Saturday, October 7, 2017

"The Sixth Extinction"

(AN UNNATURAL HISTORY)
-by elizabeth kolbert
2014
Science has identified five mass extinctions in the history of life, when conditions on Earth shifted suddenly and drastically, the most famous being the cretaceous asteroid impact which killed the dinosaurs. And it's only now, thousands of years after starting the process, that humanity has realized we are the authors of an unfolding extinction event which should dwarf every previous one. Perhaps rats will survive. Perhaps only microbes. Or not even that. It started when we began hunting the megafauna (mastodons, cave bears, giant turtles...), animals so large they had no natural predators, so their slow birth rates couldn't replace even minor losses. As time passed, our cleverness allowed us to travel everywhere, bringing predation and invasive species to indigenous populations which had no defense. We've clear cut as much as half the world's trees, savaging millions of ecological systems. Overgrazing and improper farming (which kolbert doesn't even get into) have made deserts the world's fastest-growing ecosystem. We pollute the atmosphere, which calcifies the oceans. We breed at constantly doubling rates which dwarf that of any creature ever...and the grand irony is, we understand these things only when we're past the point where our impact is already far greater than an asteroid strike equal to six million nuclear bombs. Amphibians are the most imperiled; it's hard to imagine they'll survive. Ditto for coral, the rain forests of the sea. A third of all sharks, a quarter of all mammals, a fifth of all reptiles, and a sixth of all birds are also past the point of no return.
Each of kolbert's chapters focuses on one emblematic species, and she also dives into our understanding of life's history, with fascinating looks at the scientists (cuvier, lyell, darwin) who paved the way. She shines a light on the oft-astonishing efforts humans are making to counter the unfolding apocalypse...but at this point, those are candles in a typhoon. To do justice to this book's subject would take an encyclopedia set...yet strangely, kolbert's 269 pages almost feel TOO long...too well-researched and written, with prose so enchanting that one nearly loses sight of the hair-on-fire urgency which the subject demands.
That's a critique most writers could live with, of course. At least for another century or so. Beyond that, no one may have to worry about "living with" anything.

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