 species. This reminded me of beaver ponds, which are also sanctuaries of abundant life. Coral polyps and beavers are excellent examples of reciprocity. They create relationships that are mutually beneficial for many species. Reciprocity is a vital idea that most human cultures have forgotten. Our dominant culture has no respect for the wellbeing of ecosystems. It has a tradition of displacing or exterminating the indigenous species on the land, and replacing them with unsustainable manmade systems. Evolution is fascinating. Rabbits and mice have numerous offspring, because they are vulnerable to predators. Other species have deflected the predator challenge by evolving to great size, like mammoths, hippos, and rhinos. Big critters have long lifespans and low birth rates. This made them highly vulnerable when Homo sapiens moved into the neighborhood. Kolbert imagines that the megafauna extinctions were not the result of a reckless orgy of overhunting. It probably took centuries. Hunters had no way of knowing how much the mammoth population had gradually dwindled over the generations. Because they reproduced so slowly, they could have been driven to extinction by nothing more than modest levels of hunting. An elephant does not reach sexual maturity until its teens, and each pregnancy takes 22 months. There are never twins. Deer are still with us, because they reproduce faster. Sadly, Neanderthals are no longer with us. They lived in Europe for at least 100,000 years, and during that time, their tool collection barely changed. They probably never used projectiles. They have acquired a reputation for being notorious dimwits, because they lived in a stable manner for a very long time, and didn’t rubbish the ecosystem. Homo sapiens moved into Europe 40,000 years ago. By 30,000 years ago, the Neanderthals were gone. The DNA of modern folks, except Africans, contains up to four percent Neanderthal genes. Homo sapiens has lived in a far more intense manner. In the last 10,000 years, we’ve turned the planet inside out. Kolbert wonders if there was a slight shift in our DNA that made us so unstable — a “madness gene.” I wonder if we’re simply the victims of cultural evolution that hurled us down a terrible path. If we had been raised in Neanderthal clans, would we be stable, sane, and happy? Kolbert laments, “The Neanderthals lived in Europe for more than a hundred thousand years and during that period they had no more impact on their surroundings than any other large vertebrate. There is every reason to believe that if humans had not arrived on the scene, the Neanderthals would be there still, along with the wild horses and wooly rhinos.” Cultures have an amazing ability to put chains on our mental powers. Kolbert describes how scientists (and all humans) typically struggle with disruptive information, concepts that bounce off our sacred myths. Bizarre new ideas, like evolution, extinction, or climate change, are reflexively dismissed as nonsense. As evidence of reality accumulates, increasing levels of absurd rationalizations must be invented. Eventually, someone actually acknowledges reality, and a paradigm shift is born. For most of my life, human extinction has not been on my radar. By the end of Kolbert’s book, readers understand that our extinction is more than a remote, theoretical possibility. What is absolutely certain is that we are pounding the planet to pieces. Everything is connected, and when one type of tree goes extinct, so do the insects that depend on it, as well as the birds that depend on the insects. When the coral polyps die, the coral reef ecosystem disintegrates. The sixth mass extinction is clearly the result of human activities. The driving forces include the things we consider to be our great achievements — agriculture, civilization, industry, transportation systems. This is highly disruptive information, and everyone is working like crazy to rationalize our nightmares out of existence. Luckily, a number of people, like Kolbert, are beginning to acknowledge reality. Will there be a paradigm shift? Will we walk away from our great achievements, and spend the next 100,000 years living in balance with the planet?

"The Sixth Extinction" is one of many fundamentally flawed books on climate change; yet I still recommend people read this book. That's because of the dearth of well-done climate change books coupled to the importance of developing public literacy on climate change. You would think that perhaps humanity's greatest contemporaneous threat would result in too many great books to feasibly read. E.g., consider all the great books published around 2009 honoring 150 years since Charles Darwin published "On the Origin of Species". I read seven in that period. Yet with climate change we too often suffer through the amateurish ( Overheated: The Human Cost of Climate Change by Guzman, Andrew T. [2013 ]), the overwrought ( Storms of My Grandchildren; The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (Chinese Edition) ), and here a book that insufficiently covers the very topic referenced in the title - "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History". Here's what Elizabeth Kolbert does well: ' Defines mass extinctions relative to the background extinction rate. ' Succinctly explains past mass extinction rates to help us better appreciate individual studies that are now being published regarding current findings. ' Provides some good examples of current extinctions that also illustrate why these are harbingers to far worse in the near future. ' Good explanation of the lack of diversity at more northern climes and therefore those regions' disproportionate vulnerability. ' Excellent reporting on migration rates and varying results, including altitude limitations on migration to chase colder climates. ' Kolbert provides a decent explanation on why a warmer world might ultimately result in more biodiversity; but in the short term given current `cold adaptation' of extant life on earth, mass extinction is inevitable in a `business as usual' scenario. ' Kolbert is an excellent writer and good reporter on the events she reports. Here's where Ms. Kolbert fails: ' Vastly insufficient coverage validating we are currently in a mass extinction event with the exception of her coverage of ocean acidification. I bookmark ScienceDaily articles that report especially impactful scientific climate change findings. I counted fourteen recent peer-reviewed articles preceding publication of this first edition by a couple of years. Not nearly enough of these findings were covered. That where the very title of the book references our already being in a mass extinction event. ' Failed to more expansively report and illustrate why a small change in climate can have a devastating impact to whole regions [1]. Such illustrations should help people understand that we can't possibly predict all the catastrophic changes that will comes from a fast changing climate; i.e., the "law" of unintended consequences. Such reports would help better align the public's urgency on climate change to the urgency expressed by scientists and scientific organizations. ' Failed to adequately footnote and refer to scientists and studies that she references. For example, on page 166 of the paperback version, Ms. Kolbert refers to a 2004 study on a "species-area" experiment. Both extreme scenarios, the `best case' and `worst case', predict catastrophic extinctions by 2050. Not only is this study not end-noted, the author only refers to the year of the experiments; failing to report the authors' names, the articles they published, and where these articles were published [2]. Inadequately providing citations is always a loss of one star with me. I learned a lot reading this book. I enjoyed Ms. Kolbert's writing. I wouldn't remove any material from the book. But ultimately, the mostly anecdotal reports of current extinctions are insufficient for a book that promises to report on the current mass extinction event. 1] For example, mountain pine beetles in the Rocky Mountains are killing off millions of acres of lodgepole and ponderosa pines. This is the result of a "minor change" of a 2.7º F warmer region over the past couple of decades. A change that has resulted in an enormous increase in pine beetle procreation rates due to much higher winter survival rates and two reproductive cycles per Spring/Summer/Fall rather than the historical one cycle per year given the shorter winters. The net effect is pine trees dying from up to 60 times higher beetle infestation rates. Mitton and Ferrenberg, "Mountain Pine Beetle Develops an Unprecedented Summer Generation in Response to Climate Warming", The American Naturalist Vol. 179, No. 5, May 2012. doi: 10.1086/665007. 2] I think Elizabeth Kolbert was referencing Thomas, Chris D. & et al., "Extinction risk from climate change", Nature 427, 145-148 (8 January 2004) doi:10.1038/nature02121.

A lire absolument

Un libro fascinante y fácil de leer

Human impact on the natural world explained brilliantly

This book suggests that we are in the middle of the sixth mass extinction event, and that it is human caused. There are really two threads interleaved through this book. The first is a discussion of the past five mass extinction events: how we learned about them, what we know (or guess) about their cause, and what the results were. The second is a discussion of (mostly) human caused extinctions in the recent past, and current threats. How we have subverted the "natural order" to stay alive and to spread round the world, and some of the consequences (mostly unintended) of our resource hunger and need to control and shape the world. It comments on the curious fact (probably not coincidental) that we only started to learn the full magnitude of past extinction events as we set up a present one. Without global travel we might never have known the full diversity of life and how much geographical isolation was responsible for it. But that same global travel completely undermines that geographical isolation and changes the balance of species. We are picking the winners and losers: sometimes deliberately, but often accidentally. One of the most important things I took from the book was the reminder that the traits that make an animal successful don't guarantee that that animal will stay successful. There are times when the rules change. Faced with the unexpected, those successful characteristics could even become fatal. This has been shown in past mass extinction events (most famously the dinosaurs), and more recently when humanity came to the party and drove mammoths, mastodons, and our own Australian mega-fauna to extinction. It is shown in the present as more species slide to endangered and then "presumed extinct". And it is true for humanity, as well. We have been spectacularly successful, and now cover the globe and dominate it. But that is no guarantee that we will continue to be successful. Finally, an interesting reminder: mammals were around when the dinosaurs ruled, but really only got their chance when the dinosaurs were wiped out in the last mass extinction. That has resulted in much of the biodiversity we see around us, including us. If we fall, in a mass extinction event of our own making, what new species will emerge? How will the world look? Among other things, this book suggests that the adaptability and global spread of rats could put them in a good position to diversify, grow in size, and ultimately perhaps develop intelligence and take over. It is not a history that any of us will see (none of us can really expect to see the extinction of humanity), but it is interesting to think about. What would highly intelligent giant rats look like?

Über diesen Stoff sollte jeder Erdenbürger Bescheid wissen. Die Autorin schildert fesselnd, dass gerade die sechste Massenauslöschung stattfindet. Im Unterschied zu den vorangegangenen Massenauslöschungen ist diese anthropogen - das erste durch irdische Lebewesen verursachte Massenaussterben. Die Kernfakten kann man sogar besser zusammengefasst in der Wikipedia nachlesen - aber dieses Buch nimmt Leser mit, die mehr brauchen als dürre Fakten, und das dürfte die Mehrheit sein.